IanStevenson
28-01-07, 16:21
Just had my first dive of 2007 yesterday [:D]
I was hoping to get in the water this weekend so my first dive of the year wasn't my pool session next weekend (doing BSAC IFC). I was therefore glad to get a call on Friday saying that someone else in the club was short a buddy...
Everything seemed to be working in my favour. After a cold, miserable, week yesterday was only dry, mild (8degreesC) and only slightly overcast - in fact as I left the house I was treated to a beautiful early morning sky!
The destination was Finnart at Loch Long, which I have dived many times before, and vis can be "variable" at this time of year. In the end, we got 3-4m which you can't complain about.
My nav was better than usual - I found the "platform" with the conger on the way out on both dives, and the way back on the second one (i.e. as planned!). I also did 1hr 11 minutes total on a single 15litre cylinder, surfacing with 50 bar. OK max depth was only 15m but that is still quite good for me, especially after a couple of months off. Most important, my new drysuit seals did their job and kept me completely dry, and the hose I replaced worked, so mission accomplished on testing that lot.
But the best bit was the life, which is really quite different at this time of year...
There were prawns everywhere (first time I've seen them), loads of big whelks with the snail out and feeding (not seen them moving around before), leopard spotted gobies, a couple of big edible crabs, loads of shore and velvet swimming crabs (some of the latter positively weighted down with eggs). I even found a long-clawed squat lobster! We managed to get the conger on the platform to poke his head out and say hello a couple of times - he's about the same diameter as my calf! We also saw tiny goldsinny wrasse, various small gobies/blennies, hermit crabs from the size of a fingernail to the size of a fist.
Finally, there were a few hydroid/jelly type things that I have not identified yet, and if you shone your torch on them from underneath, you could see rainbows of colour pulsing up the ridges as they propelled themselves.
So having set out hoping it wouldn't be too freezing, vis would be more then 20cm and my suit wouldn't leak too badly, I ended up having a fantastic couple of dives!
Ian
I was hoping to get in the water this weekend so my first dive of the year wasn't my pool session next weekend (doing BSAC IFC). I was therefore glad to get a call on Friday saying that someone else in the club was short a buddy...
Everything seemed to be working in my favour. After a cold, miserable, week yesterday was only dry, mild (8degreesC) and only slightly overcast - in fact as I left the house I was treated to a beautiful early morning sky!
The destination was Finnart at Loch Long, which I have dived many times before, and vis can be "variable" at this time of year. In the end, we got 3-4m which you can't complain about.
My nav was better than usual - I found the "platform" with the conger on the way out on both dives, and the way back on the second one (i.e. as planned!). I also did 1hr 11 minutes total on a single 15litre cylinder, surfacing with 50 bar. OK max depth was only 15m but that is still quite good for me, especially after a couple of months off. Most important, my new drysuit seals did their job and kept me completely dry, and the hose I replaced worked, so mission accomplished on testing that lot.
But the best bit was the life, which is really quite different at this time of year...
There were prawns everywhere (first time I've seen them), loads of big whelks with the snail out and feeding (not seen them moving around before), leopard spotted gobies, a couple of big edible crabs, loads of shore and velvet swimming crabs (some of the latter positively weighted down with eggs). I even found a long-clawed squat lobster! We managed to get the conger on the platform to poke his head out and say hello a couple of times - he's about the same diameter as my calf! We also saw tiny goldsinny wrasse, various small gobies/blennies, hermit crabs from the size of a fingernail to the size of a fist.
Finally, there were a few hydroid/jelly type things that I have not identified yet, and if you shone your torch on them from underneath, you could see rainbows of colour pulsing up the ridges as they propelled themselves.
So having set out hoping it wouldn't be too freezing, vis would be more then 20cm and my suit wouldn't leak too badly, I ended up having a fantastic couple of dives!
Ian