Waterfront: a great energetic start to the show which got the audience going immediately. A lot of Italian banter from Jim that really engaged with the crowd
Up on the Catwalk: well received revival of this classic from over 30 years ago
See the Lights: an emotional rendition
Celebrate: Catherine AD was effective on vocals for "She rag doll" verse
Blindfolded: amazing when the guitar kicked in
Mandela Day [acoustic]: beautiful restrained new version
Promised You a Miracle: these 3 songs were quite short but still strong
Rivers of Ice [performed by Catherine AD]: perfectly delivered vocals and keys
Dolphins: powerful version but Charlie had technical problems with White Falcon guitar
Don't You (Forget About Me): say no more! They took a 15 min break to allow the band some refreshments and Jim a wardrobe change...
Book of Brilliant Things: Sarah Brown started the vocals following the intermission until Jim appeared from the back to kick in with "Five to One" vocals. The drums have been fully reinstated and Mel gave it 100% power
This Fear of Gods: great to hear this faithful version
Honest Town: great combo of electronics with drum power. An instant classic.
Banging on the Door: the introduction was pretty much from the album before the full live version took over. Sounded great!
Someone Somewhere in Summertime: classic version
Once Upon a Time: these 2 from 1985 were short but sweet
All the Things She Said: Jim made some cheeky faces behind Sarah's back: quite mischievous!
Let There Be Love: it was great to hear this again live. A special moment for Sarah and I who were at the front as Jim seemed to point at us dancing cheek to cheek and mouthed "you two"! That's how it appeared to me anyway!
Midnight Walking: audience were fully into this rock version
Let It All Come Down: A false start! Jim missed his vocal mark and the band then stopped. He admitted sheepishly that he couldn't find his mic in the darkness and christened himself Mr Magoo (after the poorly sighted cartoon character)! The restart was successful and the emotion was not diminished. Jim seemed genuinely overwhelmed by the sentiment; as were we...
At the end, Jim was talking Italian and missed his out cue, so Andy repeated the music to allow his final words. Perfecto!
Encore
Big Music: another clothing style change by Jim to get the encore going
Alive and Kicking: pretty perfect version
Sanctify Yourself: ideal climax to an exceptional gig
Theme For Great Cities (Outro Tape): the band took their bows but Jim didn't want to leave. He continued dancing (including hand-jiving!) and even dragged Charlie back on briefly.
"All good things come to an end." A simple saying but one that harbours quite a profoundly poignant & inescapable reality as we all know.
"As one door closes, another opens." Not always the case in my experience, but it is strange how often things seem to follow an ordered plan.
What's all this gibbering leading to?
Basically, I'm done with Scottish diving! Sad but true. Kit is rinsed & dried & stowed away... no diving planned. But I'm not too despondent as "there's light at the end of the tunnel"!
So, we're moving to Norway. I start my new job in Stavanger next Monday. Going to miss Scotland though... family, friends, colleagues... and buddies (no... not the residents of Scotland's largest town... but the diving type)!
I'm very grateful to everyone who participated in my leaving events: both drinking & diving (but not both together)! Probably the less said about karaoke the better. They were certainly enjoyable & almost memorable. We had a great diving weekend at the Slates & Kenmore including much of note:
I decided to do the longest surface swim in history chasing a run-away SMB & ended up being rescued by a passing fish farm boat
Pippa qualified as a Sport Diver
Our boat dive for Sunday from Dunbar to the Bass Rock was cancelled due to rough seas (at least I'd got that boat dive the day before)!
I forgot my suit but we still went to Kenmore & got my deepest dive yet (45m)
We had a pleasant sing-song on the way back in the bus & stopped for pints & chips in Inverary (but where was the famous landslide?)
This all left me not knowing if I would fit in another dive as work became a bit hectic
Still, my number one buddy helped me sneak a couple of relaxing night dives at the Caves, Loch Long on Sunday. Gus took pity on me as I was sitting on 98 dives for 2007 so he helped me reach the ton. Thoroughly enjoyed them... leisurely and rewarding; just a shame that we didn't spot Beryl the seal but you can't have everything.
So I feel quite contented to have reached my target of 100 this year as I don't know if I'll manage any in Norway imminently. But upon checking my log book I've realised that another motivation has shown itself to get me diving in Scandinavia as soon as I can. My compiled logged dive time is now sitting at 167 hours & 36 minutes: that's 24 measly minutes shy of a full week under water. Just as well that I didn't know that before Sunday or I would have been freezing gus' 'nads for a few precious minutes more!
One thing's for sure: I'm going to miss SUSAC. But as Marks once said (Groucho not Karl!), "I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members!"
It's funny how many dives I've had where there was a single defining moment that was subsequently indelibly imprinted on my psyche. In fact, it's scary just how much of each dive I seem to immediately forget upon surfacing. Is this due to nitrogen narcosis or just plain senility starting to take hold? Anyway, it often seems that there's a special event - whether it's an encounter with an unfamiliar species or spotting a particularly impressive underwater feature or even a mishap - that sticks in my mind for days to come.
Last night's dive was a case in point.
Sometimes it just feels as if something's destined to be good. I felt that last week when we visited Ness Ends, Eyemouth for a night dive but was bitterly disappointed that Murphy's Law kicked in: a buddy with kit problems , heavy swell, poor life & dodgy navigation... not the ideal combination. Our Hallowe'en dip in Loch Long fortunately redressed the balance this week: it felt like it was going to be good & it turned out to be even better!
Glen Douglas Road End is the kind of site that can offer a fantastic dive or alternatively it can sometimes be rather mediocre. All depends on the conditions, the path followed & the life seen. We followed a nice route down the scenic drop-offs to our maximum depth of 30m. The steady ascent beside the wall was great but the truly special moment was keeping itself for the safety stop. Frazer (who is becoming a bit of a genius at finding great fish) spotted an interesting specimen associated with a bit of seaweed passing by at 3m. He gently guided it towards gus & me. We were mesmerized by this vibrantly coloured podgy little fish no more than 5 cm in length. At one point, I gently cradled it in my hand & swam to an area of clear visibilty to photograph our new friend. Unfortunately, he had taken such a shine to us that he wouldn't stay still... instead he constantly swam towards my camera lens! Still, I managed to capture a couple of snaps of this captivating little critter.
We're currently enjoying our family holiday in County Tipperary (it's a long way to go). But I would never let such a detail get in the way of enjoying some great diving. Funnily enough, the Scottish Sub-Aqua Club has a well-established & very active branch based at Limerick University. I contacted their Diving Officer & he kindly invited me along on their latest day trip to Co. Clare. I met up with the others at the predetermined location, as this is Ireland it was of course outside a pub. Being 8am though there wasn't time for a Guinness although I dare say that the locals may well have still be in there for a lock-in from the night before!
The weather was decidedly dreich, but at least it was calm. Diving the west coast of Ireland is particularly susceptible to being blown-out (much like the east coast of Scotland). After a couple of hours we arrived at our destination of Bridges of Ross on the Atlantic side of a peninsula just north of the Shannon estuary. Access was a bit tricky down some particularly slippery rocks but wasn't too bad. The tide was low meaning that we had a longer walk than might have been the case. I teamed up with Liam who led us on a glorious scenic dive.
We made our way through a forest of kelp to drop over a lip onto a pebbled seabed. Immediately, I spotted a free-roaming large common lobster: the 1st time that I've ever witnessed one of these critters out in the open. I reached for my camera, but didn't get the best of snaps. I think that Liam was slightly perplexed that I was stopping to photograph sea cucumbers, but the cotton spinner is a species that I'm not familiar with in Scotland. In fact there were many other unfamiliar creatures all around. While we were submerged, a pod of dolphins cruised past the coast, but the viz wasn't quite good enough for us to spot them unfortunately!
The visibility was 8-10 m meaning that it was possible to savour a good look around without risking buddy separation. This was the 1st time for ages that I was using only a single cylinder (I didn't want to take too much kit so left my pony at home) but Liam was a very attentive buddy meaning that I felt completely at ease. The water temperature was a bit milder than I'm accustomed to (15 °C) so I was fairly toasty in my drysuit (despite the zip leaking badly). Liam was wearing a wetsuit but still enjoyed the 40 min dive with no sign of feeling cold. Upon our return, the other group of 3 entered the water to carry out some rescue training.
Meanwhile, I changed out of my wet drysuit while Liam acted as the shore cover. Once the others came ashore we all congregated at the cars & started to get excited about our boat dive arranged for the afternoon. The calm conditions boded well for a good trip.
Unfortunately, fate conspired to throw a spanner in the works at this point. As we all sorted out our kit, the boot of Adrian's car (well actually his wife's car that he was borrowing) was closed. Its security central locking system then kindly locked the whole car down. At that exact instant it became apparent that the keys for both of the vehicles were now safely lodged in the boot! Being a modern car, there didn't appear to be any easy way of forcing any of the locks. With 3 of us standing about in wetsuits in the rather cold & damp conditions, it became evident that something had to be done. As I had changed back into my clothes, I happened to have my mobile phone in my pocket. Adrian's wife was duly called but she said that the car didn't have any emergency cover. Her spouse then bravely (?!) decided that breaking one of the windows was the best course of action.
It was decided that one of the small windows would be a better bet as replacement cost would be less. Easier said than done though! Adrian managed to dent the lead weight that he used without making an impression on the window. Pepijn then took over: he'd obviously done this kind of thing before (although maybe he wasn't quite as self-conscious about smashing the window as he might have been if it was his beloved's car)!
Once the window was breached, we unfortunately discovered that the car's security extended to electronic deadlocks meaning that the door still couldn't be opened. It was therefore necessary for the brave guys to reach through the broken window & fold down the back seat to allow access to the boot. Of course, this being Ireland, Murphy's Law continued with great aplomb as the keys were at the far edge of the boot's floor, well out of reach. Strategic use of a fence stake allowed Denny to liberate the keys from their lair and we all breathed a collective sigh of relief. It was just about this moment that my mobile phone rang. Adrian's wife had discovered that the car did have valid emergency cover after all... oops!
After all of that excitement, we trotted along the coast to the town of Kilkee and the Ocean Life dive centre for our boat dive. After a few refreshments & cylinder top-ups, we had a chat with the divemaster about our itinerary for the dive. As the conditions were calm, it was decided to try a cavern dive (about 25m) which sounded pretty enticing: replete with an exit hole leading right up to the surface. We assembled all of our kit & changed in the excellent changing rooms at the centre. Upon emerging, we found out that Murphy hadn't finished for the day. A force 4 breeze had sprung up from the NW: the worst possible direction for us. The cave dive was a definite no-no and it seemed touch and go whether we would get out at all. It appeared as if my jinx of boat diving this year had struck again... grr!
We managed to get across the bay - through some pretty lumpy seas - but the dive on offer was the 10 m deep kelp-covered reef at Newfee.
Not the most exciting of dives but still OK as the viz was 10m+. There were lots of fish about. RIB diving is always good fun anyway: the skipper did a great job.
We made our way back to Limerick only to find that flash flooding had caused a fair bit of local damage: my route back to Lough Derg (via the curry shop) was fairly treacherous with lots of surface water.
It had been a fantastic day all together. The guys from ULSAC couldn't have been more accommodating and hospitable. The Irish (and Dutch!) really are great folk: they know how to make visitors very welcome. I hope to meet up with the guys in the future & would heartily recommend the Irish diving & the Guinness & the craic!
We've been reaping the rewards of our central location over the last couple of weeks: easy access to both the west & east coasts.
I took Frazer along for a couple of evening dives to the Caves, Loch Long. This was to be his first time at this site, which I would say is only for "grown-up divers". He's done a few dives over the last months & has good buoyancy control so he was well up for it. It was a decent evening when we arrived at the layby which was fortunately empty. Not too many midges as we kitted up. In my infinite wisdom, I'd decided not to take my camera as I'd found in the past that poor viz there makes photography difficult. Big mistake! The viz was superb: 10 metres+!!
We dropped down the wall to about 26m and pottered our way along. In the good viz, it was possible to explore areas of the rock formations that I'd never seen before. Lots of life including congers, lobsters, edible crabs and my first ever Yarrell's blenny! Damn, I wish that I'd taken my camera.
Second dive was a bit shallower (21m) meaning that we saw a completely different vista. The site is just so complex that you could explore it for weeks & still not see it all. Lots of fishing line about though which is a bit of a bind. When we surfaced after the 2nd dive we started swimming the wrong way, so had a 40 min surface swim... we were absolutely knackered... and the pub had shut... big disappointment, but still a corking evening.
Conger eel at Conger Alley
Last week, I met up with stew & fran from congeralley.com appropriately enough at Conger Alley, Loch Long (we would have dived the Caves but it was busy with anglers). Had my best dive ever at the site. We spent quite a bit of time at the deep reef, spotting a Yarrell's blenny, a dogfish, big congers & lobsters amongst lots of other life on the way up. Nice pint in the Village Inn preceded a long drive home (the A83 was blocked... again)!
Yarrell's blenny at St Abbs
I've also been lucky to revisit St Abbs harbour on a few occasions recently. Am starting to get a bit more familiar with the underwater topography now, having found Cathedral Rock on several occasions, and circumnavigated Broad Craig, Little Green Carr & Big Green Carr. Finally got some decent photos of a Yarrell's blenny. Plus, we spotted an amazing lumpsucker: what an incredible fish! Again, I guided Frazer on his first dive at the site & he seemed to love it. It's hard to beat as far as shore dives go!
I'm starting to wonder... is there any such thing as a bad Scottish scuba diving site?
At first consideration it would seem obvious. Some diving sites are great and some are mince. But is it that simple? OK, the Gareloch wrecks are never going to compare favourably with the Hispania but maybe things aren't always back & white: certainly in Scotland they're often green & grey!
I used to accept without question the general consensus within our club that some sites are crap and are not really worth a dive except for training purposes. Finnart was maligned. The even mention of diving in a quarry was poo-pooed as being brass monkey-freezing puddle diving & pointless. Now, through experience, I realise what really was crap... the closed-minded attitude of these so-called experienced divers. The sad thing is that some of these guys were my instructors when I was a trainee diver. The fact that none of them are active Scottish divers anymore sums it up... they'd lost their enthusiasm, their verve, their love of green water diving. How tragic.
another dive in a boring site?
Will it happen to me? I hope not. But you never know. Things change, life moves on & sometimes priorities change demoting certain pursuits to the scrap heap. Certainly at the moment, I couldn't contemplate not having a burning desire to dive in our waters so I hope that it will remain for years to come. I've been lucky enough to dive with equally enthusiastic buddies who've been at it for decades, so there's no reason to assume that everyone's interest gets jaded with time.
Anyway, getting back to the premise. Good site bad site?
Apparently it depends on a number of factors. Some are obvious: the viz, the temperature, the tide, currents etc. But then what about your buddy pairing, your mood that day, the dive plan, your kit? Many factors can conspire to make a particular dive sublime or a waste of time.
A case in point is our diving on Sunday. We participated in the ScotSAC Summer Solstice Dive at Furnace Tearoom, Loch Fyne. It takes a couple of hours to get to the site from our house, so it's one of the furthest options for a day trip. A lot of divers regard it as a "training only" site, not having merit for the more experienced diver. I was pretty much of that opinion myself but thought that it would be a pleasant social event. In particular, one of our ex-members from 10 years ago was coming all the way from Warrington to join us, so it seemed very little effort for us to turn out.
On arriving at the site we were greeted by Kevin Miller (ScotSAC NDO) and parked the car under a tree to gain some shade from the powerful sunshine. Frazer & I kitted up & entered the water. On the surface swim he complained of a leaky neck-seal. "It'll be OK", I told him (woose). We submerged & did a quick bubble check at 3m. He inflated his suit, only for streams of bubbled to spew from a 1cm hole in the middle of the neck seal. Oops! Thumbs up & ashore we went. Not the best start but never mind. As Frazer sorted out another suit from the generous guys of Clydebank SSAC branch, Mark got ready & splashed with me.
We made our way to the headland & kept to the lower edge of the reef. The viz was OK (about 4-5m) although it was reduced to about 1m for a short while (other divers about I guess). The dive was one of those really enjoyable ones. Relaxing, satisfying, invigorating. The life on offer was standard sea loch fauna but it was just an all round pleasurable experience. Not deep. Not pushing the envelope. Just immensely gratifying. Mark was an attentive buddy, he kept close, snapping away with his camera as he went. I didn't have to search for him, he just stayed where he should be but with out us bumping into each other.
Mark:
The second dive was even more enjoyable. We walked to the far end of the headland & finned all of the way around it. We spotted the renowned (very thick-bodied) conger eel as well as a sizeable edible crab & many friendly wrasse. I was pleased with my navigation (OK it's not exactly difficult!), bringing us up just a few metres from the metal slip.
The others also had some great dives. Sarah in particular seemed really enthusiastic. She completed some Master Diver training with Dot, and was really contented with her achievements. Quite rightly so: Dot said that she did very well.
So all in all, I'm still of the opinion that just about any dive is worth doing. Some people might not agree with me but each to their own.
Today saw the culmination of a lot of planning, considerable consultation & a bit of luck.
I'd been keen on diving the wreck of the SS Kintyre since I first read the excellent dive site guide over 6 months ago on congeralley by John Nicolson (of finstrokes fame... or is that infamy!). As John rightly stated, this dive is not one to be taken lightly for a number of reasons:
depth: the wreck lies with its bow in about 30m depth pointing towards the shore while its stern is about 50m deep.
distance: as a boat dive this wouldn't be such an undertaking but it is a long swim from the shore: adding to fatigue, alongside gas consumption and nitrogen saturation.
currents: strong tidal flow can lead to potentially dangerous down-currents.
I'd been planning this dive for a considerable time: in fact it was one of the prime motivations for establishing my twin 12L tank set up. From consultation with Stewart & Gord, I'd managed to estimate our dive profile & fed these data into Decochek software to predict the decompression requirements. Today was an ideal choice for diving the wreck as there were neap tides meaning minimal potential currents. The weather was also kind: minimal wind & no waves: hence the luck.
Our family made our way to Wemyss Bay, arriving as planned at 13:00. Gus & Rachel were already in attendance & had checked out the access. We parked beside the pumping station. The wreck lies over a hundred metres from the shore. The dive plan is to swim out along the sewage pipe until about 26m where a rope is tied which leads to the bow of the wreck. We'd been led to believe that the sewage pipe was now disused despite conspicuous whirring noises from the pumping station & a definite whiff of effluent in the air!
Access to the rocky shore was a bit tricky, especially with the tide being so low. After a bit of scrambling, we made our way over the last few slippery boulders into the open sea. We swam in front of the pumping station where Gus spotted the pipe submerged a few metres below. We swam out along it for 20m before signalling to the shore & making our descent. After a quick bubble check we finned along the right (north) side of the pipe. Almost immediately my buddy found a fantastic dogfish which he nabbed & tried to shove down my BCD for no apparent reason. I eased the hapless elasmobranch free & had a look at this splendid creature. I turned it on its back & it duly curled in a ring with it head nuzzled into its tail. I was too preoccupied with our mission at this point to bother with liberating my camera from its pouch although I did turn the fish the right way up before venturing on!
The pipe is quite glorious in its own right: covered in multicoloured anemones with many crabs & squat lobsters in evidence (for some reason I didn't feel like collecting them for supper... sewage... yum!). The slope of the seabed is quite gentle until about 15m depth meaning that a great distance had to be covered. Fortunately, Gus & I are keen octopush players so it wasn't too demanding (although I must add that he is much fitter then me!).
Eventually the slope steepened a bit & before we knew it we spotted the rope secured to the pipe at about 26m depth. Of course, this was at low tide; at high tide it would be in 30m depth or so. By this point the green well lit water of the shallows had transformed into pitch darkness. While the visibility in the shallows was in the order of 5m, along the rope it was more like 3m. This was still quite respectable & made keeping contact with the guide line & my buddy relatively easy.
The rope sags down between its tethering points, brushing the sea bed at one point, but is mostly mid-water. About half way along its length I was starting to get excited in anticipation of finally glimpsing this famous ship wreck. However, I noticed that Gus was waving his torch beam about in front of me signalling that something was amiss. I glanced to find him, only to see him hovering about 2m above me with his bright light dazzling me. I headed up & he gestured that he had pain in his frontal sinuses & wanted to ascend.
Oh well, I thought, we almost made it but never mind.
We retraced our fin strokes along the rope back to the pipe & followed it up for a few metres. At his point Gus signalled that all was fine & he wanted to descend again. The show was back on! We hadn't lost much time with regard to my dive plan, so we made our way again down the pipe & along the rope. The anticipation was really quite palpable for me this time. I was peering at the limit of my torch beam just waiting for a treasured glimpse of a recognisable structure. The rope started to follow an apparently increasingly steep path suggesting that our goal was approaching.
And then at last there it was: the bow!
The SS Kintyrewas constructed in 1868. She came to grief in 1907 when the Maori on speed trials collided with her. The captain & engineer tried to guide her ashore but when the boilers exploded she went down rapidly. The captain survived but the engineer was sadly lost.
There was certainly no mistaking the feature of the wreck that the rope was fixed to: her clipper style bow was highly distinctive. After touching the structure (why did I feel compelled to do that?) I felt mesmerised for a moment. Success! Well not quite yet, but at least things were going to plan. We finned along the port side of the vessel peering down into the holds & admiring the life adorning its rusting remains. At 35m depth, we were roughly a quarter of the way along its length but that was quite enough for this occasion. Surprisingly, I didn't perceive any effects of nitrogen narcosis during the dive. We crossed the deck to starboard and made our way back towards the bow. Gus ducked down into one of the holds while I illuminated his exit. That lad is becoming more of a wreck aficionado with each successive dive!
There was no problem finding the bow again & the rope attached to it. Following the rope back was no hassle either & before we knew it we were pipe-diving again. On the way back up, with slack water abating, noticeable currents were buffeting us about. As previously reported, these varied in direction at different depths, with some mild down-currents in evidence. We kept to the north side of the pipe & were sheltered from the incoming tidal wash. Our computers indicated that we had minimal decompression requirements: 1 min at 3m according to mine but we still carried out our plan of stopping for 3 min at 6m & 9 min at 3m to purge as much dissolved nitrogen as we could from our tissues before surfacing. Before we knew it we were swimming to shore, thoroughly satisfied with a great day of diving. Hard work but most definitely worthwhile!
