Wild Camping/Diving Lochs Creran and Etive 23-24 July 2011

I knew the East Coast was going to be blown out this weekend. It didn't matter to me as I'd already planned to head to the west and make the most of what looked a fantastic summer's weekend.
Traffic was light on the way over to Loch Etive, but on arrival, around 7pm, we found my planned wild campsite already occupied (badly) by a couple of vehicles with sea kayaks on their roofs and two small tents taking up the space that, normally we can get four, larger tents into. Ah well, a good lesson learned here for those not used to wild camping. You have to leave in plenty of time to avoid the city dwellers grabbing your intended sites. They only have an hour's drive, whilst we have two and a half hours travel time. That's one of the reasons I leave in the early afternoon, to beat the rush...
No matter, there's another nice, elevated site at the actual harbour site... Nope, this too is occupied by Sea Kayakers!
Hmm  looks like Loch Etive isn't going to be our home this weekend. Time to head for a site I knew wouldn't be occupied. I like camping/diving in this vicinity as there are many shore dive sites all along this area of Etive, Creran and Loch Linnhe and there are a fair few decent wild campsites right on the beach/shore. The one we finally got to (about 8:30pm) is on the shores of Loch Creran, just north of the Sea Life Centre and just past Barcaldine. If you drive too fast, you'll never see it!
We had hoped to dive that evening, to try out my buddy's new single wing, but after making sure our other east coast buddies, who were only 20mins behind us now, could find us and getting our tents up it was now 9:30 or so and we needed to eat so we binned that idea for the sake of our bellies.
A quick lighting of the campfire (plenty of wood nearby) and the midges leave the campsite, just as the gentle breeze comes in to "help" them on their way.
Our neighbours for the weekend had their tent up in no time at all, despite not having set it up for many,many months, and joined us round the soothing fire. This was their FIRST time out Wild Camping ;-)
First dive of the next day was a bimble around the bay we camped in. A deceptively long walk out into the water at High Tide (it's only two or three feet deep for around 75-100m out!) then a nicely gentle but obvious gravel/cobble slope full of small colonies of the Serpulid worms that Creran is famous (worldwide) for and the usual small crittur life in lovely clear water. After this you're down a typical sandy slope with a finer grain in the depths (so keep your fins up!) and follow the contour for as far as you wish. Surprisingly, there's human debris in the water here with some bottles, car tyres and some broken crab pots lying around all attracting life. A couple of Sea Mouse were snapped, along with some fairly agressive Hermit crabs.
I've dived here a few times now and whilst there are more interesting sites in Creran, this does make a good, easy shakedown dive site, clear enough for trainees to do their shallow, openwater drills and still have plenty to see.
After a spot of lunch I took the crew down the road to Loch Etive. Only a few miles away, in glorious sunshine once again, past our intended camping sites and on to Bonawe Quarry Harbour.
After a quick but thorough site brief where I described the likely viz to be "Dark but Crystal Clear" we entered the water being as careful as possible not to disturb the gravel/silt too much.
Now, if you can't find the VERY obvious wire/cable that runs directly to the wreck (didn't I say this is a WRECK dive?) that sits over the large boulder just as you descend from the "slipway", then one can follow a bearing of 085degrees and you'll find the target.

It's a very eerie sensation for newbies to Bonawe Quarry as you fin thro gin clear water surrounded on all sides by deep(looking), dark peaty water (a bit like black coffee) in your own sunlight "bubble" with approx 10m viz! As you follow your wire/cable/bearing after about 5 minutes you'll see the wreck loom out of the dark. It's an impressive sight I can tell you! Complete, upright, wheelhouse intact, aft derrick now fallen over (but with loose ropes ready to snare the unwary swimthrougher...) but I'm thinking it won't be for long as one can now see through the plank gaps into the hold as the wood rots away, so get there soon. It's deteriorated a fair bit since I dived her first last year.

We swan around the Kingfisher for a while til I asked if everyone (all four of us) had enough air to head off to perhaps the most spectacular part of this dive. Yep, all had plenty (it is only 13-15m here afterall!) so I led the crew (slowing down every now and then... naughty me, frogkicking seems to propel one a bit quicker than most kicks...) over the somewhat featureless sandy bottom (but past some waypoint markers such as the coils of wire rope looking like a version of Nessie, and wellie boot, shoe soles, and beer cans...) to the start of the harbour mouth where I stopped at the side and beckoned the others through to explore this area themselves. Only Vicky and I saw the HUGE Red Gurnard that sat on the bottom allowing me to snap it several times, even tho I tried to point it out with my torch.
Huge boulders have been dropped in by the quarry chaps to bolster the harbour mouth sides, these have cavernous openings which hold a miriad of fishlife such as Pollack, Saithe, and Bib. There's also a veritable city of Flabellina lineata here feeding and laying their eggs on Coryphella nutans.
We could only stay here for about ten minutes (again, it's only 12m here) before reluctantly turning round leaving this city of discovery to head for home. Each of us had plenty of gas (100bar was the lowest) but the topography of the shore sides here meant there could be no easy exit up the steep sides, so it was back along the same route past the wreck once again and along the wire/cable to exit site. Arno then said he now understood what I meant by "Dark but Crystal Clear" (something he struggled to reconcile before the dive).

Back to camp for a refill of both bellies and tins then back out to the Worm Colony site for a shallow bimble over these fantastic, wierd shaped Biogenic reefs. Lindsay has been here before but it was a new site to Arno and Vicky, who commented that it's so strange to find such wondrous creatures in such open, easily accessible but never thought of as a diving site areas right by the main road. Just shows you, never discount a location just because it's by a main road. You might be surprised (as most folk are with this site!).


BBQ on the beach (well, cobbles anyway) and a nice midge deterring campfire once again (you do need to keep them away with the campfire smoke if there's no wind, tho' Avon's Skin-so-Soft does work it rots latex dive suit seals).

Sunday brought yet another wonderful, bright, sunny day with an occassional breeze. We have been so lucky (no, not luck, Planning) with the weather here, ;-).
Times were good, just, for a drift dive thro the bridge over the Creran and we kitted up at Creagan Inn (sadly now closed due to lack of trade) and took two cars back to the other side (with the O2 kit). Creran is a strange loch, in that it has two constriction points throughout it's length which makes for difficult tidal run predictions. It often has only a four hour Ebb and an eight hour flood.
We did this first drift on the flood which meant a long swim out to the middle of the loch in order to grab the flow UP the loch. The brief was, "when you see the bridge (black out above you), start swimming to the right, to the shore and surface five minutes after the bridge". This worked just fine, if not a little early, but that's no problem here.
 Huge Pollack were dancing in the drift, over loads of Dead Men's Fingers way down in the cracks and spaces of the huge boulders beneath us follwed by a field of tiny nudibranchs all laying eggs in the faster flowing waters under the Kelp.
As you often do on a drift dive, I think we gave the family of anglers quite a scare as we surfaced near them and made our way out!
We came back later, after a good lunch and re-fill from my compressor, and did the drift on the Ebb Tide. This was, as expected, a much faster drift initially as you enter straight into the flow by the large smooth boulder rock at the previous exit.
Far more fish were seen this time, along with Brittlestars, natural oysters, those tiny nudi's and indeed, a full bed of Flameshells! After the bridge the water slows down back to finning speed and it kicks you out to the right (north) where there's no easy exit, but having dived here numerous times I was able to lead the divers back to this morning's entry site, to the old ferry slipway where our cars were parked.

A thoroughly wonderful weekend altogether, topped off when Arno and his family said that whilst this was their first time wild camping, it definitely won't be the last. It seems we have another convert to the peace and quiet (even tho' this site was right by the main road) and ease of life wild camping.

DT