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