| Archive for SUSAC forum Stirling University Sub-Aqua Club |
| charlie |
D(r)iving weekend!Well, what can I say? It turned out to be a pretty exciting weekend of diving.
On Saturday, as with all the best trips, we had a slight change of plans! Cheeky (uncharacteristically) bowed out due to illness (he must have been dying as I've never known him miss diving before! This meant that Sarah had to retire home as there was no BI. 
So, we were left with a core of Euan, Gus, JD, David & me. As we had the 17 seater bus, I had to do all of the driving. We decided to head for L. Fyne, with Furnace Quarry as the first choice and Kenmore as plan B. Everything was going swimmingly (minimal faffing) until we got half-way up Rest & Be Thankful. The traffic ground to a halt, and several ambulances & police cars whizzed past. We could see evidence of a collision in the distance and the presence of a rescue helicopter. Well, at least the delay of a couple of hours gave Gus et al. a chance to fanny about on the cliffs above the road (no doubt trying to trigger a landslide)! 
Eventually we got going and got to Furnace Quarry in the afternoon. Met some Burberry-clad chav fisherman at the quayside who were intrigued by our 'oxygen tanks' and asked us to "Geez us a go!". After politely declining, we got ready to get in the water. As the tide was fully out, it was quite a massive stride entry, but we all survived (following a rigorous risk assessment). We each got 2 dives in, with Euan getting his greatest depth yet (1.5 m more than me, his buddy!) and successfully leading our 2nd dive (better navigation than me). Funnily enough at the end of our 2nd dive there was evidence of geological disturbances, with fragments of rocks falling into the loch (or was it Gus chucking stones at us on our safety stop)  No wonder we can't stop our kids from throwing stones 
While dekitting, we realised that we had several spare cylinders, so someone (from Skye  ) suggested that we get a dip in the loch at Rest & Be Thankful which legend stated Trevor Telfer had dived. Well, it would save us washing our kit upon return 
Nobody was sensible enough to dismiss this idea, so we ended up kitting up at the side of the A82, much to the amusement of passing motorists. We shed weight for the freshwater conditions and calculated our Buhlmanns for alpine lake diving as well as carrying out a full risk assessment for poor visibilty etc. I carefully locked the bus (accidentally leaving the side door wide open ), and we made our way to the shore.
We got in, only to find it was 1m deep. OK, we thought, we'll swim across to find depth. Well, after swimming 3/4 the way across & 1/2 way down its length, we found a max depth of 4.5m! We did however find a submerged caravan which formed an interesting wreck! For more images, check out http://staff.stir.ac.uk/charles.mcgurk/diving/susac200506/ We eventually got back to Stirling at about 9pm. Just time for a curry before getting the kit ready for the next day... (to be continued) |
| charlie |
SundaySo we got back in the minibus on Sunday morning for the next adventure. Accompanied by some frenchies on this day also!Everyone seemed to have a good day's diving at St. Catherine's Reef: Sarah & Blair got multiple skills signed off in their training books. Andy Murray was in attendance & carried out my 2 open water assessments for me to become a BI: thanks to Blair for being the trainee! So, eventually we got on our way home, only to come up against another road block, this time just past Drymen. We doubled back & ended up going along a narrow country road. All was going well until we met the traffic coming in the other direction who'd also been diverted along the same road. It proved a tight squeeze past some of the vehicles including a big wooden boat on a trailer and several 4x4s driven by people unable to engage reverse gear! We gave Bastien a red flag & he went ahead to clear our path, but ended up getting verbal abuse from several Scottish louts! Eventually, we got back to Stirling & everyone seemed to have enjoyed their day. |