We’re just back from a very welcome long dive weekend near Oban, combined with an informal underwater photography course given by Lewis Bambury. On the 23rd we had two dives starting from the old Creagan Ferry slipway. This is situated on the North bank of Loch Creran, and about 100m after the new bridge, with a good sized layby to kit up in.

The weather was very wet, and the underwater visibility, at between 2 and 4m was unusually poor for the area – adding to the challenge of getting good photos (good photos were taken by others on the course, unfortunately you’ll have to make do with mine!). The morning dive was a low water bimble around the slipway itself, Loch Creran is home to numbers of sea cucumbers, of which the most commonly encountered is Psolus phantapus (see photo), which is bright orange, and these were the photographic high-spot of this dive, though there were also plenty of crabs, dead-mens fingers and squat-lobsters!

In the afternoon we drifted with the flood tide into the inner basin of Loch Creran – being at springs, there was with strong current. Or at least it was after we found it! – We’d taken a direct bearing to the bridge, and so ended up too close to the North side of the channel to get into the main current until we were pretty much under the bridge itself. Our route did take us through a deep basin immediately North West of the bridge, however (see charts). This contains an extensive brittle-star bed, which looks rather grey and unappealing at any distance, but go in close, and the grey hairyness resolves into myriads of brightly coloured brittle-stars (see photo). These are interspersed with the occasional giant starfish (typically 0.5m from arm-tip to arm-tip).

The final drift through under the bridge was very exhilarating, though with the stronger spring tide it was not possible to stop where we had intended, necessitating a 100m walk in full kit back to the car.

All in all, an excellent weekend, so thanks to Lewis and Gordon (who organised 5* accommodation and dive details).

Barry Kaye