A  dive weekend held in conjunction with Preston SAC  to the sea lochs north of Oban was held over the third weekend in May. Diving in the Kerrera Sound and Loch Creran was quite interesting with the usual tremendous diversity of marine life although it was quite gloomy with underwater visibility down to only a couple of metres at best. A dive on the underwater cliff about 200 metres  to the west of the old railway pier at Kentallon inLoch Linnhe was the highlight of the trip. Underwater visibility was at least five metres at the top of the the wall which plunges down in a series of steps to approx. 35 metres deep. The wall is covered in a profusion of life, with vast numbers of peacock  worms Sabella pavonina & sea squirts,  Ciona intestinalis. This was an excellent dive to conclude the weekend. Many thanks to Gordon Fletcher for organising the trip to co-incide brilliant sunny weather.

Prior to this trip I had thought that diving the Scapa Flow wrecks would be a bit dull – large piles of scrap iron in the deep dark cold of Scapa Flow. I was wrong. The wrecks are covered in life – thick fields of plumose anemones, sea-firs, colourful feather stars and fish adorn the hulls, which are coloured with orange rust and pink encrusting algae. And in amidst it all, you catch the occasional glimpse of ordnance, or the the viewing slot of the armoured bridge, just to remind you that you are, after all, diving a state of the art killing machine from the early years of the last century…

Thanks to Lewis Bambury for organising and inviting us along on this trip, and to all the members of Lunesdale Sub-Aqua Club who made us feel so welcome!

More information on the wrecks in Scapa Flow from Scapa Map

We arrived at Glen Luce through torrential rain on the Friday night, at start of the August Bank Holiday. Saturday, thankfully, was a stark contrast, with just a couple of showers, otherwise warm and sunny. The strong winds and heavy rain of the previous day had, however, done its damage to underwater conditions around the coast. The most sheltered spot, at Lady Bay, looked promising, with no swell, blue skies and water – but rubbish underwater visibility. At least we could eat our sandwiches and dry off our kit in the sun afterwards! The morning was followed with excursions to Stranraer and Port Logan, there being little prospect of any diving that day…

The weather got wetter overnight, and Sunday was quite grey, with light drizzle in the morning. We first tried to get access to Drumbreddan Bay, but the track (and public footpath) were submerged under a deep spill of slurry, which looked to have been festering for some time. Consequently we made our way down to Ardwell Bay. Here there was a deep swell, which would have made diving quite difficult in shallow water close to the rocks. We decided to chance snorkelling, which was a very enjoyable experience, the movement of the weed in the swell makes you appreciate some of the mechanical stresses seaweed (and shore organisms in general) have to survive. While we were in very shallow water, we did spot some mearl (unexpected in less than 2m depth), wrasse, and plenty of weed!

After the snorkel the weather closed in, stopping any further hopes of diving that day, so we made our way down to the tea house on the Mull of Galloway. Here the weather was quite atmospheric, with, for once, visibility above the water challenging what we had experienced below it!

Still, despite the weather (which again was very soggy for our drive home on Monday), we all enjoyed the weekend – good company, good food, and good accommodation (thanks to White Cairn Caravan Site at Glen Luce). Thanks to Jo for organising the trip!

Above right: Photo montage from top to bottom: Lady Bay on Saturday – sheltered but poor (underwater) visibility. Corsewall Point was too exposed to dive, with large waves and a deep swell. On Sunday the vis had cleared to >1m, so we were able to snorkel at Ardwell Bay (photo of Fucus sp.), though the swell was still strong. By early afternoon the cloud had closed in, and visibility (above water) was pretty poor (photo of the Mull of Galloway lighthouse)…

Barry

We were enticed into the calm, sheltered blue waters of Lady Bay (Mull of Galloway) on Saturday (29th September 2009), only to find that conditions were pretty much un-diveable, with lots of suspended silt giving a visibility of about 10cm! You could see which way was up, and that was about it…

Having got wet, however, I decided to try and get some samples for microscopy, and got a rather nice sample of sea mat on a laminarian. Sea mat is an ectoproct, a colonial animal that is commonly found forming white reflective sheets on kelp fronds, look closer and you’ll see that the sheet is formed of lots of tiny cell-like structures, but that is about as much information as you’ll get with the naked eye.

Under the microscope, however, we can see that each cell is an individual animal – the colony being formed by numerous clones living tightly packed together. When feeding, each animal extends a cone of tentacles, which are quickly retracted if it is disturbed.

Above right: Two micrographs of Mambranipora membranacea (L): Top showing extended feeding arms of the lophophore. Bottom, showing the growing edge of the animal, on Laminaria sp.

Barry

I too have to thank Gordon for doing most of the real work in organising the weekend.  The drift through the narrows was one of those dives that gets imprinted in your memory, and I couldn’t believe the numbers of sea lemons on the stanchion when we dived on slack.  The life and colours were brilliant.  I hope those doing the photography ‘course’ found it useful and enjoyable, and that you’ve looked at your pictures and filled in that matrix 🙂

If anyone’s interested I’ve put some of my pictures from the weekend on the web at

http://www.zen102367.zen.co.uk/diving/lochcrerran09/crerran09.html

Lewis Bambury

After a weekend of heavy swell pounding into the rocky gullies on the east coast which prevented any thoughts of diving, and this was July, Monday dawned bright and sunny , the swell was replaced by an almost smooth sea with in excess of 10 metres underwater visibility.
Nestends gully at Eyemouth must have the easiest access to the water of any dive from the shore anywhere in the UK. From the point of entry you immediately drop into a few metres of water amonst quite a dense healthy kelp forest with all the usual kelp forest inhabitants.
As the gully continues downward and the forest is left behind the floor is made up of large boulders, stones and sandy patches, again all supporting an abundance of marine life. The walls of the gully rising almost vertically towards the surface are covered with anemones and soft corals. Sea slugs, squat lobsters and crabs lurk in the many cracks and crevices and snake pipe fish and scorpion fish are usually quite common sights towards the mouth of the gully.
Across to west coast to Lochaline on the Sound of Mull. Another easy access walk in dive from the shore. A short swim down over the white sand with its numerous tube anemones and the occassional kelp covered rocky outcrops brings you to the top of the Lochaline wall. This is an almost vertical rock face with cracks, crevices and ledges, which plummets down to more than 100 metres deep.
There is a great diversity of marine life living on the wall, seaweeds, sponges, anemones and worms etc. Over the past three years members of the Group have recorded more than 100 different species of plants and animals. On this dive to a depth of 30 metres there seemed to be an abundance of fish including, leopard spotted gobies, corkwing wrasse, scorpion fish and dozens of juvenille cockoo wrasse.
Our list of recordings consists of the common and the more obvious plants and animals, a concentrated effort looking at sponges, hydroids and sea weeds etc. would at least double the numbers on our present list, and what about the life at the bottom of the wall?, that could be very interesting!
About 20 miles east brings us to Loch Creran, a favourite dive location with our Group for many years. There are a number of very good varied dive sites with easy access from the shore around the loch, but when the tides times are right Creagan Bridge Narrows is, I think, the outright favourite. Vey different to the dive at Lochaline wall, the narrows is only about 6 metres deep at low water, start the dive just before the end of the ebb, drift through the channel, as the tide turns at the end of the period of slack water you then drift slowly back to the point of entry. This is a very crisp and vibrant site where you can find many plants and animals that are associated with high energy locations.
These are three very easy access sites, suitable for novice diver and upwards, each with their own very special characteristics, there is always lots to see, in fact you often see something new every visit, so its always nice to return.

One of the other dives over the weekend was a drift through the Creran narrows – there are some super photos taken by Lewis available on his website at:  Loch Creran photos June 2008 (Lewis will be giving us a talk on underwater digital photography later in the year – keep an eye on the diary for more information!)

More information about Loch Creran is available in a new guide published by the Argyll and Bute Council. To quote from their website “(the guide) describes and illustrates the amazing wildlife and natural habitats found in and around Loch Creran, its geological and historical background as well as a description of current commercial and leisure activities.” To find out more and download a copy of the guide: Loch Creran Guide (Thanks to Louise for this info).

Barry

Our last dive weekend to Oban was a combination of good visibility and super dive sites, so thanks again to Gordon for organising this. I think the prize for most abundant squidgies over the weekend has to go to the cnidaria (jellyfish and related), and our encounters with them started on Friday evening, with a night dive on the sea pen bed at Galanach.

On entering the water we were surrounded by a drift of sea goosberies, the bands of cilia along their sides rainbowing in our torch beams. The sea pen bed starts quite sharply at about 20m depth, appearing out of the dark. We have to report that, rather disappointingly, we didn’t see any phosphorescence from the Pennatula phosphorea, but did see a large number of individuals of both this species and Virgularia mirabilis, including small (juvenile?) indiviuduals.

Jo spotted a pogge (Agonus cataphractus) probing the mud beneath the sea pens – which I was pleased to be able to identify immediatly, folowing Gordon’s talk on Roa Island the previous week!

Barry

This year did not promise the best, with a pretty dreadful weather forecast, and driving hail on the journey North. In the event, however, the North wind, while cold, gave us long cloud free periods, with small snow flurries in between, and raised few problems with the diving.

Lochaline offers some excellent, easily accessed, shore dives with a diverse range of habitats and marine life. The wall off the Hotel beach is a favorite with the group, as this offers a white sand beach access to one of the most impressive walls in the UK, dropping almost unbroken from about 15m to 80 or 90m depth.

It is here that we did most of our diving over the Easter break, extending our surveys of previous years towards the mouth of the Loch. This encompassed a new beach, and boulder slope, and a number of additional species have been added to our list for the site, including the sea pen Virgularia mirabilis. The organisms on the wall are all currently getting into gear for the year ahead – top shells and sea slugs are grazing the Tubularia, and laying eggs in great coiled masses. Mermaids purses are to be found on anything that they can cling to!

Our dive to the East of the fish farm at Fiunary was a bit more exposed, which caused a few problems leaving the water, but it offered a rather different habitat – a short boulder slope to 10m or so, followed by a fairly steeply sloping mud bottom. This area usually has a luxuriant kelp forest over the boulder slope, home to a wide range of organisms, including snakelocks anemones.

At this time of the year, however, the kelp has been thinned by the winter storms, but equally (or perhaps more importantly) it cannot keep up with grazing pressure over the winter months, as it gets eaten faster than it can grow! This makes hunting in the base of the kelp forest a lot easier, and Rob managed to find a sea mouse in between the boulders, while more sea pens (again Virgularia) were spotted in deeper water.

The final dive location was at Drimnin – this was by my request as my 200th dive. I have fond memories of Drimnin, with its simple access and sunlit shallows. In the event we were all a bit under-weight for the dive (which maxes out at about 6m), and for once the sun remained hidden behind high clouds, so the dive was a bit of a disappointment. Still, it is different again, an almost flat muddy bottom with occasional boulders in shallow water offering an excellent habitat for a range of weeds, fan worms and hermit crabs. Later in the year the area will have long trailing sea whips (Chorda filum – this plant has a host of other common names!), for the moment and spring arrives, it is dominated by smaller red algae and the green sea lettuce, while the boulders provide safe anchorages for large kelp plants – furbelows and sugar kelp.

The group also fitted in a number of rock-pooling surveys close to our base at the Old Post Office walks, and a number of longer walks, including to the old castle and estate house at Ardtornish.

We took one plankton sample from the beach area. The first blooms of phytoplankton have not really got going yet, so this was a bit sterile, with just a few pennate diatoms. A wider range of diatoms was to be found epiphytic on some of the seaweed samples taken by the rock-poolers.

The full moon of late November shone down on our second sea mouse (Aphrodite aculeata) survey in Loch Fyne. There had been an unusual sighting several years ago, of 8 or 12 sea mice in close proximity and in shallow water, whilst on a weekend dive trip with Preston Sub Aqua Club. Since then we have arranged two expeditions with PSAC and our local MCS group to survey the area and look for any repetitions of this sighting.

Aphrodite is a segmented marine worm, not rare, but in our experience only seen occasionaly as solitary creatures.  To see a cluster like this is certainly unusual, and with limited information available on their life cycle, may be related to spawning activities. The creature is an unusual looking worm, about the size of a mouse, and with ‘mousy’ brown hairs (setae) on it’s back. One of the most unusual features is an array of iridescent hairs around the base of the body. These hairs are being studied with a view to developing high-tec photonic systems.

The surveys so far have only been a partial success, in that we have found sea mice, but not in significant numbers. On the Saturday we suffered severe windchill in the 2 Preston boats that were used, with rain squalls thundering up the Loch. Sunday was much more pleasant starting with flat calm water and patches of sun breaking through the cloud, though later the windchill meant that hats were still needed. One hat left in the loch-side accomodation meant that a diver who usually has more sense, had to protect his head with a borrowed white towel. It created the strange appearance of Mother Theresa cruising up the loch with her diving flock sat around her feet.

On this occasion we found three sea mice,  two of which were in close proximity, but no larger clusters. The question is wether this is significant, or would 14 divers have seen this number on any similar substrate at any time of year? One appealing option for the future is to survey the same area, at a different (warmer) time of year. Certainly the attractive accomodation and the two groups cameraderie make this a likely option for next year.

Gordon.