Diving on Skye
As we drove up towards the Trotternish Peninsular and away from the busier south the natural beauty of the island and the mountains becomes more evident, as do the silly sheep and occasional highland cow who block the road at times. I am very cautious when edging my car past these very solid creatures, as I know who would come off worst if I hit one. Even a toss of the head could end up with a horn going through a window so I give them mucho respecto and lots of space! Travelling up the east side of the island you pass the Old Man of Storr and Kilt Rock and go through Staffin with its little white houses dotting the lush greens and purpley pinks of the mountains. Our destination Duntulm was right at the very end of the Trotternish Pennisular. Eighteen of us were staying in the three coast guard cottages that looked out over Duntulm Bay with the castle ruins high up on the headland, which looked out over the Atlantic and the Outer Hebrides.
I shall be doing dive reports for Travel-Dive so will not go into detail about the dives here but post the links later. Suffice to say we had some lovely dives and were amazed by the visibility, which on many occasions was 20m or more. Most were scenic/wall dives and also a couple of wreck dives. Half way through the week my neck seal split top to bottom. I had been gradually loosing weight this year in order be able to wear my old suit again and had fortunately taken it with me in case of emergency…..and here was the emergency! As I have managed to get rid of some the fat I had accumulated during my winter hibernation when it was too cold for me to dive, I was able to squeeze myself into it, which meant I didn’t loose three days diving.
John who organised the trip had arranged a deal with the local hotel. This involved lots of fishing during surface intervals and diving for scallops. The result of such industry was £63 behind the bar to celebrate the end of a successful weeks diving before having a great meal at the same hostelry. All the fish was cleaned and filleted on the boats before being used for bartering, the discarded bits being thrown to the lovely seal that appeared in Uig harbour each evening on our return.
We used the Lochaline boats, which had come up from the mainland specially for this trip. I was on Brendan and although the slower boat it had the advantage of Dave. Now Dave is the skipper but is also a dab hand at cooking up fish in the tiny galley kitchen. Because we were a little exposed and the weather a little rough at times it prevented the freshly fried fish that he sometimes does but this didn’t stop him from producing the most delicious baked fish, then on the penultimate day we had a fairly calm sea so were treated to battered scallops, absolutely fantastic!
