Gord
20-08-06, 12:11
Thanks again to everyone who came on my trip last weekend. It was great apart from the car crash: http://www.congeralley.com/photopost/showphoto.php/photo/88/cat/501
Luckily no-one was hurt, and it's only a car ...
And more to the point, we didn't lose a dive! Although we did miss out on the Hispania because it took me an extra hour to disentangle my motor from the other guys rib and trailer and haul my sorry ass up the road from Inverary to Oban.
But no real loss as we had a couple of excellent dives: the Breda and Calf Island. The Breda never lets me down. I've waxed lyrical about it before, so I won't go on about it. Suffice to say that the swim-throughs were still there and still excellent. There was loads of stuff to rumage. And the bows were still standing proud. Titanic style!
I love Calf Island too. Paul (skipper of the Silver Swift, very highly recommended, see directory for details) dropped us in just off the cliff face. We dropped down over the kelp to hit the drop-off at around 6m, and then did the mission-impossible-pull-the-rip-cord-and-drop thing down to around the 35m mark. There was a bit of a current running so we had the added thrill of being carried along the face quite swiftly. But it's so big that it took a good 20mins to be carried right round into the wee bay were the cliff becomes more of a boulder slope. Even there, we saw hundred of fish. Brilliant dive.
After a night out in Tobe (great seafood restaurant: I had the mussels starter and the seabass main, then the mishnish, I had the beer and the tobbermory whisky, starter and main), we stayed in an excellent b&b set up for us by Paul.
The next day, we dived the Rondo and the Thesis. There are a couple of photos in my conger alley album (taken by helen, i should say). The viz on teh Rondo was ok, but hte highlight for me was the free swimming congers we saw. Two of them, right out of their holes.
Thanks also to Annabel at the Lochaline dive centre for doing our airfills! (the compressor in Tobe is broken).
Who says volvo drivers don't have any fun!;)
Luckily no-one was hurt, and it's only a car ...
And more to the point, we didn't lose a dive! Although we did miss out on the Hispania because it took me an extra hour to disentangle my motor from the other guys rib and trailer and haul my sorry ass up the road from Inverary to Oban.
But no real loss as we had a couple of excellent dives: the Breda and Calf Island. The Breda never lets me down. I've waxed lyrical about it before, so I won't go on about it. Suffice to say that the swim-throughs were still there and still excellent. There was loads of stuff to rumage. And the bows were still standing proud. Titanic style!
I love Calf Island too. Paul (skipper of the Silver Swift, very highly recommended, see directory for details) dropped us in just off the cliff face. We dropped down over the kelp to hit the drop-off at around 6m, and then did the mission-impossible-pull-the-rip-cord-and-drop thing down to around the 35m mark. There was a bit of a current running so we had the added thrill of being carried along the face quite swiftly. But it's so big that it took a good 20mins to be carried right round into the wee bay were the cliff becomes more of a boulder slope. Even there, we saw hundred of fish. Brilliant dive.
After a night out in Tobe (great seafood restaurant: I had the mussels starter and the seabass main, then the mishnish, I had the beer and the tobbermory whisky, starter and main), we stayed in an excellent b&b set up for us by Paul.
The next day, we dived the Rondo and the Thesis. There are a couple of photos in my conger alley album (taken by helen, i should say). The viz on teh Rondo was ok, but hte highlight for me was the free swimming congers we saw. Two of them, right out of their holes.
Thanks also to Annabel at the Lochaline dive centre for doing our airfills! (the compressor in Tobe is broken).
Who says volvo drivers don't have any fun!;)