Day 6 – lochbay pinnacles revisited

Who would have thought of doing 3 dives a day in the UK? Yes, we are going to do it today. As we were chatting to Gordon last night for some tips and advices, he kindly offered us to go onto his hard boat tonight for a night dive. Like previous days, we drove the van to Meanish pier and the others sailed Rascal across. This time, we carried our lunches and tanks for our second dives onboard as the Urlana lies even further than our first site - congers crevasse.

Congers crevasse

This was perhaps one of the best dives on the trip - critters wise. Whichever crack you shone your torch through there's always something hiding in them. Squat lobsters, crabs, conger eels and even a full size lobster was spotted. There were also many nudibranchs feeding on the kelps. Towards the end of the dive, Henry and I decided to swing ourselves over the kelp forest. What a fun way to spend 3 minutes at the safety stop.

Sun, sea and sand

Since we wouldn't want to waste fuel to go backwards and forth from Meanish pier, Gordon had advised us a location for lunch. Apparently there's a white sandy beach on one of the islands. It did take a while for us to look for it since we only saw rocky outcrops. 'Oh look! The white sandy beach!' Shouted Natalie and pointed towards a narrow strip of white sand from the rocks. But when we sailed closer and the tides got lower, more of the beach was exposed from the sea water. Who said that ULSAC only provides diving training and trips? Who needs Thailand when you have a white sandy beach in the isle of Skye? Though the surface and water temperature wouldn't have matched anything tropical at all, we all enjoyed our lunch on the beach to ourselves.

Urlana? Sandy bottom?

After our nice picnic on the beach, we shall get going to our second site of the day. As before, we shot the site with the information we gathered and deployed the first pair of divers in. We were hoping to see a dsmb being sent up but unfortunately not until when the divers began to ascend. Then we sent another two pairs of divers went in slightly further off shore, but it turned out to be a flat sandy bottom. Where's Urlana? Fortunately Michelle and Ali N managed to find the wreck at the end and even managed to find artefacts during their dives!

Night dive!

After mooring up Rascal and carried all the tanks back for a refill, we had a short break in the house and had some snacks before the dive. Other than having the standard military grade glow sticks, Ali also brought some fancy pink hearts and yellow stars shaped ones. Practicability? Very practical indeed. We know who they are immediately by their unique glow sticks. The night dive itself is very spectacular. The existing colonies of sponges, anemones and corals were fluorescing in the darkness. Whilst the feather stars were dancing in mid water, nocturnal critters began to crawl out and search for their midnight feast.