167'36"

"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:

1. 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
2. Pippa qualified as a Sport Diver
   
3. 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)!
4. I forgot my suit but we still went to Kenmore & got my deepest dive yet (45m)
5. 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?)
6. 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!"

one more thing

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.

juvenile lumpsucker Cyclopterus lumpus