Loch Long Dive Weekend ~ 6th & 7th March 2010

This weekend saw the dive season kick off in earnest for Vale Royal Sub-Aqua Club with our first full weekend’s diving of the year (and Sea diving at that!).

Eight divers (Dave G, Ernie, Lesley, Clive, Steve, Zoe, Dave H, Andrew and family) made the five hour journey from Cheshire up to Arrochar on a bright and sunny Saturday morning, 6th March for what has become our annual dive trip to Loch Long in Scotland.

We arrived about noon’ish in Arrochar at the head of Loch Long and after a quick coffee at the Pit Stop diner, made our way to ‘the Caves’ for our first dive of the day. The Caves is a great dive over steeply shelving rocks and huge boulders covered with a profusion of anemones, dead men’s fingers, Sea squirts, tube worms and other soft corals. There are also quite a few wrasse swimming around and crabs and squat lobsters tucked away in the rock crevices. Depths quickly drop away to 30-40 metres plus, so not really a dive for our trainees. The dive site entry is also a bit of a scramble down the side of a bridge and along a brook under the bridge and down in to the Loch but once in the water the site is such that it is probably worth the trip in itself!

There is usually a halocline at this site as the fresh water from the stream hits the sea water and sits on top of it causing a ‘blurring effect’. With the amount of water run off from the mountains at this time of year from the melting snow along with the detritus carried down it also made for quite a cold (7’c) dark dive with torches being essential. Never-the-less, once below the halocline, the sea water was relatively clear (if dark) and made for a really nice dive!

After lunch at the Pit Stop diner, we ventured around the other side of the Loch on the road up to ‘Rest and be thankful’ for Ernie and Dave H to dive again taking in Clive and Zoe at a site known locally as ‘Conga Alley’. The slope is much more gradual and depths shallower here (typically around 20 metres) and for once we found the fabled rocky reefs that we have missed at previous attempts at this site! Again quite a cold and dark dive but still a nice one with lots of scurrying hermit crabs, swimming crabs and the odd soft coral. Ernie and Clive even saw a Conga Eel!


Off to the bar after the dive to thaw out a little with a beer to swap dive tales and catch up with friends Rob and Shona who came to cheer us on… A quick wash and brush up at the Lochside Guest house B&B and off for traditional Scottish fare of haggis, neaps and tatties washed down with a few more beers (and soft drinks for the younger members of the group ;-) at the nearby Village Inn.

Sunday morning, 7th March saw a subdued start and with air temperatures down to 5’c from the previous days 10’c much less enthusiasm to dive after the full Scottish breakfast… But dive we did (it is a dive weekend after all)!

At 10.30am (must be close to a record for Vale Royal) we were heading in to the water again, this time at the ‘A frames’ at Finnart which is the site of a now demolished pier on the South side of the Loch. A gradual slope and shallow depths make this a popular local training site and whilst there was quite a large gathering of divers there already when we arrived, underwater visibility although dark was still good. Beneath the surface there are boulders and metal wreckage from the old pier which attract lots of hermit, swimming and spider crabs. Also lots of star fish, urchins, dead men’s fingers, Sea snails and prawns (which must have meant Conga eels too but we didn’t seem to see any of those). With bone chilling temperatures and cold wet gear from the previous days diving, dive times were kept pretty short for all of us (circa 30 mins) but another nice dive all the same.

Off to the Tea room in Helensburgh to thaw out once again over soup and sandwiches, a team photo on the sea front and then homeward bound after a great dive weekend! Looking forward to our next trip here scheduled for October this year already!

DH