It’s that time of year again! On the 15th & 22nd October the club will be running it’s annual Try Dives and giving people a chance to come along, get kitted up and sample scuba diving for themselves for free. Posters will be springing up shortly in various locations with all the details, but you can click on the link below to have a look at one: -

If it’s something you’ve always fancied trying but never got round to doing, now’s your chance and it’ll cost you nothing. Get yourself along to the Methodist Church Hall, Chapel Street, Montrose for 7.30 on Monday 15th/22nd October with your swimming gear and have a go. All equipment will be supplied and for your first taste of scuba diving you’ll be in the capable hands of one of our qualified instructors.

If you discover that you love it there’ll be plenty of club members on hand to talk about the next step to take towards gaining a British Sub Aqua Club diving qualification and coming diving with the club. So what are you waiting for?

This years poor weather continued to affect our diving, forcing us to cut short the Ullapool trip and cancel altogether the Bass Rock/Isle of May trip we had planned during July and August. Luckily we had a couple of really nice dives nearer to home up at Crawton, where we enjoyed some unusually good viz for this year and had a reminder of what a really good dive site it is when you can see past arm’s length!

It had been about a year since the club last mounted an expedition over to Lochaline to dive the wrecks in the Sound of Mull, so it was overdue and as we headed over on the Friday night, fingers, legs and various other parts of anatomy were firmly crossed that we would get some decent weather and viz this time as we were due a break! As we headed over we seemed to be leaving behind a nice evening and driving into the drizzle and when the majority of us gathered at Ardgour for something to eat, it was raining outside and a good breeze was blowing. It really wasn’t looking too great for diving the next day. We completed the drive to Lochaline unavoidably splatting a good few frogs on the way as a (insert collective noun for frogs) of them seemed to have descended onto the A844 road – a biblical plague forewarning of crappy/no diving the next day?

When we arrived everyone ditched their gear at the Lochaline Dive Centre and trotted down to the pub for some much needed refreshing drinks and to discuss a plan of attack for the next day.

We were all up early on Saturday morning, the boats were in the water, kit and divers aboard and ready to go at the agreed time of 8.30. Maybe the clubs days of habitual faffing are behind us? Aye right. As we headed out of Lochaline and into the more exposed water of the Sound the waves started to build a bit and we had a good bouncing about and a refreshing shower of drizzle and spray to wake us all up before we arrived above the Hispania for the first dive of the day.

The Hispania needs no introduction to a large number of the UK’s divers as it’s widely regarded as one of the best wreck dives available in these waters. It’s also a particular favourite of quite a few of the club members and we were looking forward to another chance to have a good rummage around it. As we headed down the shot line it was quickly obvious that current wasn’t going to be a problem on this dive as there was none to speak of and the viz was really pretty good too.

The first wave of divers definitely got the long end of the stick as half way through their dive the wreck started to turn into diver soup as one of the hard boats out of Oban dropped in the twin-set brigade. Some of them were in after us and out before us and you have to ask, what’s the point? Regardless, everybody had an enjoyable dive and with all souls back on board we headed off up the Sound again to our lunch stop on Calve Island.

The day was starting to improve a bit as we stuffed our faces with sandwiches, crisps, chocolate and even strawberries on the North-East Shore of Calve Island. After a bit of surface interval we all piled back on to the boats and got kitted up for the next dive, which was just round the corner from our lunch site. This was the first time several of us had dived the wall on Calve Island and we were certainly not disappointed. There were some of the biggest shoals of fish I’ve seen in ages hanging in the water feeding, the visibility was excellent and there was no current to speak of. This is one of the most impressive vertical walls that I’ve dived and it left me wondering why we don’t do it a bit more often!

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