Oban in October
Thursday 15th to Sunday 18th October 2009
Divers- Lee Wright, Stuart Greatorex, Paul Smith, Mick Hyde
Boat Handler, Dive Marshall, Onboard Catering Manager, Helen Hyde.
Autumn well and truly here, and weather should be getting colder, however there had been a 2 week period of settled calm weather prior to our trip. A big high was sat over Scotland and this gave us calm seas, clear skies and relatively warm air temperatures, the sea was still as warm as it has been all summer at 12C.
After an early morning start we arrived at Puffin Dive Centre, just south of Oban, after lunch. We got the boat sorted, launched and headed out to get a dive before the sun started to go down. The first dive was on the SE corner of Bach Island on a vertical cliff that drops to 30M and then onto a coarse sand sea bed which slopes off into even deeper water. It was very dark once we got below 15m as we were then in shade. However the viz was excellent, at least 10M.
Stuart at 20mt depth, Bcah Island
Loads of fish about, plenty of deadmens fingers, Devonshire Cup Corals and small anemones on the cliff face. There were also plenty of scallops on the seabed, right up to the base of the cliff, although most were on the small side, so earned the right to stay there a bit longer! Lee and I headed along the base of the cliff for about 150M, and then we ascended a bit and drifted back on the current before slowly ascending through the kelp and back towards where the boat was moored.
Back on board Helen had coffee, tea and biscuits waiting for us, which were very welcome. Great start to the weekend.
Back to Gallanach and got settled into one of the small houses which are available to rent on site at Puffin. After tea we decided on a night dive, Lee opted for a shower and his book instead, so just three of us, Stuart Greatorex, Paul Smith and myself went for the joys of the Puffin Reef at night.
We kitted up and headed out down the slip, moving slowly and concentrating on the vast variety of life that was out and about. Paul found a large lobster out for a walk, it posed for a few photos and then we let it go!! Several large nudibranchs on the kelp,
Nudibrach
a large red, quite disgusting looking worm was inching its way across the seabed, none of us had seen one like that before. Once on the reef, we followed it round heading slowly south, Stuart found an octopus, and took a few photos!! There were lots of smaller fish around throughout the dive, together with squat lobsters that were very aggressive and wanted to take on the world.
After 25 minutes I was down to 70Bar, so I headed back as we had planned. Back for a shower before the others returned. I think they got a little lost coming back, but they made it eventually. We all went to bed at 9:00pm
The next morning dawned on a beautiful day, flat calm, so we decided to head out for the day, taking lunch with us to go on a bit of an explore south of Kerrera.
Having looked at the charts the night before we decided to headed for the Garvellach Islands, about 15 miles away from Puffin. Took us about 40 minutes to get there and we then spent another 10 minutes or so cruising along slowly using the echo-sounder to find where the deepest steepest bit of wall was. Initially Stuart and I dropped in at the southern end of the wall, but the current was going the wrong way. So we got back in the boat and did it all again at the opposite end of the wall. No point in swimming against the current unless you have to. Dropped down the cliff to its base at 27M, there were large boulders everywhere. Lots of fish, including ballan wrasse, cuckoo wrasse, a ling in a cave, several large pollack. 
Male Cukoo Wrasse giving me the once over. (he started life as a female)
Inquisitive large ballan wrasse (both male and femaile look the same to divers), female cukoo wrasse in the background. 
There were also yellow Boring and elephants ear sponges, urchins and bat stars, the others went a little deeper than we did and amongst the boulders saw lobsters.
Once again the viz and clear water made it a great dive.
We then headed for Insh Island and after a load of fannying about we eventually got ashore to have lunch, an explore and to claim this uninhabited island for Rochdale Sub-Aqua Club!!! Flat calm, sunshine and no wind, what more could we ask for?
After lunch we eventually got back aboard Holly and headed round to our next dive site on the South East corner of the Island. Dropped in right next to the wall and dropped down vertically to 25M, there was a rubble slope at the edge of the cliff and small fish, urchins and squat lobbies were hiding everywhere. On the cliff itself there were Northern sea fans, these are quite rare and are slow growing, if you want to find out a little bit more, check out this link which explains a bit more about the Insh Island colonies. http://seasearch.wisshost.net/downloads/Insh%20Seafans.pdf
As we headed along the base of the cliff we could feel the current pulling at us , so we hugged the cliff face and then the subsequent boulder slop to stop us getting carried away, we surfaced very close to the boat and got in, just as Paul appeared, also quite close to the boat. That just left Lee who we picked up about half a mile away, he had got separated from Paul as they were making their way back to the boat at 12m. Lee did a very slow ascent on his DSMB and drifted a long way. Quick pick-up, and we headed back for Gallanach.
After an excursion by car to The Bridge Over The Atlantic and Easedale,
Clackan Bridge known as “The bridge over the Atlantic”
View from looking north towards Karrera
4 of us sampled the delights of the Crystal Palace Chinese Restaurant which was excellent. Stuart and Aylin headed off for a romantic meal for two at another restaurant. Then we went to bed at 9:00pm.
Saturday morning and once again it was flat calm, we picked up some more fuel and decided to dive the wreck of the Hispania in the Sound Of Mull. It was about 23 miles away, so we took lunch, flasks and 2 tanks each and away we went. For the first part of the journey from Puffin to the bottom of the Sound of Mull, the sea was like a mirror. After that it got it got increasingly lumpy until there were waves 0.5M high. It took us just over an hour to get to the dive site. We were expecting slack water to be at 11am, but we had been advised to get there early in case slack came early. We got there at 10:20am to find that there were already 2 hard boats and 2 ribs already dropping in a total of 30 divers. We thought that the hardboat skippers must have the local knowledge, so we kitted up and piled in as quickly as we could. Lee and I were first down the shotline, there was a bit of current, but nothing to worry about. The viz was about 7-8M initially, except in the bottom of the holds where other divers had already stirred up the silt. The Hispania sits the right way up in about 30M of water, it is not enormous and you can easily go round the entire wreck on your dive. The whole ship is covered in plumose anemones; deadmans fingers and Devonshire cup corals, there are large wrasse and enormous Pollack patrolling the wreck. We didn’t see any congers, but I am sure they were there, inside the wreck in all the muck. We made our way slowly around the wreck, the current slowly dropped off to nothing as did the number of divers. They had all got in too early, for the last half of our dive, there were only the Rochdale divers on the wreck. Towards the stern you can see the spare prop sitting in a small hold, or rather what I have been told is a replica of the prop that would have been used to make a working replacement should they have lost or damaged the original.
After 45 mins the current was starting to pick up and we headed back up the shotline to be picked up by Helen.
We then headed back down the Sound and had lunch moored up under Duart Castle, http://www.duartcastle.com/castle/castle_intro.html. There is a protected wreck nearby which you can only dive under the supervision of a licence holder. This is the “Swan”, a Cromwellian warship that was sunk in 1653 http://www.historic-scotland.gov.uk/duartpointsitedescription.pdf http://freespace.virgin.net/lochaline.divecentre/visitor%20scheme.htm
The wind dropped again while we were having lunch and after a swift crossing, we were back at Bach Island for a dive on the western side.
Then it was back to Gallanach, tea and a night dive for Paul and myself, similar to the first dive, except that we found a granddaddy lobster out for a night-time ramble, it’s claws were as big as my torch. Then we went to bed at 9:00pm
The wind and rain started during the night and as the engine was by now being a little problematic, we decided against diving on the Sunday. We got the boat back on the trailer and gave it a hose down. Although to be frank it rained so hard on the way home and the puddles (lakes) were so deep, that at one point I thought Paul was going to use the boat to tow the car!!
Thanks everyone for a very enjoyable trip, we dived 4sites that we have not dived before from the RIB. Viz was fantastic, roll on next dive season. An especial thanks to Helen for boat handling while having to listen to us twittering on about how good the diving was.
Mick Hyde
06 Dec 2009 11:24 pm admin 0 comments