We had a dive on Wednesday to the Bass Rock. It was pure white with Sea Birds (Gannets) nesting on it, millions of them. The wall was magnificent with anemones of various kinds, lobsters, crabs, fish. Thanks to Steve for taking care of me on this dive. We had a birthday cake to celebrate Anna’s birthday on the way back. It was a pleasure to make it for you. I hope you had a good time. the stumpy tailed Moducks were happy to serve. The sunset on the way back was spectacular. Next week weather permitting, Kingsbarns BBQ. Thanks to Steve for organising The Mako and to Skipper Steve for his skill in maneuvering the boat to pick us up.
Dive site has current so must be dived on slack. Ideally High Water for best Visibility.
Blue Pin Marks the Wall, Look for the Triangle Slab on the North Wall.
Some photos from Paul
Looking Down from 8 metres to the Wall on the North Face of Bass Rock
Habour Crabs Bass Rock
Spider Crab Scaveing on the Deadmans Fingers
Anna on the Bass Rock Wall
Ballan Wrasse & Goldsinny Wrasse Hiding under the rocks
Lots and Lots of Deadmans Fingers on the Bass Rock
First thanks to Steve for organising the Easter Trip our traditional event to kick of the summer dive season. On the Friday Chris and I did a couple of productive dives with a first dive collecting a few Scallops for Tea and then a wall dive off Bach Island just to the South Of Kerrera, this wall tends to be hit by strong tides on the Ebb, but is protected during a Flood tide. The wall was dark with lots of sediment / plankton in the water but worth it as it is covered in Elegant anemones, Dead Mans fingers, Colonial Sea Squirts, and we saw a few Flabellina pedata and other species of Colourful Nudibranch, nice and worth braving the 7 degrees Celsius water.
Bach Island Wall
Colonial Sea Squirt
Bach Island Wall
Bach Island Wall
Flabellina pedata
Bach Island Wall
King Scallop
Bach Island Wall
Sunday Diving – John and Eddie two of our Ocean Diver Trainees enjoying lunch & the View of Mull on the Island of Kerrera.
With Blue Skies and Calm weather forecast Chris and I had an last minute opportunity for a midweek dive with David Ainsley on his boat the Porpoise II based on the Island of Esdale. David has been involved the campaign to keep the Firth of Lorn free of Scallop Dredgers and has been recording the recovery of the reefs and Sea bed over the last 7 years since the ban was enforced.
So we were treated to diving on a high energy dive site in the Sound of Luing and a group of three Bottle nosed dolphins who came to greet us as we jumped into the water – Amazing! The Slack window on this site was very brief and we descended quickly to 28 metres to find a Reef Covered in Elephants Ear Sponges, Oatan Pipes, Branched Hydroids, Jewel anemones and Pink variations of the Elegant anemones not seen closer to shore.
After spending a 7 minutes a depth we worked our way back up to the top of the Reef, keeping close to reduce the effect of the 2-3 knot currents and doing a horizontal rock technique not a dive for the inexperienced or faint hearted! Ducking Behind a large bolder we took a few moments to get some photos before deploying our shot and starting a drift dive, just a pity that the Visibility was only 4-5 metres otherwise this would be an excellent drift dive.
Thansk again to David and Jean for inviting us on this dive trip.
Sagartia elegans elegant anemone – Pink
Oaten pipes hydroid Tubularia indivisa
Jewel anemones – Corynactis viridis – Sound of Luing
Well with the good weather beckoning, we packed the car and headed across the Irish Sea to visit family in Northern Ireland. I hadn’t dived the back wall of Rathlin Island (200 Metre Drop off in places) for several years the Water rushes round from the Atlantic into the Irish Sea bringing lots of nutrients round coupled with excellent visibility. I had missed the arches on the wall before and was keen to find them this time. Diving with Richard from Aquaholics he had East Cheshire BSAC over for a weeks diving on his boats and I buddied up with another Paul for my dives.
Sheep Island, Rathlin Island and Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge
The Weather was perfect with a stable high across the UK, blue skies and almost millpond conditions, we headed off at 9:30am from Ballycastle Marina towards the back wall of Rathlin, and as we headed round the Island you could see multitudes of Sea Birds – Puffins, Gannets nesting on the towering cliffs (Up to 132 metres high) and Pinnacles. After Richard had worked out what the currents were doing and providing a safety briefing on the use of SMBs as the currents just a few metres off the wall can be very strong. We kitted off and jumped into the water the visibility was 12 metres plus, we dropped onto a Large slab covered in Dead mans fingers and headed West along the wall, at 28 metres depth looking down to the bottom of the wall some 15- 20 metres below. The Wall was covered in a dense lawn of different species of animals (surveys have counted over 100 species per square metre) these included Elephants ears, Cup Corals, Dead mans Fingers, Anemones and Hydroids.
We were in luck looking up I spotted the Arch and we headed up to explore it covered inside with Deadmans fingers, before moving onto the overhang, I have to say this is one dive I wish I had brought my twin set with me, we started to ascend up the wall and at about 22 metres depth came across the Red Seaweeds with the Kelp Forest just above, typically on most sites in the UK Kelp stops at about 10-12 metres due to lack of light, but this dense kelp forest rising to heights of approximately 1.5 metres something you would expect to find on the West Coast of Canada.
After moving through the kelp forest disturbing large Edible Crabs scavenging on the rocks I decided to deploy my Delayed SMB, something interesting happened to my SMB is seemed to be stuck in one place on the surface like a vice had got hold of it, reminded me of the eddies that swept around the artificial reefs on the East side of Lismore Island.
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We headed back round to the Harbour at Rathlin Island noting the interesting geological features of the cliffs, there were several enthusiasts had built old style coracle sailing boats and were planning to sail to Islay (Better them than me!). After a packed lunch and an hours rest we headed off to dive the broken up wreck of HMS Drake an old Battlecruiser and the Salvage Barge which sunk on top of her, this is a 18 – 14 metre dive lots of plates and which attracts shoals of Pollock and has become a huge artificial reef in the middle of the sandy Bay. Interesting enough the water temperature between this wreck and the back wall of Rathlin was 3 degrees cooler at 9 Celcius not helped by a leaky drysuit which is now being repaired as I type this up.
