Julie's Boggle

I’ve been sitting with this blog entry for quite a few weeks now, but having come so far, I don’t want to leave it out, so here goes…

On the recommendation of a friend, we left on our Oban road-trip at 06h00… Which gave us plenty of time to see the sun-rise as we whizzed out of London on blissfully quiet roads. :yawn: Birmingham by 08h00 and Lancaster by 10h30, UK roads don’t get much better than that.

Aside from some minor navigational errors around Glasgow, and drenching rain most of the way, our drive went pretty smoothly and we made the entire trip in 10 hours! The last 15 minutes took us onto the tiny island of Seil (pronounced “seal”) over one of the narrowest and severest blind rises I have ever enocountered!

The Clachan Bridge (also fondly known as the “Bridge over the Atlantic”) spans a narrow finger of ocean that separates Seil from the rest of Scotland. And while picturesque, it makes for very nervous drivers as you can’t see anyone coming until you’re well over the hump and on your way down the other side!

(We braved this bridge 8 times in the 5 days we were up there because the closest place for air-fills was Oban on the mainland. )

Scotland has a bit of a reputation for having weather that is not particularly good – and it was trying hard to live up to it on our first day.

The weather report was predicting winds of gale force 9 so the boat wouldn’t take us out. One of our number was an Oban veteran however, and had several ideas for shore dives. We all got into a huddle on the dockside and eventually picked out our site, then it was back into the cars for the long drive inland.

True to form, the sun came out and shone brightly on our 2.5 hour journey to Loch Fyne along plenty of idyllic “single-track” country roads.

The diving at the other end of the drive was pretty good – even if it did mean getting changed in our cars (because it was pissing down with rain again by then) and preparing our gear on the non-existent verge of a road barely big enough to pass as a drive-way in South Africa.

It felt pretty odd wading into what looked like a giant lake, but which was also – very definitely – sea water. *cough-splutter* It was very different to diving in the channel, the place was just crawling with tiny hermit crabs, and there were lots of big brilliant red sea urchins dotted around.

The next day’s weather forecast was a little better and we did actually get to go out on the dive boat. But it wasn’t so good that we could go out to sea on that day or the one that followed…

So we did some other sea loch sites, seeing more of the life that’s unique to these slightly unusual environments (sea-inlet lakes), like squat lobsters, cup corals and sealoch anemones.

All in all, despite the lack of adventurous sites in the open sea, we thoroughly enjoyed the colourful and creature-rich places that we did get to visit, and came away with some really neat photos which I’ve put up onto Flickr if these shots whet your appetite.

This morning we awoke at 06:00 (wincingly early for a Saturday ) to drive up to Stoney Cove to attempt our last practical test in the BSAC Sport Diver qualification. We started with a dry run so Frank, our instructor, could spot all the bits we were bad at and give corrective guidance. This was important because Frank is a stickler and would certainly not pass us if he spotted any mistakes in the real exercise.

Then it was a half hour break from the water to have a traditional cup of hot chocolate and bacon “cob”. (That’s what the menu calls it, but it’s a really a rather tasty bacon bun. Apparently it’s Leicesterese. I note that www.dictionary.com doesn’t know this meaning for “cob” either, but it does offer “a mixture of clay and straw”. Fortunately the Stoney Cove cobs don’t live up to this definition.)

After the break we jumped back in for the actual test, which seemed to go well. Afterwards Frank, a veteran instructor who likes to keep people on their toes, was tight lipped about how we’d done. Not wanting to appear over confident, we refrained from asking and instead nonchalantly engaged in idle chitchat during the walk back to the car for dekitting, as you do. Since we were parked a small distance from Frank we were able to move on to open speculation as we dekitted; the verdict: we didn’t know but were worried – there had been one or two little glitches, would they been seen as show stoppers?

Once we were done, we found Frank who broached the sensitive subject by asking us how we thought we’d done. What a tricky question: you don’t want to admit to any mistakes he might not have spotted but you also don’t want him to have to take you down a peg. So best policy, mention one or two little things to show you’re aware of them and then await his judgement. Which came very soon: we’d passed .

So now we’re sport divers which primarily means that we can dive to 35m instead of 20m and with a greater flexibilty in choice of dive buddies. For one thing, this is good because it helps club dive planning. For another, we’ve been diving to almost 35m already but that is risky from an insurance perspective – now can do it with peace of mind.

Tomorrow morning, early, we’re setting off on our longest UK motor trip to date.To Oban on the west coast of Scotland which is just under 510 miles, or 815km, away.

The AA’s website reckons it can be done in 9 hours and some change, Google‘s direction finder seems a little more realistic with about 11.5 hours.

Either way, not something either of us is hugely looking forward to, but it’s all for three days of diving. And the last dive of the season at that.

Apparently the Scottish west coast diving is supposed to be really good – let’s hope they’re right… More details will definitely follow.

Unlike last year, we skipped most of the club dives to the south coast this year, saving our diving budget for the more unusual club dive locations and our Red Sea excursion.

The most recent Weymouth trip was the exception because we’d never been on Skin-Deep before. Skin-Deep is a rather slick catamaran that has all the necessary pre-requisites to make her a great dive boat.

Of course we were just itching to try out our new camera underwater again, and we were not disappointed. This time we had the advantages of our experience from Anglesey, as well as better conditions — limited current and reasonable visibility — and patient buddies! As a result, a much higher proportion of our photos came out sharply focussed and with reasonably interesting subjects!

Tom created this funky collage for me (click on it to see a larger version)

In order to cater for people with a variety of bandwidth needs, I put the rest of the “best of” up as a Flickr album, so just click on the link to view them. (And don’t miss the little Zoom button above the photos on Flickr to see them at full size. )

Far too early on a lovely Sunday morning we joined the hordes of divers crowding into the under-sized carpark at Wraysbury Dive Centre – “London’s premiere [only] inland dive site”.

Literally, the single thing to recommend this particular site is its location – within spitting distance of London’s M25 ring-road. Everything else about it is decidely under-par (complete with cringe-worthy porta-loos) — except the scenery. And that doesn’t really count when you’re under water…

The location was what made it the site of choice for our second-to-last training dive. Our briefing that morning was to learn the basics of compass navigation. And the man on hand to cover it with us was our helpful instructor Dave, gallantly giving up his Sunday morning to get us one step further on our Sports Diver qualification.

For our particular training exercise, Wraysbury was an excellent site. Once under the water, the visibility was about 2m at best, so getting the compass readings right was really the only way we were ever going to find our way to the next buoy.

Fortunately we managed to find our way most of the time and Dave was happy to sign us off after about an hour or so of finning around in the upper layers of murk. Then it was time to pack all our stuff away again, get the cylinders filled, and find some lunch!

It didn’t take much imagination to think of a nearby pub that would cater to our needs. Our old favourite, The Royal Oak is also conveniently placed for access from Wraysbury.

Mmm, just what was needed to quench the killer thirst… These went down really well in the balmy heat of a late-summer’s afternoon together with an excellent steak and ale pie.

You have to admit that there are some things they do really well in this country!

With memories of last year’s very tedious trip up to Wales (on a Friday afternoon) still surprisingly fresh, we took the whole of Friday off for getting there this year. Despite high hopes of an early start, we were only on the road by 11h00.  Six and a half hours later – far too many of them spent on the M6! :yawn: – we were in Anglesey.

In Wales (well, Anglesey at any rate) there’s a rather quaint system of giving all the houses names instead of numbers. This is all very well if you’re the local postie, who has every house down the street committed to memory, but much less convenient when you’re crawling along the street in a car wondering when your charmingly named B&B is going to show up.

Once again we were diving with Quest Diving, in Scott Waterman’s diver-friendly hard boat, Endeavour.

 Unlike last year’s sunny skies, we had looming grey clouds to contend with on the Saturday as we set out. But on the positive side, there was minimal wind and the water was a relatively warm 16°C.  Rather pleasant to leap into after spending long minutes wrestling with diving kit in a full wetsuit.

Our first dive of the weekend  was a pretty offshore wreck, the SS Mona. There wasn’t much of her left, but she was just bustling with crabs. And every inch of the framework above the sand was covered – literally – with fat white and orange plumose anemones.  Most of us came up with big slimy patches from accidentally getting a little too close to the wreck and popping the darn things.

On the second dive, the camera got its first proper open-water exposure (having taken just the water-proof case down on the first dive).  Tom was the photographer, and the important lesson we took away from this dive was that the macro setting is really necessary if you want to get anything approaching decent focus.
Fortunately at this level of resizing, you can’t see the blurring – much.

We had another civilised start on Sunday – 11h00. Luxury! Unfortunately, despite the patchy sun, the diving conditions were again extremely poor; mostly from the storm run-off from the week’s heavy rains.  Nevertheless, Tom managed to capture some of the best images of the weekend up close, despite the 1 – 2m visibility!

And his top macro shot of the weekend, was a tiny dahlia anemone, which out of all the photos that weekend, took the prize for clarity and focus! (Click the image to see the full-size version.)

In between dives, we got to spend some time in the sun, and got a good view of the seals off Seal Island.

On the final dive, I got the camera, but nothing really worthwhile came of it. (Focusing, in even a slight current, turns out to be harder than I thought!) And then, at the skipper’s recommendation, and democratically agreed by all on the boat, we decided not to dive on Monday because the forecast indicated nothing good would come of it.  (While it’s disappointing to lose a day’s diving, beating the long-weekend traffic back into London is a significant advantage!)

So that night we found the only restaurant in town that would take 11 people at 21h00 and without a booking – the Menai Tandoori  (yes, it was rather average); and the next day we got a nice early start on our trip back to London and clocked a smooth 5 hours door to door.  :grin:

This coming Monday is the “Late Summer” Bank Holiday. The last of UK’s organised bank holidays for the year. *sniff*

Our dive club is making use of the opportunity to do a 3 day dive trip to Anglesey up in Wales – so lets hope the weather bucks up, it’s been raining on and off for almost a week now!

We’re driving up on Friday and staying at a B&B in the little village of “Llanfair PG” or to use its original name (the longest placename in the UK): Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, which means “St Mary’s church in the hollow of the white hazel near to the rapid whirlpool and the church of St Tysilio of the red cave”. Hmmm.

(The folk at Wikipedia have a lot more to say about the village, including the fact that the name was an early example of a publicity stunt from the 1860′s!)

Last time we were in Anglesey we had a most exciting drift dive down the Menai Straits. Memorable for a number of reasons, including Tom’s head-on collision with a rock and my buddy’s feet first ascent. But I suspect we won’t be doing that one again this time, not least because some of the more conservative dive leaders are coming along too!

Till next week then.

Our few early experiences with cameras and diving were notably a little sad. Our first camera was an el-cheapo model, bought in a dive shop in Cairns before our Barrier Reef trip. We filled the first reel with grainy reef shots, some photos of the dolphins we met on the way back to Cairns, and photos from the Club pool.

Having recharged the film, we carried the camera down to Weymouth for a club dive. Tom struggled with it on the first dive, finding it quite distracting, and on the second dive, the camera’s underwater housing flooded. And for a long time, that was the end of the diving photography.

Tom’s resistance to suggestions that we get another camera with an underwater housing remained strong for more than a year. He was adamant that he didn’t want to go “diving with a photographer”. (Because everyone knows that photographers faff about for ages taking pictures instead of getting on with the dive.) But 5 days of the Red Sea, and a boatload of amateur photographers showing off their photos cured him of that.

So the other day we headed over to Cameras Underwater who have a counter within the Embankment branch of Ocean Leisure. My existing camera (which doesn’t have an underwater housing option) is a Fuji, and the top of their new range looked quite good. So before we went, we investigated one camera – the Fuji FinePix F11. The staff at Cameras Underwater helpfully gave us three to play with: the Fuji and two of their Olympus range. Wow, too many choices.

We went away to do some more homework.

While researching, we found a superb site called Cameras.co.uk which had all sorts of data and detailed reviews on all the cameras we’d seen. And the conclusion: each of them had one specific flaw that seemed to rule it out. From there we moved on to the rest of the Cameras Underwater range, and came up with the Canons. The reviews on these seemed more positive…

So the next day it was back to Cameras Underwater to test-drive the Canon A540. This one had a lot of perks to it, we liked the feel and the operation, and the price was right. So we bought it! And the underwater housing that goes with it.
(Click here to see the review on Cameras.co.uk.)

We’ve had lots of fun playing with the camera so far. It has loads of manual options which have kept Tom busy for hours, and the simple point-and-click mode works really well too. (I’ll be sad to give up my great little Fuji FinePix A240, but happily we have found a good home for it.)

On club night at the pool, we had our first experimental snorkelling experience with the Canon and can report that all seems to be good on that side as well.

So… bring on the next dive!

Well it looks like there’s going to be a bit of an enforced break where the Red Sea posts are concerned (I might post-date the last one or two when I get back just for completeness ).

The reason for the break? Tomorrow Tom and I are heading off down south-west for a week’s holiday (yes, I know we’ve just had one). This time we’re going to the scenic counties of Devon and Cornwall.

Our club was so pleased with last year’s dive trip to the southern tip of Cornwall – Lizard Point – that they organised another one this year, and made it a day longer. We’ll be diving from next Thursday to Sunday, and with all the travel, and a bank holiday weekend this coming weekend, it just made sense to make a week of it. As we’d already seen a fair bit of Cornwall as part of our trip down last year, we decided to throw in more of Devon this time around.

The general itinerary is as follows: We’re heading down as far as Exeter this Saturday to stay with some ex-London friends there; and then we’re moving on to a B&B, also in Devon for three nights. Mid-week we’ll drive on down to Cornwall, do our diving, then back to Exeter on the Sunday evening, back to London on the Monday. Whew!

Now all we need to do is pack, and hope for the weather to buck up after a week’s worth of sombre grey clouds and drizzle every couple of hours!

Wednesday:
The day started with a rather rude awakening when the boat engines rumbled to life, more than an hour before the bell. We were moving round to the other side of the two Gubal islands for our first dive of the day and even from our beds it felt like a wildly rocking trip.

Today’s first dive was the Rosalie Moller, a Scottish cargo ship working for the Royal Navy, sunk by German bombers in 1941. At 44m to the sea bed, the deepest parts of her were well below our certification range so we were going to have to be careful about how deep we let ourselves go.

Going down this was also the worst visibility of any of our Red Sea dives. We just had to follow the rough blue nylon rope down to the mast, but the wreck was hardly visible at all almost 20m.

Overall, it was interesting as being the deepest dive we’d ever been on by ourselves (to 33m) but that kept us entirely above deck so we didn’t see that much. With the darkness and the slightly cloudy water, this was far more like a UK dive than any we encountered that week.

Over breakfast, other divers who had explored inside were praising the quality of the wreck, and I think it’s safe to say that we missed out on rather a lot of that. The highlight for me was the swarms of tiny darting silver fish around the mast. Swirling a torch beam at them produced a really nifty optical effect.

After we’d eaten, we had another rolling trip back to Small Gubal. The weather wasn’t too pleasant out, so we relaxed in lounge area with lots of swaying and creaking, and occasional crashing, around us.

The next dive, as indicated by Malin’s excellent drawing (markerpen on whiteboard), was along a rather spectacular wall known as Bluff Point. And this time I was takiing a turn at being the leader of our buddy pair — something that has been known to put one in a tricky position in an environment where communication is extremely limited.

This was the first dive where the current was really noticeable as we dropped away from the Zodiacs and headed for the protection of the wall. Not far along we found the dark openings in the wall which could only be the caverns Steve had mentioned in the briefing. We swam into one of them and the view up to the top – several meters above us – where rays of sunlight pierced the dimness, reflecting off clouds of silvery glassfish, was awesome.

Other highlights included the biggest gorgonian sea-fan we’d seen so far – this thing was the size of a small tree, complete with realistic looking trunk, only entirely flat and a delicate pink all over.

We had the option of carrying on with the current around the wall to a bay where there would be Zodiacs waiting to pick us up – or we could swim back to the boat. I’d been inspired by another group that swam back all by themselves the day before, so around the halfway mark, by which time we were a fair bit shallower, I indicated that we were heading back the way we’d come.

This turned out to be a memorable swim against a very strong current. It was jolly hard work and I’m still not completely sure why I didn’t just turn us back around and let the current take us to the waiting transport. Tom was apparently thinking we weren’t going to make it all the way back, but we kept on and finally got round the last corner to where the boat was moored.

At that point, we paused to take in the sights, and I reflected that this was actually much nicer than all the heavy finning.

Just then, we had the pleasure of seeing a large Napoleon wrasse drifting through the water not far away from us. This chap was wonderfully comical. He was exactly as you would imagine an amusing animated fish should look. A solid 0.5m long body, which makes his fins look puny, great big thick lips, and these eyes that show their whites as they move. So we could see one of them rolling around as he cast a curious eye over us. What a fantastic character.

The last stretch of getting to the boat turned out to be the hardest swim of all – really blasted our air consumption stats! But at least after that there was lunch to look forward to… and an opportunity for an warm afternoon’s nap out on deck. Mmm.