Where? Seil Island
When? 22-26 April
Why? To dive!!
What? Walls, Steps, Thesis, Breda
How? From Porpoise II
Who? Elaine, Dave W, Alan, Eric, Mike, Lynda, Hilary, Heather, John B, James A, Mick B

After many years of good diving at St Abbs in April, the last two years we’d been blown out so we decided we might try the west coast of Scotland for this year’s Spring trip. Alex volunteered to do all the booking so, as it was his first time organising a dive trip, we decided on the familiar – we’d stayed at Seabank Cottage in 2007 and dived with David Ainslie on a couple of previous trips. However, after making all the arrangements, he and Clare got the chance of a holiday in the Dominican Republic, so they reluctantly (!) chose that one. Elaine gallantly took over for her first time of managing a dive trip.

We all crossed the Atlantic via the Bridge on Thursday evening, six of us having stopped on the way up for a late lunch at the top of Loch Lomond at the 300 years old Drovers Inn, reputedly frequented by Rob Roy. All the ‘basics’ (bread, milk, tea, coffee, butter, breakfast juice, jam etc) for eleven people for the weekend, plus all ingredients for Saturday and Sunday evening meals were packed in my car, along with mine and Elaine’s diving gear. Friday we’d booked into the local pub (Tigh-an-Truish) for our meal, Saturday Alan did a vegetable curry plus accompaniments and Sunday we had to cook all the barbecue meats and potatoes in the oven because the weather wasn’t good enough to eat outside. All of us being able to sit round the table together created a great atmosphere at these meals. We also had one of Elaine’s famous quizzes – oh! and one of her famous cakes! But enough about the food – let’s think about the diving!

Two dives on each of the three days.

Friday At the jetty for 9.15am

  • Eagle’s Rock So-called because of the Golden Eagles flying above the cliffs. A good site to check weights etc. Headed SE from boat to wall and then kept the wall on our right. My max depth: 32.9m. Lots of deadman’s fingers, some sea urchins and crabs. Water temp 8 deg.
  • Jeannie’s Reef An offshore pinnacle. Down a shotline but the upward current made the descent a bit difficult. The shot was in a kelpy gully. Swam NW over the edge of the gully and down the wall to about 31m. Had we gone along the wall at 17m we might have seen some unusual ‘red man’s fingers’. Water temp 8 deg.

Saturday At the jetty for 10am

  • Thesis Best dived at slack water as there can be quite a current on it. Had the wreck to ourselves – couldn’t believe there wasn’t another boat in sight. Descended the shot. Swam around the wreck passing a few pairs of bollards and through some of the ribs. The wreck is smothered in so many deadman’s fingers (yellow and white) that they almost block up some of the portholes. My max depth: 31.4m. Water temp 9 deg
  • Breda Again, not another boat in sight. Descended the shot. Swam along the deck, passing winches etc and dropped into a couple of holds, but wary of all the silt. The hull is covered in a wide variety of life - plumose anemones, peacock worms, sea squirts, featherstars. You could do this dive for the marine life itself, never mind as a wreck dive. My max depth: 22.6m. Water temp 10 deg

Sunday Lie-in! A luxury on a dive trip! At the jetty for 11am

  • Steps Surface swim from boat towards wall and as soon as we could see the ‘bottom’ we descended – to kelp. Once in contact with the wall we swam back on ourselves over the kelp and started descending the ‘Steps’ to a depth of 29m. For me the highlight of this dive was the number of nudibranchs and a few painted topshells. Water temp 7 deg
  • Dun Connel Dropped in near the wall and straight down. My max depth about 21m. Because of the strong current we had to hold on to the wall in order to examine the abundant life on it, and to prevent being swept along whilst moving from one spot to another we grasped on to the kelp. On no account should we drift into the channel!! Heather held on to the kelp with one hand and the DSMB line with the other to prevent me being swept along whilst I reeled up at the end of the dive. The current made this a challenging but enjoyable dive, with everyone coming up laughing about it. Water temp 8 deg

Apart from Mike and Lynda the rest of us stayed until Monday morning, so gear could be washed down on the Sunday and packing and clearing up in the cottage could be done at a leisurely pace.

Thanks to Alex for making all the initial bookings and arrangements and to Elaine for taking over. It was a very successful and enjoyable weekend.