Sound of Mull - Oct 06
Don’t you just love to be woken up by the banging of doors…………….not. However it does do away with the necessity of setting the alarm should you be staying at the Dive Centre in Lochaline
The spring mechanisms on the doors of the drying room and showers mean that they slam shut every time someone goes through, though why anyone would want a shower before diving beats me. Having previously stayed in the Old Post Office down the road where this phenomena was not so apparent, I made a mental note to select a room further away from the crashing doors next time I stayed in the Dive Centre itself. Other than this the accommodation was perfectly adequate. Most rooms seemed to consist of a pair of bunk beds and there was a large well equipped kitchen which was useful with so many people all wanting to eat/cook at a similar time and the space and facilities available coped well with this. The dive centre houses around thirty people. Extra accommodation is in the Old Post Office, which is where I have stayed before. It houses a smaller number of people and is cosier with a fantastic view across the sound to mull but could possibly be a little cramped if everyone chose to ‘stay in’…..a rare event when divers and beer are within striking distance of each other.
Driving up and stopping overnight in The Lake District meant that I only had about a six hour drive left on Friday before joining the others to dive the Thesis in the afternoon at the start our Sound of Mull weekend. We were once again diving with skippers Alan and Dave of Lochaline Boat Charters so I knew we would be in for a good weekend. Although I was a bit tired it was lovely just to drop in the water and float down to the wreck.
Saturday, with our first dive destination the Hispania meant a fairly early start to catch slack, with ropes off at 7.45. The slamming doors had done their job and everyone was on time and ready to go at the appointed time. Unfortunately slack was late and we had to hang around for about half an hour before dropping in. Once in we quickly dropped down to the mast where the shot was attached. The Hispania is understandably one of the most popular wreck dives in the sound. Rarely have I seen plumose anemones crammed so tightly as they are here on the walls of the roofless cabins and corridors. The swift currents bring water that is rich in nutrients for all the marine life living on this wreck, which is why it is so densely populated. As we did a second dive on this the following day I shall probably write a more in depth report and post a link here later.
Our surface interval was to be at Tobermoray. With the sun shining brightly we chugged into the harbour to see the unique and distinctive colours of the houses that overlook the harbour and for which Tobermoray is so well known.
Next on the agenda was The Ronda another popular dive site in the sound and finally a lovely scenic wall dive at Greys rock. In between dives my mask had fallen to pieces due to a crack above one of the eyepieces. Fortunately I always carry a spare so was able to use this although the fit is not good and it fills with water frequently! Nevertheless as long as I breathed out through my nose every other breath it seemed to be enough to keep it under control. I have pretty poor eyesight under the water normally and this mask has my old prescription lenses in, so what with the constant water filling it up and poorer vision it did make for a frustrating dive! However, by the time we did the third dive at Greys rock I had managed to fiddle around and get a better fit so it didn’t fill quite so frequently, for which I was very glad as this was a cracking dive and I saw a lovely big dogfish below me right at the end of the dive whilst doing my stop.
Sunday and our first dive was another scenic wall dive, Calve Island. Yet again a top notch dive although as the day was very gloomy and overcast it made it quite dark to begin with. Viz was also not that good but improved as you moved along the wall and things generally got a bit lighter; staying around the 20-25m mark I took loads of photos. We then moved off to catch slack again for a second dive on the Hispania. A number of other boats had the same idea and it was like Piccadilly Circus. I didn’t even bother to drop down into the holds this time as you could see the clouds of silt billowing up from below!
Our final dive was the John Preston. This wooden schooner, which is locally known as the slate wreck (as it was carrying slates), sank in 1882 and has been extensively studied by SOMAP and is often used as a training area for NAS students. More detailed information is available on the dive centre website and is very interesting. The wreck lies on a shelf that slopes down to about 18m then becomes a sheer drop down to about 60m. Hovering above this all I could see is blackness down below and while the wall itself is home to many interesting things I decided to stay and spend my time looking round the area of the wreckage.
Moving on along the shelf away from the scattered wreckage the scenery gradually changed till eventually I was at around 10m skimming over the top of some huge kelp fronds. Painted topshells were ‘glued’ onto these and noticing something that looked like legs appearing from underneath a leaf I pulled it back to find a large spider crab hanging on upside down perfectly concealed. I got glimpses of urchins attached to the rocks and fish weaving their way amongst the thick kelp stalks and watched the rippling body of what I thought was a Viviparous Blenny several metres below me whilst doing my stop and sadly too far away for my camera.
Although another days diving was on the agenda for the others I had to return due to work commitments but I had had seven fantastic dives in just over two days so yet another wonderful Yorkshire Divers gig.
More pics here
Sound of Mull Oct 06
October 9th, 2006 at 8:28 pm
Didn’t take you long to get over me and move on to another boat. No period of gentle mourning, quiet grief and contemplation? Oh no. Straight to the SOM. How could you? See if I care. I’m off to Pparrallell LLines anyway.