barbeque Saucy

It's been another great diving week...

On Tuesday evening, a group of us headed through to Eyemouth to join Alex, Don Lees at al. aboard the Aquanaut again. This time, the conditions were perfect. We had a fantastic dive at Hawkness Caves and a nice drink & chat in the pub afterwards. Was a very long day but well worth it.

Saturday brought a trip that I'd been anticipating for a few weeks. Gus & I headed across the Forth to the Kingdom of Fife. We reached the Dive Bunker in Burntisland in good time & met up with the rest of our group. We were diving from their massive RIB which involves getting kitted up & climbing into the boat & getting towed a few hundred yards on the road before even hitting the water. The ride out to the dive site (about a mile in 2 minutes) was absolutely exhilarating!

First dive was the HMS Campania. This wreck has an amazing history. Launched in 1892 as the RMS Campania & commissioned as a Cunard liner, she was winner of the Blue Riband for fastest Atlantic crossing, first ship to have a Marconi radio installed & the world's first aircraft carrier! She sank in 1918 just before WW1 ended and at that time was a naval vessel.

The viz wasn't great but the scale of this wreck has to be seen to be believed... massive! We saw a tiny proportion of it before our computers lapsed into deco prompting our ascent under our delayed SMBs.

Back to port for cylinder changing & lunch. Then back out at high velocity to the site of a WW2 wreck this time: HMS Saucy.

Gus led on what was to be his 250th dive. Viz was a bit better. On descending the shotline we immediately identified the deck gun festooned in plumose anemones. We made a nice tour of the wreck, trying to rescue an edible crab from netting en route. With 12 divers on this relatively small armoured tug, the viz suffered. The consummate wrecky that he is, Gus found his way back to the shotline in zero viz & we ascended. A brilliant day's diving rounded off with some great craic in the pub.

As I entered the pub, I received a call from Gord inviting us for a day of diving & barbeque at Anchor Bay on the following day with him & his wife Helen. Sarah & the kids were keen so we collected some cylinders & I got the kit ready while Sarah sorted out everything else (I got the good deal I guess).

Sunday was a fantastic day. Cloudy at home but sunny when we arrived at Loch Fyne. I had a brilliant couple of dives with Gord's pal Kash, collecting some juicy squatties for the BBQ during the first dive. On the 2nd dive we spotted a couple of big dogfish (or possibly the same one twice) and some big congers. There is an amazingly deep vertical crevice which contained a shoal of fish & a big conger at its base. We could see the whole length of the conger within its lair.

Sarah dived with Gord & Helen. They had some great diving too. Gord completed his 300th logged dive: congratulations to him!

The only downside was the infestation of midges at the lay-by. Absolutely awful! We escaped from the site as soon as we'd dekitted & headed to the Creagans for drinks & log book filling.

What a brilliant weekend: my 4th weekend of boat diving in a row!

Unfortunately that's all of my scheduled boat dives completed now but maybe we'll sneak in the occasional one at some point.