At the time of year the UK is festooned with images of wintry snowscapes and robin red breasts bobbing about looking for berries. However, for those of us who live here life is actually quite different. Snow, except on higher ground, is rare. It rains a lot. It's cold just above 0c, but the dampness and the wind make it feel a lot colder.
Sunday's weather lured Jester and I into a false sense of security. We decided at the last minute to make a dash for the lochs. By the time we got there it was dark and, intermittently, a little drizzly.
We had chosen to dive Conger Alley knowing that the visibility would be hit or miss and more likely miss after three weeks of almost continuous rain. Undeterred, we kitted up and headed in.
The water was cold and murky at the surface but we thought it would improve with depth. To some extent we were right. The visibility opened up to around 3-4m. However, the temperature, even at 30m, never rose above 7c. By the end of our 66 minutes I was really feeling it.
The obvious highlight was a sighting of the Smurfs.
Despite being the author of a relatively dull diving blog, I challenged Grant to summarise his Go Pro footage into 60 seconds of footage. This is his attempt.
So the weather has conspired to keep me from the water in the last few weeks. I'm not bitter, I'm just not wet. A look at the detailed weather forecast on Tuesday saw me catch sight of a rare 4 hour window of opportunity. Jester decided it was worth the gamble too. We met at Costa Coffee where, as chance would have it, some members of Eastwood SAC were also meeting. We decided to join them, although Grant and I dived separately.
As we got close to Seal Reef the rain stopped. We made it, the weather window!
We kitted up and plopped in heading down enjoying the usual nightlife. As we passed back and forward we caught glimpse of the other divers and their silt clouds, but it didn't affect us.
It was a great 63 minutes, but the action didn't start until we got out the water and discovered that Pat G had fallen foul of the famous St Catherine's stairway to heaven to the detriment of his knee - we later found out that he's broken his shin. So Campbell, took him to hospital while I took his kit home in my car.
Jester was so taken with our dive last night thay was wanting to return to St Catherine's to visit my other known firework anemone in the vicinity at 30m. However, while I guided us to it. It wasn't the star of the show. There were other lights.
In particular, the waves produced by the westerly wind meant that the shoreline sparkled with bioluminescence while the milk way glistened above. Quite a spectacular start to any dive.
Once we went down we found an assortment of nightlife including our friends the cuttlefish, pipefish and stickleback. Oh, and my firework anemone for a belated Guy Fawkes Night.
I'm more interested in firework anemones than actual fireworks. With that in mind the plan was for Jester, the Zookeeper and myself to go hunting for the former type of fireworks. However, a three hour commute meant that the Zookeeper was exhausted and didn't fancy the dive. As such Jester and I headed to Seal Reef intent on re finding a firework anemone we found once before.
Sadly, we failed. Instead, we found a proliferation of colour changing cuttlefish, a stunning nudibranch and Jester's first ever red gurnard.
We had heard that visibility in the area was good (8-10m) and it didn't disappoint. Visibility was easily 8m even in the dark.
I was test driving a fully functioning Mares Eos 12rz and hoping to use the wide beam (with no hotspot) for some decent pictures.
We headed down to the small boat and off the bow looking for a firework anemone we found quite some time ago. We struck out, but we did find a langoustine, pipefish, cuttlefish and two red gurnards.
Moving onto the reef, and with deco fast approaching we headed back up gradually. As deco approached his minutes to deco hand signals looked an awful lot like flipping me the bird. Vulgar gestures aside, Jesters aging eyes were on fire, spotting a variety of worms before his spot of the night. Blind luck I say, but it was a nice Eubranchus Farrani or, as I've heard the Mermaid describe them, "the wee fried egg ones".
It was a great 57 minutes as we emerged to booming of Inveraray fireworks.
"Who dares wins" is the motto of the SAS, perhaps the most famous British Special Forces unit. However, there is a another less well known unit called the Special Boat Services. I say all this because myself and Canada Dry, my guest buddy for the evening, watched as what I assume was the SBS performed some landing manoeuvres on the shore. Realising there were divers they beat a hasty retreat. The A-Frames is, after all, sovereign SCUBA territory.
Canada Dry, visiting from Canada, had bravely hired a drysuit and an unfamiliar weight system to join me for the evening, while Jester was coming later for a second dive. Before we went in I mentioned to Canada Dry that I was impressed by his bravery taking on so many awkward factors for a first dive in Scotland.
We headed down to the Frames enjoying the display of peacock worms, scorpionfish and scallops. However, as we returned to the surface it became clear that Canada Dry was having buoyancy issues caused the unfamiliar drysuit. I held him down long enough to complete most of a safety stop before he let go (his fancy mask having given the signal it was safe to do so).
We got back safely but the experience was enough to convince Canada Dry not to go back in. After that I was equally impressed by his lack of machismo, a factor that when left unchecked puts divers in situations that they really don't want to be in.
Jester had joined us for the second dive. So we buddied up and went back in. The second dive proved even more fruitful with a beautiful little nudibranch and some nice anemones. His ability to spot nudis is actually quite impressive.
The drive back saw us chat about diving misadventures and experiences - one of the cool things about meeting new diving chums.
With my ear still ringing from Thursday night's dive, Jester and I decided on a wee dip in Loch Fyne. We opted for the over dived St Catherines 2 due to the shelter the trees would provide from the rain (this was ultimately moot as the rain eased up).
It was to be a challenging dive as I was without any dive lights which really limited depth and photographic opportunities. However, our bimble was to ultimately last 71 minutes - my longest dive of the year.
Our pre dive chat had been about the absence of nudibranchs in the water of late. A trend which seemed like it was continuing until the eagle-eyed Jester caught sight of one just a few millimetres in length. It's pictured below. Photographed using super macro and even then it's still to small to focus on.
Also making a rare appearance of late were a cushion star and the delicate macropodia rostrata.
The water was definitely starting to chill for the winter. 9c, brr.
Having ordered a new O'Three drysuit Saturday it had arrived by Thursday enabling a trip with the Zookeeper out to Loch Long and the A-Frames. The Aquatron school was out teaching the PADI Night Speciality (probably the most fun PADI Speciality if you are choosing to go down the PADI route).
The nature of the night speciality training meant that with the minimum of alteration to our dive plan we could entirely avoid the training area. We did, admirably. Circling round the far side of the big frame we encountered some nice feather stars and a couple of what I think are horseman anemones, I'm not really an expert.
From there it was down deeper and round for some feeding of Colin The-Conger. I'm not saying disaster struck, but from this point the dive was a bit downhill. Having forgotten to fully charge my Mares Eos10r I had a bit of a blackout. Switching torches meant that I spent the rest of the dive using an old torch with the same number of lumens as a roasted parsnip. I wasn't concerned.
As I was leading us back, the Zookeeper offered me her primary, but it really wasn't worth it. I reckon I could get back to safety with no light at that sight. A challenge which I might attempt at some point.
During the safety stop I showed the Zookeeper some of my photos. They were pretty poor. In fact, some might say rotten. Anyway, that was enough to have us chuckling as we surfaced. Much to the bemusement of the Aquatron crew who wondered if we'd be eating the magic anenomes around the site. Good times. Oh, and the drysuit? Very nice, very nice.
