Sound of Mull Trip 2011

SQSAC Sound of Mull Weekend – 3rd – 5th September 2011.

I had been looking forward to the Sound of Mull trip for months and I wasn’t disappointed. We left Friday lunch time for the drive to Lochaline, arriving in time for a sneaky dive along Lochaline wall. Nathan and I went in at the pier end and headed along the wall towards the beach. I was too busy peering into the dark depths below that I didn’t even notice when we passed under the pier! There is something really nice about a wall dive where you can’t see bottom. The vis on the wall wasn’t the greatest and at times strong currents made it hard to really appreciate the life on the wall. If we wanted to stop and admire the wall we had to find a place to hold on. This was also the first time I had experienced a down current – it was all a little odd as I noticed the fan worms were pointing down and at times we had to fin up against the current. We surfaced at the beach to find that most of the rest of the group had arrived. After a pint in the pub we then headed back to our accommodation – the Morvern dive lodge. This is new accommodation in Lochaline and was perfect for a weekend’s diving.

We were diving from the Brendan with Lochaline Boat Charters and Robin was our skipper. Our first wreck of the weekend was the Rondo. This was a great wreck with something to see the whole dive. As well as the fish on the wreck we also saw a small conger eel in the wreckage. With the light and the prop I particularly liked loitering on the stern during our stops. Most of us kept the max depth to the 30’s but Nathan and Andy headed deeper into the 40’s where they said the vis was better. We then headed to Tobermory for our surface interval as we waited for slack water on the Hispania. The Hispania was a favourite with everyone on the trip. As Al and I reached the bottom of the shot and saw everyone heading towards the stern, we headed towards the bow and had the holds to ourselves for a moment. I enjoyed looking out a hold to see a school of fish swim past. My favourite part of this wreck was the superstructure packed with life in all the walkways and ladders and the chain hanging off the bow.

Saturday night saw us at the pub for our evening meal and a few drinks – although Andy only had time to eat and run as he had to meet the AA to retrieve his keys from the car. The walk home proved too long for some and they stopped by the social club for a few pints.

First dive on Sunday saw us arrive at the Thesis to find divers already on the wreck. So we kitted up quickly and went in. Al and I tagged along with Andy and Nathan for the start of this dive to follow them thru the swim thru from the bow to stern. I really enjoyed the swim thru and as we emerged at the stern went to go round the other side to find the current had picked up. So after exploring a little more in the protected parts of the Thesis we started to head up the shot. The current was running and when we got to 12 meters I was surprised to look across to see the buoy not that far from us! Knowing that we weren’t exiting via the shot Al and I had fun deploying the dsmb while clinging to the shot – it is really hard to effectively communicate while doing an impersonation of flag (in hindsight we should have just let go and then launched the dsmb). We later surfaced much further down the sound, conveniently right near a group of sea eagles. After admiring the sea eagles we then headed up the sound towards the Shuna. While we waited out our surface interval Nathan was checking out the access roads, the distance from the shore and possible camp sites – so I suspect we will be back to dive the Shuna again from the shore. We kitted up at our leisure to dive the Shuna. I really enjoyed the prop and rudder on the Shuna, it was fantastic to see it all in place and the image is ingrained in my mind. We bagged off to ascend and while doing our deco drifted along until we met the paparazzi! I think Nathan and Andy must have grown bored with each others company that when Al and I bumped into them we were like meat at a BBQ!

That saw the end of diving for 3 of our group as Will, Ross and Stevie had to work on Monday (well at least 2 of them anyway). That night Nathan cooked us a Thai curry in the dive lodge’s kitchen and we had a quiet night by the fire. The quiet didn’t last all night and the question for the next morning’s breakfast table was ‘Who screamed during the night?’ Debbie had woken during the night to hear footsteps followed by a scream so loud it had her out of bed on the hunt for the burglar. Al and Andy finally emerged to tell us the tale of Al waking to find Andy creeping back to the room after getting a glass of milk.

It was decided that for our last days diving we would dive the Hispania again. The second dive on the Hispania really helped to get the layout of the wreck. This was Debbie’s 200th dive and we were treated to the sight of Andy and Nathan emerging from a small hold. It was hilarious watching Andy wriggle out with his rebreather and side cylinder – it could explain why his drysuit had so many holes that he exited every dive with his drysuit completely filled with water! Nathan didn’t look much better with his twinset. Once again we did our surface interval in Tobermory before a nice relaxing drift on the wall of Calf Island to finish off the weekend’s diving. Most of the divers on the trip hadn’t dived the sound before but I think we all enjoyed the diving and the weekend. Thank you to everyone who helped plan this trip and helping during the weekend. There are some more photos taken by Andy Purdy and Nathan in the photo section of the SQSAC site.

Kirsty Jeffery