Loch Duich, April 2011

I've just returned from a great (long) weekend's diving/wildcamping at Loch Duich.
I say long weekend as I was able to arrive late on Thursday night, set up camp and have a couple of dives on my own on the Friday before the rest arrived. Checking my logbook, I saw I had missed the whole of March in diving terms! That was soon put right.
Friday morning I drove onto the beach (to leave the carparks and passing places clear) and had a nice bimble to 29m at Bier Bay, just along the road from Ratagan Youth Hostel.
It's a nice easy site, granite shingle beach entry into 2-3m then down to a sandy slope and off to 30m+ (in the distance) and you descend onto all three Scottish seapens which start at only 16m (LW).
It was here I discovered my lens had fogged up a bit (took it out of the housing the night before instead of leaving it there for the night, so it took in the moist air). Just then I saw a tiny John Dory, only 3" in height (at 15.6m) and cursed my bad luck with the misting. Hell, give it a shot. Only had time for about four shots before it flicked it's tail and zoomed off. Nevermind, I'm happy with the results.

 Back to the Campsite for lunch (didn't bother re-filling as I'd only used 60bar in the 30min dive) then back over to dive one of my favourites, the Hazel Bush to Sron nan Sabhail drift dive.

Entry Point is just in front of the car, between the two Hazel bushes

It's a neat little drift, down to 15-18m onto flatter sand after the sandy slope then drift over and around the rocky outcrops. Some of these outcrops are sharp jagged rocks whilst others are smooth single massive bulbs of volcanic rock. Quite something to see in only a short drift. These are interspersed with sandy slopes from time to time with their associated fauna i.e. scallops, then, as you leave the last outcrop it becomes a smaller sharp boulder rock slope, this means you're starting to enter the bay so it's time to start the ascent thro the (true) Kelp and onto shingle and Bladderwrack seaweeds. (I make the point about true Kelp as folk keep referring to seaweeds (of which there are loads of varieties) as Kelp. It helps with dive locations if one gets the names at least a little bit right). A very easy exit up the manmade sloping stone wall then a wee walk round the corner to the car once again.