Oban, Scotland. July 2000

Where does one start? There were eight of us. From the Lleyn club: Malcolm Wreely, Wreely Roberts, Paul “Grab a rock” Williams, Ruth Cloudy Creek Williams (honorary Lleyn member) and myself Hugh “This looks like my drink” Evans. From the Gwynedd Club: Mags “Pass the bucket” and Simon “just get him in the water” Morley , Ann “Show me your mussels” Wood and Martin “A” flag. We were to spend seven days diving the waters around Oban in Sea Wasp (Lleyn RIB) and Nikita (Gwynedd RIB).

Barbeque
L to R: Paul, Ruth, Malcolm, Ann, Martin
Missing: Simon, Mags, Hugh

Simon Morley was expedition leader and gave us the best 6 days diving one could ask for, despite many problems. We got four wrecks: Thesis, Rondo, Shuna and Breda along with “drop offs” to die for.

A few highlights for publishing.

• Malcolm put up his DSMP (Delayed Surface Marker P***s) with Ruth’s help on the first dive of the holiday. Mutters of “He had to have help to get it up” were to be heard.
• Paul Williams found himself getting an early dip when some nifty helming by the DO caught him off balance and he joined the divers he was meant to be recovering.
  To be certain of having the A flag displayed, you had to do it yourself.
• Large fast ships have large wakes which hit ones RIB about two minutes after the ships have past. Cox’ns please note.
• Tesco car barriers only allow one vehicle at a time into the car park. Unemployment suddenly struck an Oban Tesco car park attendant when one amongst us took out the man’s car park barrier with our RIB.
• Some unplanned training in closing one’s sphincter muscle took place when almost too late when Ruth & Mags discovered that the ladies’ toilet sign was placed on the door to the public bar.
• Scottish midges lived up to their reputation of eating people alive. While we were getting the very dry weather they were not a problem but the moment that the weather turned damp they pounced.
• One toilet and bathroom is not enough for eight adult divers. Malcolm cleans out the bathroom for the next occupant. (See photograph on the right).

I thought I had seen a master in action when I saw Alan Harper Smith in Grand Canaria buy his digital camera. But Alan’s technique was nothing compared with Malcolm buying a shiny new umbilical cord diving torch. For six evenings, after diving, while we were getting the bottles refilled, he was bargaining with the dive shop owner. The owner finally so confused by the whole episode, allowed Malcolm to take the torch home with the promise of a cheque in the post.

Driving down the M6 at the end of the holiday we realised the value of doing Club expeditions and also mixing with other clubs. We couldn’t have had a better time.