Trip Report : Conger Alley, Loch Long (17/11/2013)

Alarms … Damn Alarms

0500 – beep, beep, BEEP, BEEP! And …. snooze!
0530 - beep, beep, BEEP, BEEP! I really should get up now. Breakfast consisted of coffee and cinnamon pancakes. Coldwater diving is extremely tiring, so a solid breakfast is always needed! I absolutely love cinnamon, so my pancakes are always laced with it.

I met two fellow divers, Steven White and Gene at the clubhouse and got the gear loaded up and we were off for 630. It was a gorgeous morning on the Loch, when you imagine Scotland in your minds eye, this is probably what you are thinking of!

The team arrived in three vehicles and assembled on the Loch Long shore for a team photo:

I was hoping to get my weight checked out for diving in the sea. In the past I’ve always attached every bit of weight I had and just hoped, but always sank sufficiently! This time I wanted to be a bit more disciplined about it. I’m also feeling very dived up from my Malta trip, so I want to get in a gas (trimix) dive in very soon. So I also wanted to get used to the feeling of having a stage on again. Carrying a stage isn’t difficult, but it can just make a few things a bit more difficult, such as just kitting up, reading your SPG etc., so its worth practising.

I was using my euro cylinders twinset with an aluminium 80 stage bottle. This will be what I am using on my trimix dive if I feel good to do it.

Dive #1

Max Depth : 30.3m
Dive Time : 40 mins

Dive #2

Max Depth : 20.5m
Dive Time : 29 mins

Dive Log:

The shore of Loch Long is very rocky so you don’t need to worry about sinking in, I’ve been on beaches where it is steep and each step you take results in you sinking in the stones half as far as each step you take making it tiring. That isn’t the case here. There are a few rocks which are OK for kitting up on, but it is a tad awkward. Getting a buddy to help certainly makes life easier. I personally didn’t put my fins on prior to walking in and I think that was a good idea, there are tall seaweed plants near the entry which you could easily get caught in and trip. The ground slowly runs down into the water which makes entry easy.

I dragged my stage in with me and then dropped it on the sea bed while I put my fins on, once the fins were on through a bit of contorting I got the stage strapped on and sank a few more inches.
My buddy was Stewart.

We dropped down and swam down the slope right down to 30m. Down here it was absolutely pitch black, no ambient light whatsoever. Stewart had been having problems with his primary light so was using his backup, and I was used my 21W HID. Swimming along the “bottom reef”, I was pleasantly shocked at how much fauna there was down here. I didn’t have a camera with me, but Googling, I found some pictures to explain:

Anemones (From divernetxtra.com)

The anemones looked beautiful, hundreds everywhere a light pink/purple colour.

Buckie Whelks (from Wild Ocean Photography)

Mixture of organisms (from Wild Ocean Photography)

Moving up from 30m we slowly worked our way along the reef at 15-20m, we looked around boulders and we ended up finding two Congers! The head was easily the size of a small plate, so I daren’t imagine where the body must be and how big it is! In fact we also found a whole host of shrimp hiding under a rock. Now I remembered that Stewart had said that people often grabbed the shrimp and ate them, I’m not a big seafood fan, but I thought I’d try and grab one for chuckles but couldn’t. When I then dropped down to have a look there was a sodding big Conger in there! Got away lucky with that (and all my fingers!).

The starfish are quite massive, the ones in Malta were very slender and perhaps the size of your hand, the ones in the Loch were most definitely bigger than your hand and they had a thick body and arms. Quite cool!

There were also these, white tree like things too:

Another thing that struck me is the number of seashells there are! When I was in Malta, I was expecting to see lots of shells, I had hoped to bring a few home, but no, almost none and I certainly didn't find any even worth picking up, but here? Hundreds of them!!!

We spent most of the dive just bumbling about. There isn't a massive amount too see. Its a dive site that you should do, and I've been recommended to go back and do it as a night dive.

I'm not able to do the normal comprehensive narrative that I normally do, this was my first time to the site so I can’t recall any major navigational features.