Somewhat predictably the only responses were from those who are off to Loch Fyne next weekend, with Andrew, Brett, Nia and Adrian turning out at Gimblet rock for an early evening dive. This was the first time I can recall us ever getting out before the hour moves forward so it was likely to also be a partial night dive. It had been flat calm for several days and the viz. had been checked out at 4 to 5 metres a few days earlier, but true to form the wind got up during the afternoon so it was just a bit choppy and a wee bit chilly. There were several offers to do shore cover before Nia won out, citing a sore throat. The objective was to find the sewerage outfall so the idea was that the 2 buddy pairs form a single line, giving us the best chance of hitting it. Andrew and I spent what seemed like an eternity waiting on the shore for Brett to sort out his various suit and kit issues, so the sun had long gone by the time the line formed up. Not long into the dive, shortly after I’d stopped to point out a pogge to Andrew, discipline broke down with Adrian shooting ahead and Brett ignoring efforts to get him back in line to chase after him. (At the debrief, Adrian explained that he got tired of following an old fart at a snail’s pace, which I thought was a bit harsh on Andrew.) The consequence for us was that our viz. deteriorated from about 4 metres to nothing as we had no choice but to continue following the same compass heading. We did eventually catch up with them but by then we were deeper than the known depth of the outfall, so I went up to check and found us surprisingly about 20 metres short of the buoy which was still on the same southerly bearing. After doing my best Great White attack from behind on Andrew we set off and soon came across a huge chain, a tractor tyre full of prawns, and at the end of the chain a huge block of concrete. So it seems that the buoy is located beyond the outfall. By now it was dark, and just a bit chilly (it was 8 degrees) so we set off for home, leaving Brett and Adrian to sort themselves out, which they had to surface to do. There was plenty of life, mostly juvenile, but a dearth of scallops, although Brett and Adrian saw more than we did. Our navigation was spot on, for once, but Brett and Adrian managed to find the fishermen who had kindly moved down the beach in order to avoid us!! However, I think we all managed to sort out a few niggles with our gear and arranged to move on to a deeper dive at the quarry on Sunday morning.
David
Well there was only three of us willing and able to make the NWIDC pre Scotland dive so the three Amigos consisted of David Adrian and me, it was a fairly early start meeting at 9:30 and getting wet for 10:00. On the far side of the 24 metres tunnel we found a large constructed scaffolding scary when you think divers could have been diving at the time it hit the water. The temperature was 8c which probably explains David bringing a 10 Ltr so not to get too cold me thinks, with surprisingly poor visibility no more than 4 to 5 metres we had a 31 minute dive and got to a depth of 32 meters .
Andrew.
