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Dive Reports on Clydebank Sub Aqua Club If you are going on holiday this summer and it includes a bit of diving, contact the Webmaster. Send in a short article for the website. Let us see your holiday diving photos. Who knows, it may open up a whole new career as a Travel Writer!
The Slates again! 17/08/2008
Underwater visibility seemed a little better this time. There were still as many timid fish though by sitting still on the boulder/slate slope, I was able to get a few photos. Graham spotted a Ling out of its hole, but by the time I got to it, the fish had scuttled in to the safety of its home. There were plenty of Ballan Wrasse, some quite a vivid orange/brown, but they were reluctant to be approached. On the other had a Spotted Dogfish was so calm that it allowed me to move it to a piece of undisturbed rock slope.
The dive party consisted of Brian, Tom, Michelle, Gordon, Gordon, Graham, Joe, Keith and Alan, a visitor from Drumchaple Diving Club. Some of the party stopped off at Tyndrum for fish & chips on the way home. Talk about "Fight the Flab"!
The Slates 03/08/2008 Report by Keith Waugh
After the first dive I was pleased to tell the group that the dive had been my After the cake we had a second dive, much like the first. Again, plenty of fish, but timid with it. Thanks to all for eating the cake and drinking the drink. They were Tom, Brian, Catherine, Graham and Craig. Here’s to the next 2000 !!!
(Brian is a nice guy ........ but not that nice!!) The Garvellachs 27/07/08
"The Gorteins"
Regarding South Gortein, Keith writes: Having spent a couple of weeks in Malta & Gozo during The conditions were similar to
There was a big old eel in residence at fish hotel today, (Keith mentions above) with plenty of siblings nearby for company, and some of them only a little smaller. The String Weed is growing very long, around the 5m contour, and it gives a good indication of the strength and direction of tide (although it does get tangled around every bit of kit that sticks out even an inch). Keith and George found the visibility reasonable at “The Pool” just south of St.Catherines and there were a few Pollock around and a nicely camouflaged Scorpionfish (top left photo). 6th July 2008 Another Iain Kennedy musing: Setting out from the club, the huge convoy of a car made its way towards the east shore of Loch Fyne, the occupants eager to discover what adventures lay ahead. Anchor Point was full of Splashsports so we pushed on to find the lay-by at North Goirtein empty, but not for long. 5 minutes after pulling up we were joined by 3 other cars from Fyne Divers, a bunch of amiable misfits of no fixed diving abode, who proceeded to fiddle with their inspiration re-breathers and other such complicated bits for the next hour or so, turning knobs and gazing intently at dials.... fascinating. Anyway, Gordon and me got dressed in our modest equipment and used the hour to good effect and went diving instead. Those familiar with the site will remember that you enter where the rocks point spits you into the water and descend to about 16-18m looking for the cable. Following that takes you, near enough, to the start of the reef, which turns left and descends down beyond 30m (being sports divers we don't know what lies beyond that). The wall rises a few meters above the sand and mud of the bottom and provides a vantage point for the many colourful anemones which cling to the edge. The broken boulder scree at the base gives good cover for eels and other fish (sometimes a Cod or Ling can be found hiding under them) together with the ubiquitous squatties which wave their digits in a friendly two-fingered salute as you go past. We spent a very pleasant 50 minutes poddling around over the hard reef and the steep slope at the end. After a delicious lunch cooked al fresco at the back of the truck we wandered along the road 500 yds to South Goirtein, where we squeezed into a space at the side of the road. The lower reef was out of reach and so we settled for 20 minutes on the middle reef before retreating to the top one for the second half of the dive. The middle reef produced a nice little lobby hiding under a stone and some sort of flatty which had stuck itself to the surface inside a crack. Some little nidibranchs wandered over the rocky surface grazing on the bryozoans and other simple life they discovered. At the top reef life abounded and we soon discovered lots of big eels and another older lobby. One of the eels decided to investigate my light by pushing against it as I held it at the front of his hole, I pushed back gently, only enough to make his lip curl up giving him a comical snarl. I could feel his weight behind him though and decided not to get into a shoving match, we parted, still on friendly terms. A few yards on I looked back and got a better view of his length and girth and felt even better about my decision. We managed just over the hour on this dive and both thoroughly enjoyed the experience. A very successful day and we were back on the road again for 3 o'clock. Dive Report for Sunday 15th June. Launched Joe's boat at Ardpeaton, just south of Coulport, and 7 or 8 minutes later we were ready to drop into a promising looking spot at the entrance to Loch Goil. The sounder indicated a steep slope down to beyond 50m, and so it turned out. The slope had a fairly bland muddy substrate and kept on going - we stopped at 40m and made our way diagonally back up and eventually found a rough boulder reef which began at 20m and continued on to the surface. Being an exploration dive, we pushed on to cover the ground but I did manage to pause for a moment to admire the colourful nudibranchs, grazing on some kelp.
Strachur Beach Clean A Report by Iain (Scoop) Kennedy On Sunday 8th June, Joe, Michelle, John, Tom and Iain set off for Strachur. The mission - to launch the boat, dive Adam's Reef (named after Adam Curtis who first found the reef)and tidy the beach at Strachur. All 3 parts accomplished, the rather dull morning brightened up into a very pleasant afternoon. The dive is a fairly steep solid cliff face which extends down in excess of 35m in places. There are a number of shelves, crevices, even a couple of overhangs cum small caves. The light penetration at this sort of depth was quite good and the vis was an acceptable 4 or 5m. There were plenty of dogfish, or cat sharks if you prefer, sleeping in some of the hollows and cracks. Some brightly coloured nudibranchs and a few european cowries dotted themselves around too. The water is definitely warming up - the plotter telling me it was a balmy 13 degrees. The sea was almost flat calm for our trips out and back and all in all everyone had a great day out. The beach got a good clean up with several bin bags worth gathered up and laid out for collection.We were pleased to Clean the beach area as a small "thank you" to the local community at Strachur. Later in the year, perhaps when we resume Pool sessions in August, we will have a B-B-Q and Dive.
The Summer Isles by Iain Kennedy
 Over the weekend of the 24th and 25th May a small but intrepid group set out from Clydebank intent on diving the
Summer Isles. The 20 or so islands can be found at the top left corner of the map.
Iain arrived at the digs first, having dragged the club boat behind him all the way. Keith and Pauline arrived next, followed by Joe and finally George bringing up the rear.
 The "digs" were one of the timber holiday cabins at Altandhu and it fitted the bill nicely.
First dive of the weekend took place on the west side of the ubiquitous Sgeir Dhubh, this outcrop sits just about in the middle of the group and is only the size of a tennis court, at low tide. The underwater terrain is everything you'd expect with a steep drop from 5m down to about 18m before beginning to flatten out towards the 30m mark. Some nice finds here included some brightly coloured nudibranchs and anemones which clung hard to the rock.
The charted position of a wreck gave us the entry point for the second dive which revealed another steep rock shelf just below the kelp line. A fine sheer wall extended off to the west and curved south taking us down to just less than 30m before doubling back to cover the shallower areas. No visible signs of the wreck, although we didn't seriously expect to find it first time out.
 With air enough for a quick look at Conservation Cave, on the SW corner of Tanera Beag, we found it an interesting, if shallow, 3rd dive. The cave shows signs of weather erosion, and subsequent raising of the bedrock has lifted some of the weird formation clear of all but the worst storms. The cave walls are worn very smooth and its easy to picture the large round boulders, which litter the cave floor, being swirled around in the surge.Sunday saw us diving the north wall of Isle Martin. A stunning cliff face which plunges straight down from about 50-80metres above the surface to scary depths below. The terrain changes every 50m or so between
 sheer rock face and tumbledown broken boulder slope. Nooks and crannies abound here, and the only worrying feature was the eerie lack of fish life on show, save for a solitary wrasse and the odd squatty. Maybe its a seasonal blip.Was it worth the effort? Absolutely, even just for the geology lesson.
In the Conservation Cave photo above, you can just see Joe McInally swimming around the cave. We thought about leaving him there.
The Hill-walking in the area is also superb. The scenery of the area is fantastic. Some of us climbed Conival, Ben More Assynt, Stac Pollaidh and Suilven. The first two hills are "Munros" - hills over 3000feet. The weather was almost perfect all week with horizon to horizon sunshine and a light Easterly breeze. Just a bit of rain on Wednesday to remind us about reality. (Webmaster)
11th May 2008 Diving Officer Brian Tierney reports. A warm, sunny, clear day with calm water meant that the popular Loch Long and Loch Fyne sites were indeed popular, so 4 of us had to travel to The tide was dropping as we arrived at the site, also known as the Lobster Spot or Triple Reef, so it was a stumble to the water. As many will know, there are 3 rock faces-one at 10metres approx, one at 20 metres and a third at 30 metres. We had two dives and spent the first at both the 20 metre & 10 metre rock faces and all of the second dive at the 10 metre face. The shallower rock wall is by far the most interesting with plenty of crevasses, small tunnels and nooks & crannies for the fish life, which usually consists of Goldsinny Wrasse, Pollock, Saithe, and the larger Ballan and Cuckoo Wrasses. They are often looking to divers for food as some divers unfortunately break open Sea Urchins to feed the Wrasse. Not a good idea to kill one form of life for another. On Sunday we also spotted a Conger Eel under the big rock ledge on the sand at 10 metres. This shallow reef/rock face is an excellent training site as it isn’t too deep plus most of the interesting life is on this shallower site, however, as today, there can occasionally be strong “back eddy” currents depending on the state of the tides.
Dive report for Sunday 4th May. Iain Kennedy writes: Joe and I managed along to Loch Long, and despite the drizzly conditions got 2 dives at different sites along the shore road. The first site is not a frequent dive site, the reasons for that became clear once we got under the surface. The surface arrangements looked promising, good parking and a short walk down a well established path to the shore. It seems to be a spot frequented by the anglers as there was plenty of evidence of their recent occupation. We reckon they had just left prior to our arrival as much of their debris floated away on the incoming tide. Anyway, the need for a couple of dives before the Summer Isles trip, spurred us into action and we descended through about 20m of murk, over a fairly featureless, muddy slope before the vis cleared up enough for us to spread out a few feet and search for something, anything, to look at. We finned for about 8 minutes to the north before reversing direction and going for 15 - 16 minutes to the south, so covering about the same distance in either direction. Not much to report. The best of the dive was all at the 5m contour line where the loose rocky scree provided some cover for the wildlife. Unfortunately, the vis was poorest at that depth and we felt our way along as well as we were able. Navigation was good, as we popped up right at the entry point.
Driving up the road as far as the junction with the Glen Douglas road, we stopped and dropped in here for a second dive. Conditions were similar to the first, maybe a slight improvement. Almost at once Joe spotted a large lobster at 20m, hopelessly tangled in monofilament and anchored to the rocks by some strands. Although powerful looking, there was almost no life left in him at all, he couldn't really move his big claws and there was only feeble movement from the little tiddly things under the tail. He looked fairly old and had plenty of marine growth on the shell. I've no idea how long he had been stuck in this postion but he had obviously suffered from the ordeal. I don't recall ever seeing a lobster with mussels growing on it (maybe someone can correct me), and he had quite a few. Some of them were getting to be quite a size. He even had little mussels taking root where his eyes used to be. I don't know if I did the right thing, but I took the decision to end it for him. The remainder of the dive was fairly uneventful and overshadowed a bit by the poor old lobby. (There is a photo of him from my phone camera above). Incidentally, I've recently been in touch with the Marine Conservation Society and they are very keen to gather evidence of entanglements, whether its crabs, lobsters, birds, or whatever. If anyone has a camera, and is of a mind to flag the problem up, try to get a shot of it for them.  Weather promising but a none existent Fuel shortage happening, so maybe we shouldn’t go far!
20th April 2008
Again, the visibility at the
Sunday 6th April "The Best Laid Plans......." Five members set out today to dive at Ardgarten reef on Loch Long. The weather conditions were giving some cause for concern, so the original plan of diving from the boat at The weather did indeed play a part in the day's events as the wind had created some areas of surf along the shore and this was making visibility, particularly at the surface, very poor. Below about 5m the horizontal vis did improve a bit, which enabled the divers to descend towards the reef. We noticed, however, that below 20m the vis started to close in again and in conjunction with the reduced light levels at that depth conspired to hinder our ability to maintain effective contact. There were points during the dive when all 5 divers were out of touch with their respective buddies and divers would hook up with whoever was in the vicinity at any particular moment. Clearly this sort of activity wasn't sustainable and everyone decided, more or less at the same time, to abort the dive. Conditions were less than perfect for photographers and sight-seers alike and so the dive was cut short. Small instances of bad luck seemed to affect everyone at some point with dive lights failing, cameras malfunctioning and finally neck and cuff seals leaking. Divers present were: Keith Waugh, George Kinniburgh, Tom Burke, Graeme Hollinsworth and Iain Kennedy. Iain Kennedy Branch Sec.
Sunday 30th March 2008
Three divers braved the heavy showers on Sunday and ventured up to Anchor Point on the east With some ScotSAC members from Viscious roumors that Tom had forgotted his dry suit again are entirely unfounded and constitute a dreadful slur on his good name. He just felt it more important to drive all the way up there and ensure that Surface cover, First Aid officer and the Dive marshal's seat was occupied. Visibility around the reef was down to about 3m, partly due to silt being kicked up by the divers already in the water. Iain and Gordon still managed a 40 minute dive at various depths but mostly around the 20m mark and discovered plenty of atlantic prawns congregating around some of the overhangs and gullys. Some european cowries around and, in the shallows, nudibranchs of all colours. We even managed to capture one of those little dark coloured squat lobsters (who took a liking to Gordons fancy Mares jacket) before setting him free again. The second dive was conducted down the north side of the rock formation and although the horizontal visibility was similar, the light was still able to penetrate down below 20m, making conditions on the reef fairly bright. A couple of small congers and a lovely marbled Scorpion fish (am I correct in thinking it might have been a male?) guarding a huge clutch of eggs. A great photo opportunity for those that way inclined. Temperature was the usual 8 degrees C for this time of year, roll on the summer. Iain Kennedy Branch Sec. Monday 24th March 2008-George Kinniburgh, Joe McInally & Keith Waugh went on an exploratory dive to Portavadie, lower Loch Fyne. The Great Scallop in the photo tried to hide in the sandy/gravel bottom, but the white rim of chemico-receptors gave it away! |
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After our last visit to The Slates, several members who had not been on the trip on the 3rd August were keen to have a look at the site. The day was very gloomy as we headed across Rannoch Moor and down Glen Coe. Buchaille Etive Mor was invisible in the mist and cloud. However, remarkably the day brightened considerably as we arrive at Glen Coe village. By the time the first dive finished the weather was positively tropical(well almost).
“The Slates” in Loch Leven is a new dive site to most in 
2000th. We had a large chocolate cake and some none alcoholic Buck’s Fizz. (Well, we were Diving and Driving). Nevertheless it seemed to go down well.
The party went ashore for sun-bathing and lunch on the east side of Eileach An Naoima and after a siesta we all suited up again, swam back out to the boat anchored in the bay and headed the short distance down to one of the best dives in the Garvellachs, at Sgeirean Dubh on the extreme SE corner of Eileach An Naoima.
Diving today encompassed the 2 popular sites on the east 
which time I had half a dozen dives in warm, clear blue waters, with caves, tunnels, reefs and cliff faces covered in colourful still life, and a reasonable number of colourful but timid sub-tropical fish, I couldn’t wait to get back to the west coast sea lochs. I’d forgotten what they were like. 
On the surface, the whole team met up to discuss the next move. George and Keith deciding to head up towards St Catherine's, while the remainder of the big group took a turn at South Gortein.
Iain Kennedy writes:
The rain started during the surface interval and remained on for the rest of the day. We weren't bothered though, and sheltering under the truck's little canopy, lunch was soon underway at Joe's Counrty Kitchen.
Ah what the heck! We headed up to Loch Fyne in glorious sunshine. On the way Ali’s Reef (Conger Alley) had about 12 cars and vans parked and plenty of divers. So much for the Fuel crisis! What crisis! The reef just south of 
Glorious day but with a cold NE breeze Force 3-4, the wind restricted us to a boat dive at Adam’s Reef & Kenmore Village South Cliff face in Loch Fyne. Visibility not good at 2-3metres, neither was the water temperature at 7 degrees C. Spring-ish tides so the bottom of the cliff at Adam’s Reef was 32metres. Unfortunately there were few fish about though plenty Squat Lobsters. In shallow water, 10metres, several delicate nudibranchs-Coryphella lineata, (left) about 3cms long made the dive worthwhile. They really look vivid in the beam of a Light Canon.
2008
George & Joe had never been to the area and Keith had not been to the area for 25years, since the Fabrication Basin was constructed but never came to be used for Oil Rig Fitting Out. We planned to dive Eilean Buidhe or Eilean a' Bhuic but as the wind was Northerly Force 5 we had difficulty making headway in Joe's boat so George & Keith dived Eilean Buidhe's south east corner. Visibility was quite good at 4metres but it took a long swim around the west side to get any depth. Eventually we found 16metres. Unfortunately there was very little life-mainly Crabs, Squat Lobster, scallops, a few anemones and "minnows" and the seabed was crushed coral type structures. A few rocky reefs with certainly the potential for fish life come the Summer(we hope). There seem to be a number of possible good sites in the area, east & west sides of the Loch, but only accessible when the conditions are calm. New Marina Complex at Portavadie is being developed for the Yachting fraternity. Looks expensive!! Our dive was 40 minutes, max depth 16.5metres. Thank goodness Easter will never be this early again - for 150 years!!
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All Photos Copyright ©of Keith Waugh unless otherwise stated
