Under Pressure

I met up with Billy from the Scotsac Club I am a member (Cumbernauld Sub Aqua) of at 10.30am (we had arranged a late start to suit us both). Billy took his nice new shiny van and I lay half dead in the passenger seat. After finally getting my ND Divemaster suit back from Aquatron and ND after my complaints that it wasnt exactly a drysuit but more a teabag, I decided to give it a try out.

I changed over the inflator hose as this is an apeks and my OThree suit has a Si-tech connector.

Conger Alley was like a very busy high street with at least another 12 -20 divers milling around, starting dives or just finishing dives.

In we get and start the dive, as soon as I go to take the squeeze off in my suit the inflator (which I was told was replaced) let water in and I got soaked!

Chilled and cold I thumbed the dive, We missed the reef due to my pilot error and we seen nothing but one schoal of little fish which came right up to us and went around us, the rest of the dive was spent shivering and looking at the scree bottom.

Im going to get a new inflator for the ND and get the suit sold, no point keeping it as it just doesnt get on with me at all!

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26 Minutes, Max Depth 23 Metres.

Dives this year: 73
Total Dives: 93
Total Dive time: 63 Hours 49 Minutes

Popularity: unranked [?]

Another wet, dark & cold Scottish Tuesday evening.
Paul & I head off to Loch Long again.

I know its the easy option but when you have a Sea Loch just over an hours drive then sometimes you need to take advantage and get a sneaky post work dive in, so thats exactly what we did.

Paul had not dived Conger Alley before but as we had done the caves and GDRE over the last month or so together and Conger is a much easier site it wasnt going to be a problem at all.

I had only led a dive at Conger once before with Gareth and didnt have any trouble.

We downloaded the site info from www.congeralley.com yet again and discussed the dive plan.

At 7pm its practically Pitch dark, wo we dropped a weighted strobe off near the entry point in about a metre of water to help us navigate back in the dark.

In we went, headed down to 26 Metres and came across the bottom edge of the reef, due to the wet weather and the streams that feed in to Loch long the first part fo the dive had some opretty dodgy viz with the fresh rain water mixing with the sea water of the loch.

After about 15 Metres the viz started to clear and as no other divers had been in the water we got around 5-8 metres of clear but dark water to see what was going on.

The reef at Conger actually looked very calming and pleasent we slowly worked our way up the reef seeing the usual, Conger Eel, Squat Lobster, Edible Crabs, Mackerl, Pollack, Anenomes, tube worms and normal West coast stuff.

Quite a chilled we dive with not a lot of life but enough to keep us entertained.

Surfaced after 39 Minutes with a max depth of 26.9 Metres. Water temp was between 12oC & 13oC.

I dived using the twin tens and used the D9 for the first time.

We surfaced about 15 metres too short along the coast and just swam back to the strobe.

Dive Stats:

Dive 92: In 19:09, Duration 39 Minutes.
Twin Tens Dived on AIR (IN: 220Bar out: 130 Bar).
6KG of weight carried, O Three suit, Mares Fins.

Profile overview:

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Dives this year: 72
Total Dives: 92
Total Dive time: 63 Hours 23 Minutes

Popularity: 3% [?]

This is beginning to become part of my regular dive schedule, yet another Tuesday evening dive.

This time Paul & I met up with Stewart & Chris to dive at GDRE.

Neither Paul or myself had dived this site before and the only site guide available on Conger Alley, unusually didnt include a site map. (Conger Alley is a great Scottish Dive forum, very friendly with some excellent site guides)

After a quick discussion with Stewart and Chris, we created a really informal dive plan whilst Stu and Chris planned, deeper, longer and mixed gas ascents making us look like complete cowboys.

Our simple plan was go in, head right for 20 minutes at 25-30 Metres, turn around and come back shallower for another twenty minutes, gradually ascending to off gas.

I am back on air as a back gas and have dumped the twin 12’s in favour of twin 10’s.

I havent got my stage rigged up yet and my spare first stage hasnt got back to me from being adjusted so no deco gas available for me.

I have dumped two kg’s of weight as well, the 10’s are much easier to carry from the car over the barriers and down the stupid hill to the entry point. It is pretty dark and its sure to eb Pitch black by the time we get outso I weight a strobe at the edge of shore to help us navigate back at the end of the dive.

After a quick buddy check on the surface Paul and I head in and downwards, we settle for most of the outbound dive at around 25 Metres although I dip down to 33 at one point for a nice little cluster of anenomes and consider dropping down further then remember the plan. Stewart had told us about a large lobster at at around 23 Metres but we cant find it. The water is pretty clear although its dark, I reckon 8 Metres of Viz maybe even more. Lots of little gobbi’s, Hermit Crabs, Prawns and some Pollack & mackeral. the odd wrasse and a few squat lobsters.

Most of the outbound dive is a scree slope with the odd little reef or wall.

After 20 minutes we start our ascent to 12 Metres and turn around, this is the only point the viz is kicked up as we get a bit close to the scree and make a right soup of the water. At Shallower depths there is a lot mroe to see and we then ascent to 6 Metres and work our way back, at forty minutes we meet Chris and Stu who are just surfacing. we join them haev a quick gab and point out that the strobe is a good twenty metres on from the point they decided was the exit.

After a surface swim we all get back to the right bit of shoreline marked by the strobe.

Off to the Village Inn at Arrochar for a quick pint then down the road.

Dive 91: 40 Minutes, Max Depth 33.2 Metres. Air in 210 Bar, Air out 140 Bar.

Total Dive time: 62 Hours 44 Minutes.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Yet another evening dive after work, this time quickly arranged via Yorkshire-Divers and Congeralley.com with Gareth who yet again I had never met but had a few online chats with about various diving related subjects.

Gareth hadnt dived the Caves before and has less dives logged than myself, I decided I wasnt comfortable leading that dive as a night dive so we headed off to Conger Alley.

It was pretty late by the time we got kitted up and ready to go so we got in the water at 20:19. plenty of little crabs all along the shore on entry so it was haping up to be a decent dive full of life and Conger Alley didnt disappoint us. A great wee dive with plenty of life, two Conger eels, plenty of Pollack, loads of crabs, shrimps, a Flat fisjh, lots of Blennys and an easy dive.

I decided to sit on the sea bed at 23 metres , turn out my torch and play with the luminescent plankton, superb fun and almost spot on the reef the whole dive.

I got pretty bad cramp right at the end of the dive and strained myself a bit with it but aaprt from that I enjoyed this chilled out dive and hopefully will get a chance to dive with Gareth another time.

Dive stats: Dive 90, Duration 48 Minutes, 12oC Water temp. Max Depth 23.8 Metres.

Total dive time logged: 62 Hours 04 Minutes.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Dived with a top bloke who I had never met before, Paul Hindley the DO of Atherton SAA Club.

We are in the middle of a new printing services project at work and Paul works for the supplier Oce’. Paul and I had a quick chat last week on the phone, discovered we both dived and arranged to go a wee dive after work.

Left work, got Paul’s gear from the hotel and off we headed to the Caves at Loch Long.

This was the first time I had led a dive at the Caves and my first time diving with Paul who has over thirty years diving experience so I was a little nervous.

I forgot my hood and gloves which didnt get us off to a good start, luckily Paul had spare gloves and I had dived Crotia at 13oC without a hood so decided to give it a try anyway.

It was getting very dark when we got to the Caves at 18:30 hours. I set up a strobe and weighted it down near the entrance / exit. the tide was out and it was a clear night.

Diving the twin 12’s manifolded with EAN32 and Paul was diving a single 15 with Air.

We did a simple buddy check going through all kit and I gave Paul a brief of the site from memory, explained that we would go down to about 25 metres, keep the reef on our left and after about 20 minutes we would come across the scree slope and follow it up to around 12 metres then turn and head back, planned runtime around 40 minutes.

Nice little dive almost exactly to plan, with one minor incident that we should have spotted during the buddy check!

On descent at six metres Paul noticed he hadnt connected his drysuit inflator hose, so I went behind him and passed it round, he connected it whilst submerged and away we went to contiue the dive. I was kicking myself for this as I had initiated the buddy check and should have noticed that!

The dive was pretty good with a fair amount of crabs, prawns, a free swimming conger, plenty Gobbi’s and teh usual scenec undersea cliff faces with the anenomes. After 22 minutes at 25 metres we came across the scree slope exactly as planned, we ascended to 12 metres and turned to head back along the shallower reefs. At 39 minutes we found the strobe done our safety stop and surfaced.

All the gear in the car and back to Paul’s hotel for a quick pint, a lovely wee evening dive well worth the afterwork chill time.

Dive 89: 19:05 entry, Duration 44 Mines, Max Depth 26.5 Metres Viz 3-10 Metres (In torch as it was dark, this is normal at the caves).

Total dive time to date: 61 Hours 16 Minutes.

Popularity: 22% [?]