The Wonders Of The Red Sea and Finding Nemo

After three years of scuba diving mainly in Scotland, The Boy and I decided it was time to treat ourselves to a diving holiday in warmer water where we didn't need to wear a drysuit.  In November, we had the opportunity to go diving in the Red Sea on the Tiger Lily live-aboard boat.  The trip was organised by Martin at Ace Divers (web site http://acedivers.co.uk/) through Flowers of Sinai. We flew to Sharm El Sheikh and had a short mini-bus ride from there to the harbour where the Tiger Lily was waiting for us.

We were scheduled to do four dives each day: one before breakfast, two during the day and a night dive.  The first thing I noticed was that, diving in a wetsuit, I felt almost liberated - no drysuit, no thermals, no drysuit hose, no hood, no gloves.  I felt like I had forgotten something when I was kitted up, waiting to do my giant stride into the water, but I had everything I needed.  The second thing I noticed was the almost endless visibility.  It felt like I could see for miles in clear, blue, warm ocean.  Bliss!

Tiger Lily visited a few sites in the vicinity of Sharm El Sheikh (in the red box around Sharm below):

We started at a couple of dive sites near Sharm El Sheikh, namely Ras Katy and Ras Umm Sid, then headed towards the Gulf of Aqaba and dived the four reefs - Jackson, Gordon, Thomas and Woodhouse - in the Strait of Tiran.

There was an incredible amount to see.  The aquatic life was phenomenal - rays, giant moray eels, puffer fish, squid, cuttlefish, lionfish (which freaked me out on night dives as they are attracted by the light from your torch) and all sorts of other fish from the tiniest Anthea fish to huge Groupers and Barracuda.

Here's giant Moray eel coming out of it's hiding place for a look around:

I was delighted to find that Nemo and his relatives (aka Anemone Fish or Clown Fish) are alive and well and thriving in the Red Sea.  We first encountered them on Jackson Reef:

After the reefs in the Strait of Tiran we headed back towards Sharm to reach the Ras Mohammed National Park, stopping at Temple for a night dive on the way.  We met our first cuttlefish there.  We started the next day with a dive around Shark and Yolanda reefs which have some ship wreckage scattered around them.  That marked the start of our wreck dives.


The first wreck was the Dunraven where The Boy managed to drop his GoPro.  Thankfully he managed to find it again so no harm done.  Next we dived the Marcus which has a cargo of Italian tiles.  We finished the day with a night dive around Sha'ab Abu Nuhas reef.  It was The Boy's 300th dive and a little squid made it memorable by panicking and taking off like a rocket, inking all the way.

We had a full day of wrecks the following day - the Carnatic, the Ghiannis D, the Ulysses and the Barge at Gobal Island for our night dive.  We had our first distant sighting of dophins at Gobal Island.  Some of the wrecks were absolutely full of fish.  Believe it or not, The Boy is at the other side of this wall of Glassfish.  If you look hard you can just see part of his mask:

 

The wall opens up and there he is:

The next morning, our pre-breakfast dive was around Bluff Point.  We were taking our time, waking up gently when, all of a sudden, something big started to appear in the distance...... and we all got excited when we realised it was a pod of dolphins:

I was too excited to get decent photos but The Boy managed to film them.  They appeared from nowhere, swam around us for a couple of minutes then vanished into the blue.  Amazing!  That's me with the bright pink fins in the video.

Below is the view we had from the rib on our way back to Tiger Lily from a late afternoon dive with the sun setting on the Loullia wreck.  We had been diving at the opposite side of Gordon Reef.

We dived the wrecks of the Kingston and the Thistlegorm on our way back to Sharm.  The Thistlegorm is a very big wreck and we did three dives on her as there is so much to see.  Our very last dive was at Small Crack, for which we discarded out wetsuits for a team photo (which I will add when I find it).  We said goodbye to all our new friends, including this ray:

All in all, a wonderful holiday and an awesome experience.  The crew on Tiger Lily were fantastic and looked after us all really well, especially Kareem, our scuba diving guide for the week.  Thanks for a great time.

As a wee p.s., I read a book for the second time after my trip to the Red Sea, not something I do often but it had a lot more meaning for me after visiting the Red Sea.  The Boy reminded me about it on the flight home.  It used to only be available in Kindle format but is now available in print for those who prefer it.  It's an enlightening read.  It's called Lost Wife, Saw Barracuda by John Kean.

Fantastic Farnes

Last year Ace Divers arranged a trip to the Farne Islands and I was gutted that the trip was full before I could get my name on the list.  Fortunately, another trip was arranged for this year and my name was first on the list.  The Boy started a new job this month and for a few days it looked like he might not be able to go so I was preparing myself for having to go without him.  In the end it all worked out and we were both able to go.

We headed off early on Friday morning to the harbour in Seahouses, Northumberland in search of the "big white cat" that turned out to be the Serenity II, a lovely dive boat with a diver lift - heaven! We passed Bamburgh Castle on the way.  It looked like it could give Edinburgh Castle a run for it's money.  Awesome!  Must go back and explore it some time.  When we arrived at the harbour we paid our £4 for a day's parking, assembled our scuba gear and carried it all on to the Serenity.  There was a bit more room that I'm used to on a dive boat.  I'm used to boats that are fully loaded with 12 divers but the Serenity took 15 of us and still had space for more.

As we headed out towards the Longstone / Outer Farne lighthouse one of the crew gave me a bit of the background and history of the area.  There are a lot of sea birds in the area but, for divers, it's probably most famous for it's seal population.  We could see the odd seal popping it's head above the water on the journey. It didn't take too long to reach our destination and soon we were all kitted up and ready to jump in.  I was in a buddy team with The Boy and Niall so the three of us did our deep water entries off the lift for our first dive.  Niall was so busy protecting his camera that he forgot to hold his mask.  I got to the bottom and realised I'd left my dive computer on the boat.  On any other dive that could have been a big problem but we knew that to see the seals we had to stay shallow so it was just annoying not having it.  Ironically Niall's camera housing flooded as soon as he got to the bottom so no photos for him.

It didn't take long for the first seals to appear.  I think there were maybe 3 or 4 of them, but they were very playful and interactive.

That's me in the bottom left corner:

 They loved The Boy's white Seawings:

They were all juvenile seals and, like any human baby, they explore by having a nibble.  You swim along looking for seals and suddenly you feel like you're kicking something with your fin. You turn round to look and find there's a seal attached to one of your fins.

Black Seawings were nearly as popular as white. Niall having his fins nibbled:

This one was heading for me:

I couldn't work out what it was doing but apparently it was nibbling my hood.  I think it liked the white logo:

The Boy managed to coax them in quite close:

At one point Niall and I had to try and hold The Boy down and manhandle his integral weights back into place after they tried to part company with him.  Thankfully we managed to avoid a rapid ascent.  Eventually we made a deliberate ascent to get back on board the cat.  The skipper tied up on one of the islands while we had lunch in a calm little bay and the crew made us tea and coffee.

After a reasonable surface interval, we got kitted up for dive number 2.  I made sure I took my dive computer this time.  The tide was coming in so the skipper dropped us in the shelter of some rocks and told us to stay behind them out of the current.  We were also advised to drop down straight away rather than waiting for the whole buddy team to get into the water before descending.  That dive was a bit of a weird experience.  Most of the dive took place at a depth of between 3 and 5 metres, so almost the whole dive was a safety stop. What was weird was the washing machine effect of the current.We could all feel ourselves being moved back and forth in the surge but we were in the middle of a kelp forest which was also moving in the surge.  Unfortunately, the kelp wasn't moving the same way as we were so the whole effect felt extremely odd and, for the first time, I felt sea sick under the water.  The cause of the sea-sickness:

There were a lot more seals this time but they weren't as interactive as the ones we saw on the first dive.  We would come across each other swimming through the kelp:

The seals in action:

This one was vertical in the water, nose to lens with the camera housing:

Eventually we called it a day and decided to surface.  The Boy inflated his SMB to show the boat where we were and we started to ascend.  Then he turned round and showed me a reel with a broken line and no SMB attached.  Fortunately I had my own SMB and reel so I inflated my SMB and we ascended to the surface.  The Boy was not amused at losing his SMB.  The boat picked us up and we scanned the sea for something bright orange and horizontal (as an SMB with a diver attached below it would be vertical) and ..... we found it!  The skipper took the boat round and picked up the escaped SMB so The Boy could smile again.  At least now he only needs to buy a new line, not an SMB and line.

We counted heads on the boat, decided we were still a few divers short, and went in search of SMBs again.  There were a few dive boats in the area, not to mention quite a few curious seals on the surface, so it was a bit of a challenge deciding from a distance which heads belonged to divers rather than seals and which ones were our divers.  Happily, we found everyone fairly quickly and got them all back on board.

We all had a great day.  Thank you to Martin for another fantastic diving trip.

Basking Shark Safari in the Sound of Mull

Slightly later than planned, here is the story of my latest adventure.  I've been waiting almost a year for this one.  After last year's trip to the Sound of Mull to do some wreck diving, Martin at Ace Divers organised another trip to find basking sharks and to do some more wreck diving.  I was really excited about the thought of actually being able to see some of these fantastic creatures in the wild and in the flesh.  For the uninitiated, basking sharks only eat plankton, unlike their kin folk who get all the (unfair) bad press.  Martin was checking up all of the news on marine wildlife sightings in the area and it was looking hopeful for being able to see basking sharks.

The plan was to drive up to Lochaline on Friday via the Corran Ferry crossing and dive off the West Pier at Lochaline in the afternoon.  We'd then stay the night at Morvern Dive Lodge in Lochaline and board the Peregrine on Saturday morning to search for basking sharks.  We'd be staying overnight on Tiree then diving on the wreck of the Tapti and any other wrecks whose locations fitted in with the tides on Sunday.

Here is a view of the quaint little lighthouse at Corran from the ferry.

We arrived as planned, found the dive lodge after a slight detour, and headed down to the West Pier to dive along the wall there.  There were shoals of tiny fish there as well as the usual shell-clad suspects and plant life.  The Boy tried to scare me by messing about with the valves on his newly acquired twinset and unexpectedly slipping down a few metres.  Thankfully he came back up none the worse for wear.  Exiting the water at West Pier:

Just after we came out of the water someone spotted two porpoises not far from the shore so Martin and I grabbed fins, snorkels and masks and ran back into the water but we were too late.  The porpoises were more interested in following the ferry than playing with us.  A seal popped up as well, too far away for us to reach.  We all went to the Lochaline Hotel afterwards and I had a lovely meal of local produce : Cullen Skink followed by seared scallops and finished off with Cranachan topped with fresh raspberries (like I really needed a dessert).

The next morning we were all down at the harbour by 9:00 to load our gear on the Peregrine.  Malcolm, the skipper welcomed us on board and set off for Tiree and Coll.  We passed the Rubha Nan Gall lighthouse on the way out of the Sound of Mull:

That's when the spotters got the binoculars out and started their vigil.  Martin got a bit excited when he spotted ......... a big clump of of floating seaweed.  The cormorants floating amongst the waves caused a fair few false alarms as well.  They did a fairly good impression of a fin in the water.  The spotters:

After four hours of false alarms we were getting less excited about stuff in the water and I think we were all beginning to believe we'd never find a basking shark.  And then..... we saw this:

This photo tested the zoom on my slightly ancient camera to its limit.  Thankfully this was only the first of many.  Everyone rushed to one side of the boat to try and catch a glimpse and a photo.  Almost as soon as we spotted a shark it would change direction or submerge so photographing them was a real challenge.  In the end, I came home with lots of photos of water, a few photos of shark fins and no photos of actual sharks.  For such big creatures they move surprisingly fast.  Fin:

If you look REALLY hard you can just see the mottled pattern on the shark's body through the water.  Sadly, the plankton bloom that brings the sharks to the surface to feed makes it kind of hard to see them in the water.  Allegedly, while I was paying attention to sharks, a Minke whale breached a little distance away from the boat.  And I missed it.  I also missed it the second time it breached because I was on the other side of the boat taking a photo of the Cairns of Coll lighthouse:

There was a lone basking shark swimming near the lighthouse and he was a big 'un so we stopped to watch him for a while:

This is the only video footage that The Boy managed to get before he started drowning when his snorkel fell apart in the water.  :)  All I saw when I got into the water was his fins in the distance and the occasional bubble.

By the time we'd finished basking shark spotting it had become clear that we weren't going to be able to land on Tiree to stay the night thanks to a south-easterly wind.  So it was a four hour sail back to Lochaline and back the Lochaline Hotel for another lovely meal.  As a result we weren't able to dive on the Tapti.  Never mind, there's always next year, but I got to see basking sharks!  We also passed the Ardnamurchan lighthouse on the way back to the Sound of Mull.  The scenery in that part of the world is stunning.

On Sunday we were back at Lochaline Harbour ready to board the Peregrine again for a days diving.  Kit all ready and waiting:

We didn't travel so far this time.  We started off by diving the wreck of the Thesis.  Next was the Hispania.  The Hispania is the very first wreck I ever dived on and it's amazing.  We had to wait 45 minutes or so for a slack tide before we could get into the water and we found we were in competition with the Sound Diver which also had a a full load of eager divers.  There was a bit of light hearted banter going back and forth between the two skippers while we waited.  In the end, our wee Peregrine was in the right place at the right time so we were able to dive first.  This time I was 70 dives more experienced and felt a whole lot more comfortable and relaxed than the last time.  The skipper offered to take us to the wreck of the Rondo for a final dive but with the prospect of a three hour drive home we reluctantly decided to call it a day.

All in all we had a great weekend.  Thank you to Martin at Ace Divers for arranging it all.  Our names will be on the list again for next year.

Getting to know Tinkerbell

I was sitting earlier this evening looking through photos on my Facebook page and I came across a whole album from 1st April 2011 that I'd kind of forgotten about.  I hadn't forgotten the event, only the photos.  It was an event arranged by Martin at Ace Divers.

1st April.  April Fools Day.  The significance of the date didn't escape me as I contemplated what I was going to be doing that day.  I can't deny I was looking forward to it but there was a small, terrified voice in the back of my mind that surfaced occasionally to ask me what on Earth I was doing.  What I was going to be doing was going to Deep Sea World to dive with Tinkerbell and her friends.  Tinkerbell is a Sand Tiger Shark who is over 3 metres long.  Admittedly I'd not heard any horror stories about customers being eaten but I tend to be a bit behind with the news so that meant nothing.

On the day, we arrived with our scuba gear which was swallowed by a huge dumb waiter and transported down a couple of floors below the car park.  We were allowed to bring a couple of guests so we brought Alan and Lomai and thanks to Lomai bringing her camera we have plenty of photos to remember it by.  We were taken into a presentation room and given a briefing about the dive, what to expect, the dos and don'ts,  the most important don't being "don't touch the sharks".  As if I needed to be told!  We were then split into groups of 4 for the dive and The Boy and I (or was it just The Boy?) volunteered to be in group 1.  The good thing about that was that we didn't have time to stand in the tunnel and watch the sharks before we got into the tank beside them, so I was spared this view until after I came out:

I'm not sure whether that's Tink or one of her buddies.  We went to get changed while the other groups went off to the tunnel to watch us.  We didn't need to wear fins as the water is only 3 metres deep in the shark tank so we would be (moon)walking along the bottom rather than swimming.  We jumped into a shallow tank in the quarantine area, did our weight checks then ducked through to the platform we would descend from:

Some of the smaller fish swim around you while you're on the platform and there's a rope to guide you down to the sandy bottom.

Once you get in there you look like a munchkin through the thick, curved glass of the tunnel.  The munchkin in the pink mask is me.  You don't really appreciate how much smaller everything looks from the tunnel until you've seen it all from inside the tank.

As you walk along the sandy bottom you have to keep your eyes open as there are flat fish and rays lying, hiding in the sand & I don't think they'd be too impressed at being stood on.  There were also two Angel sharks when we were there.  Since then, the female has given birth to almost 20 babies so there will be a whole lot more of them to look out for once they're all in the big tank.  There are photos of the babies here: Baby Angel Sharks

You can see a fish half buried in the sand in this photo in front of me & The Boy:

As you can see, we were both kneeling down in the last photo.  That means there must have been a shark nearby.  The Deep Sea World guides who were in the tank with us kept a look out and signalled to us all to kneel if a shark was near.  Like the one below.  It's behind you!

Or, in this case, it's above you!

I did find the view of Tinkerbell's teeth a little worrying when she was directly overhead but she was perfectly well behaved while we were visiting.  The Boy had our  camera and was trying to get a few up close, candid shots:

For a wee bit of authentic atmosphere, check out these videos The Boy took from inside the tank:

And then there's this one:

We had a tour of the shark pool and all it's wee nooks and crannies.  That meant jumping over the tunnel a couple of times.  Once again, the Deep Sea World guides made sure that our way was clear for jumping so that we didn't head butt a shark on the way over the top.  Here's me being ably assisted by Tina:

And here's the live action version:

Oops! I uploaded the wrong video, LOL.  Try this one:

Then it was The Boy's turn.  He managed to avoid the flat fish on top of the tunnel:

Naturally, The Boy couldn't resist messing about, he never can, so he posed for a few photos minus an air supply:

Eventually we went full circle and ended up back where we started so we ascended the rope to get back to the platform and out.

We enjoyed the experience so much we went back and did it all again in September.  The staff at Deep Sea World looked after us extremely well both times (Tina in April and Suzie in September) and the sharks are totally awesome, especially Tinkerbell. I cant wait to see the baby Angel Sharks in the flesh.  I've only seen photos so far.

Check out their Facebook page:  Deep-Sea-World on Facebook

First dive of 2012

Apologies for my lack of communication.  It's been almost 3 months.  Having a real job again has put paid to an awful lot of my leisure time.  So, what have I been up to since October?  This and that.  Apart from gifts for friends and family my jewellery making has mostly had to take a back seat for now, although I have had time to make a few new things.  The weather has been too awful for cycling and I don't have time to go to the gym any more.  I have still been diving - yes, at this time of year, in Scotland.  During November and December I was working towards my PADI Rescue diver certification.  As a result of achieving that and several other PADI specialities and having logged more than 50 dives I am also now a PADI Master Scuba Diver. Woohoo! Go me!

Don't think that because it's now officially winter the diving has stopped.  The Boy and I are still managing to dive every week or two.  We made sure we had enough full air cylinders to be able to dive throughout Christmas and New Year while we were on holiday.  On 2nd January eight of us had our first dive(s) of 2012.  The plan was to drive to The Slates at Ballachulish in the west of Scotland.  It's a former slate quarry and a pretty good dive site.  Even I can get in & out of the water there without too much trouble.

Sadly, the weather forecast was for snow at Ballachulish which meant the 3 hour drive could turn out to be impassible.  We had a bit of a confab and decided to try for St Catherine's on Loch Fyne instead. It's almost as long a drive but as long as we could get past the Rest and Be Thankful the road is more accessible.

When we set off it was cool, verging on cold, and damp.  It seemed no worse by the time we reached Arrochar so we carried on.  As we approached the Rest and Be Thankful pass the weather took a turn for the worse and the road started to look like this:

Thankfully, once we reached the other end of the pass the snow turned to rain and the journey was less of a white knuckle ride.  We drove through the village of St Catherine's and turned off on to the old road that serves as a parking area for the dive site.  As we were getting ready for our first dive the wind really started to get up and there were waves on Loch Fyne that looked more suited to surfing that scuba diving. Here we are getting into the water:

This little video taken by The Boy might give you a feel for the surf:

Once we descended into the loch it was a great dive.  We even went back in for a second dive.  There was a surprising amount of aquatic life to be seen.  There were the usual Squat Lobsters, from the teeny to huge ones. This was quite a big one:

There were Velvet crabs, Harbour crabs, Spider crabs, Hermit crabs in all shapes and sizes.  There were loads of fish, a lot more than I've seen in ages including this Ballan Wrasse:

and this Butter Fish that looks like it was posing for the photo: 

Then, on our way back to the surface at the end of our second dive we found a shoal of silvery fish, the first time I've seen more than a handful of fish in one place in Loch Fyne.  Apologies for the lighting in the video, I tried to provide light with my torch while The Boy filmed but, as usual, we weren't always looking in the same direction:

The water was a toasty 10 degrees centigrade compared with the barely above freezing temperature on the shore.  We didn't hang about getting changed. In fact, I packed away my drysuit, kept my thermals on and finally changed into real clothes in the car on the way to pub to fill in our log books.  The Rest and Be Thankful pass was at least being consistent on the way home:

Let's hope this is the start to a fantastic year's diving.