Heather Island, Oban 18/01/14

Posted on February 19, 2014 by JamesL

After an early start, Callum, Ken, and I made our way over to Oban to meet up with Dave, Lewis, and Robbie who had spent the night in Oban after travelling over with the club boat (Tay Explorer). Once at Puffin Dive Centre it didn’t take long to get our kit organised and launch the boat so we were out on the water by 10:30.

Our plan for the day was to do a couple of dives around Heather Island with some training included. We decided to start our first dive at the south east point of the island where there was a gentle slope then head north up the island with the slope on our left.

Dave, Callum, and Robbie went in together with Robbie successfully completing his final Ocean Diver lesson (OO5). Ken, Lewis, and I went in together and after completing mask clearing and AS Ascents from 15m for Ken’s DO6 we continued with a dive, exploring a mix of sand/shell slope, vertical rock faces and impressive large boulders.

There is a huge variety of life at this site, with numerous feather stars, different squirts and various sponges covering the rock faces. In-between all of this were sea loch anemones, camouflaged spider crabs, edible crabs, purple sunstars, and nudibranchs (Flabellina browni and Diaphorodoris luteocinta). We were a bit unsure what the underwater conditions were going to be like given the recent weather but it did not disappoint, visibility was not far off 10m and ambient light penetrating down to around 20m. After travelling about half the length of the island it was time to surface so I sent up my DSMB and after a safety stop we surfaced with a total time of 43mins.

Our surface interval was spent back at Puffin where we could sit indoors in their planning room. Unfortunately the stove wasn’t lit so it was just in cold in there as it was outside, still it was nice to have a seat inside.

After a decent surface interval we were soon back out at Heather Island for our 2nd dive. This time our plan was to enter at the north east end of the island  and head south with the slope/wall on our right.

On our dive, with Ken leading as part of his Dive Leader training, we kept within 20m and followed the steep slope then vertical rock wall along to the large cave opening. Again there were plenty of feather stars, various squirts, and sponges covering the rock faces. Just south of the gloomy looking cave opening the wall has a thick covering of large peacock worms with white cluster anemones filling the rock spaces in-between.

Past the cave opening the vertical wall continues before you come to an old lobster pot with line and buoy still attached, the buoy sitting at about 15m and the line covered in yellow rimmed squirts and peacock worms. Just after this the wall shrinks away into a sandy slope. This is where we surfaced with a max depth of 20m and total time of 25mins. Another great dive!

Robbie/Lewis and Dave/Callum reported good 2nd dives too. Dave and Callum explored along the bottom of wall this time at 30-40m and interestingly found numerous phosphorescent and tall sea pens.

Once everyone was safely back on board we made the short trip back to Puffin to recover the boat and after the mandatory look around the well stocked shop we all headed for home.

Luckily although it was cold the weather stayed fair all day with only a short shower when we were packing up. With the boat staying in Oban for the summer we will have lots more great diving to look forward too. A great winter’s day diving.

For more photos go to the Gallery page or here.

 

Posted in Trip Reports | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

First Dives of 2014. Twin Piers, Loch Long

Posted on January 15, 2014 by JamesL

Over the last few years we have ventured out on the 2nd of January for the first dives of the New Year and 2014 was no different.

The A-Frames at Loch Long has been our usual for the last couple of years but this year we decided to try the Twin Piers. This site is also on Loch Long but for some reason no one in the club had dived it before so we thought it would be nice to try something different.

The site is easily identified as just south of the old Torpedo Testing Station the remains of two concrete sections of an old pier that give this site its name sit just off shore. Access to the shore is through the old pier entrance with the help of a ladder that someone has kindly fixed in place, and parking can be found on the grass verge slightly down the road where there is space for at least 4 cars.

We all arrived onsite at about 09:30 to find we had the place to ourselves so after a wonder down to the entry point and a quick site brief we all started getting our kit organised. Joe and I were on shore cover duty first so everyone else set off on their first dive. The remaining buddy pairings were Dave/Robbie/Lewis, Callum/Ken, and Gordon/Steven.

On the first dive Joe and I (and everyone else) followed the directions recommended on Finstrokes and other online sources. The vis was fairly poor in the shallows, which was to be expected given the amount of recent heavy rain, but it did start to clear up below 6m. From the piers we headed east across the slope down to about 17m where we then turned to head up the loch keeping the slope on our left. Soon enough came across the remains of the small wreck that sits upside down on the seabed here. Not much is left of the wreck, only the decking, a few ribs and other rotting bits of wood, all with a covering of sea loch anemones, squirts, peacock worms and sponges.

Not far past the wreck we found the rocky reef and spent a short time exploring here at about 20m before it was time to turn around. The reef itself was really nice, with a mixture of large and small boulders all with a good covering of life. On the way back, keeping the slope on our right, we passed the wreck again and continued down the loch slowly ascending to about 9m. The location of each pier is clearly marked as on the slope below each one is a covering of empty mussel shells and common starfish, so after a chilly safety stop at the bottom of the piers we surfaced with a total dive time of 43mins.

Everyone else had reported good first dives too, with Dave and Robbie completing the Ocean Diver training they had planned while Gordon and Steven found one of the resident congers on the reef, which Gordon managed to get a few nice photos of.

The second dives were carried out in the same order as the first with a few of the buddy pairs opting to explore to the right of the piers. Ken and Callum followed the slope down to about 30m but reported a barren slope of nothing so Joe and I decided to head to the reef again to try and find some congers.

We got to the reef a bit quicker this time so had more time to have a good look around, and soon enough we came across a huge conger eel under a pile of large boulders, Joe even went around the back and could see its tail through another gap. There was also a lot of fish life around on the reef with numerous juvenile cod, ballan wrasse, leopard spotted gobies, and a sleeping rock cook wrasse which only slowly drifted off after a small prod to check if it was dead. After about 15mins of looking around the reef we turned back towards the piers and endured another freezing safety stop in the freshwater layer under the pier before swimming up to the ladder to exit.

   

A couple of nice dives at an interesting new site was a good way to start off 2014.

For more photos go to the gallery page.

 

Callum McKay, Dundee Sub Aqua Club (DSAC), Jan Urquhart, Kenneth Loades, Alistair Eberst liked this post
Posted in Trip Reports | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Drishaig Reef, Loch Fyne 17/11/13

Posted on December 31, 2013 by JamesL

Back in November Ken, Alistair, Steven, and I ventured over to Loch Fyne to try out the dive at “Drishaig Reef” The dive site description on Finstrokes looked interesting and had some good reviews so we were looking forward to an interesting dive at a new site.

We all arrived on site early and although cold it was dry and a fairly bright day. The path down to the shore was quite steep so we had be quite careful climbing down with our kit, soon enough we were all organised then Alistair and I were off on our first dive.

Heading down the steep slope in reasonable vis we quickly reached 25m and came across a few nice fireworks anemones, once we had taken plenty of photos we turned right on a bearing of 240° and found the rocky reef. Although it is quite a small reef here with spaced out rocks there was loads of life to be found, with sea loch anemones, peacock worms, a good variety of squirts, and sponges clinging to each rock. There were also loads of long-clawed squat lobsters about and a few brown crabs.

We pottered around here taking a few more photos for a while before slowly working our way up the slope back towards the shore, passing an old pipe on the way at about 9m which was covered in clumps of sea squirts. After our safety stop we surfaced from a very enjoyable dive with a total time of 45mins.

Following our surface interval Steven and I went in for our dive and followed pretty much the same profile apart from only going to 20m, which is all that is really needed to see the rocky reef. We saw much of the same of life as the first dive and also another large fireworks anemone.

After some lunch Alistair, Ken, and Steven headed in for the last dive of the day and once they had explored the reef for a while they practiced some DSMB deployment which was somewhat successful.

Although only a small reef this was an interesting dive site with loads of live so was certainly worth trying.

For more photos click here or go to the gallery.

Posted in Trip Reports | Tagged , | Leave a comment

BSAC try dives circa 1960

Posted on November 10, 2013 by hippytyre

Dundee Sub Aqua Club is affiliated with the British Sub Aqua Club (BSAC). BSAC is 60 years old and we very much believe in the philosophy of its origins.

Below is an early promotional video for Try Dives which we are currently running. The video was produced by BSAC and gives you an idea of how the club operates……………..sort of!!!!!!!

Posted in Try Dives, Videos | Tagged , | Leave a comment

The A-Frames, Loch Long 27/09/13

Posted on October 3, 2013 by Emma

On Friday after work I undertook my first dive with the club. Having dived extensively in England and Ireland I am keen expand my dive experience to include plenty of sites in Scotland. Having undertaken a few East coast sea dives in Scotland I was excited to get out into a loch.

The plan was to undertake a couple of night dives as this easily accessible shore site.
After a relatively hassle free drive across both cars arrived at the same time. The site was already being dived by two other pairs of divers. A quick chat with them indicated that the visibility below 15m might not be great but not put off we kitted up and James and Callum set out for their first dive. It was dusk when they got into the water but it was not long before darkness fell and we could follow their progress from their torch light.

James and Callum returned and reported good visibility, plenty of life and with a description of how to find the best of the broken pier structure. So Alistair and I set off in a North Westerly direction and soon found some depth and some of the pier. The very impressive structure juts out of the seabed a few metres high and was covered with an amazing array of life including peacock fan worms, which were very tolerant to our presence, and seasquirts, which produced beautiful patterns under the torchlight. We also found an eel hiding under the structure.

A good while was spent exploring this structure before heading out to get a bit more depth, around 25m the pier wreckage seemed to be petering out so we turned and head back towards the shore. Between the pier sections the bottom is very silty and covered with a variety of crabs and plentiful squat lobsters. As we got into the shallows the seaweed became prominent and the industrial lights of the buildings behind the parked cars provided us with a guide to get back to the entry/exit point.

Both buddy pairs undertook a second dive. James and Callum managed to miss most of the pier structure on their second dive however spotted dogfish and gurnard so not all was lost. James was snapping away on his camera through out his dives – as you can see from the photographs illustrating this write up. They reported that a drift had picked up and bearing this in mind we got back into the water around 10pm for our second dive.

Our dive saw us spotting more of the pier structure, this time lower profile, broken up sections. Still packed with life and plenty to see we were easily entertained for another 40-minute dive.  Conscious of the drift we took a more Westerly bearing on this dive and were able to surface at the end within an easy swim of the car park.

As a first dive in the Scottish Lochs I was impressed by this site not least for the easy of access from the shore, the convenient parking arrangements, the light that is provided by the industrialization in the area (no loosing kit in the dark), the depth that was reached without too arduous a swim, the abundant life and sizeable specimens we spotted on our two dives. The water was around eleven degrees but the air temperature made the kitting and de-kitting very civilalised even given the late hour.

Overall, an enjoyable couple of night dives, the visibility was more than sufficient to see as far as the torch light would allow and plenty to see along the way.

For more photos visit the gallery page or here.

Craig Gowans, Dundee Sub Aqua Club (DSAC), Alistair Eberst, Immersed Dive Blog, James Lynott, Jan Urquhart liked this post
Posted in Trip Reports | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Cheque Presentation to Broughty Ferry Lifeboat Station

Posted on October 1, 2013 by Jan

On 4th May this year members of Dundee Sub Aqua Club undertook a sponsored swim across the Tay Estuary from Tayport to Broughty Ferry to raise funds for the club and for the Broughty Ferry Lifeboat Station.

Although a bit cold and windy it was a very successful day with everyone who took part completing the swim across.

As a result of the great effort by all involved we managed to raise enough funds to present the Broughty Ferry Lifeboat Station with a cheque as a thank you for the great work the crew here do. Broughty Ferry was actually busiest of the Scottish RNLI stations this summer with the boat being launched a total of 43 times from June to August.

We would also like to thank the Ancrum Centre in Dundee and Montrose Sub Aqua Club for providing additional support boats for the swim itself.

James Lynott, David Mckay, Jan Urquhart, Steven Louttit, Kenneth Loades, Dundee Sub Aqua Club (DSAC), Gillian Smith liked this post
Posted in Fundraising | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Try Dives

Posted on September 28, 2013 by nickbirse

DSAC Try Dive Poster

Dundee Sub Aqua Club (DSAC) liked this post
Posted in Try Dives | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment