Isle of Luing Expedition - June 2002

Divers: Neil & Paul Taylor, Mandy & Paul Alderson, Ian Muirhead, David Iceton

Dive Sites: Various Sites around Mull

The alarm sounded 3:30am on the 1st June 2002, four shadowy figures stirred in the cold dark of the early morning.  One by one they began to move, yawning, grumbling and rubbing their tired limbs.  They dressed in silence, feeling a little dry in the mouth and sore eyed due to the whisky nightcaps they had the night before.  It is Luing time again; I can’t wait to be there.

We drove the half-mile to the Purdey Lodge Service Station where we met our friends Val and Reg.  We exchanged greetings, and headed northbound on the A1.  We drove past Berwick-upon-Tweed in virtual silence.  My thoughts were of the long drive ahead and the persistent dryness of my mouth.  We arrived in Oban mid-morning, Caroline, Olive and Val went to the supermarket for our groceries and some reasonably priced whisky.  We then headed out towards Easdale and the Isle of Seil, crossing the famous Bridge over the Atlantic.  Immediately over the bridge is the pub - Tigh An Truish where we stopped and had a fine pub lunch and a well-earned pint.  Paul and Mandy arrived shortly after we had ordered, so we all sat together.  Before off to the Cuan Ferry to Luing.

We arrived at the ferry slipway, there were a few cars in front of us, but soon we were on the ferry and making the short crossing to the island.  Patti and Jeff (owners of Sunnybrae) were there to greet us.  Then some more club members arrived, Ian, Viv and Amy Muirhead (known as the Heeds).  Later David Iceton arrived, narrowly missing the last ferry!  Once the ferry had stopped for the day we launched the RIB’s, I drove the boat back round to the little harbour at the caravan park and moored it up to the moorings we installed about 6 years previous.  I swam to the little slipway (unsuitable for launching) and climbed out, after I removed my drysuit I was given a nice whisky!  We retired and had a few drinks and had our tea.  The group settled into one caravan for a chat about the week ahead and naturally a couple of drinks!

The next morning the sun shone and there was not a breath of wind, the sea was mirror calm, and we were going diving!!  Our journey would take us to the wreck of the Thesis in the Sound of Mull, a round-trip of over 30 miles. We packed all our cylinders, equipment, food, and not forgetting extra fuel into the 3 RIB’s

Our journey was trouble free.  We arrived on the site of the Thesis approximately 30 minutes before slack water; we tied up to the buoy and started to get our kit ready. We were fortunate that it was neaps pretty much all week. This allowed us to get into the water about 15 minutes before slack.

When we dropped in there was a slight current, easy enough to swim against, we descended to the top of the wreck. Meanwhile, while we were down Alchemy Diving turned up and dropped about 20 divers onto the wreck.  they were all over, turning the site into diver soup. There was a lot of life on the wreck, soft corals, echinoderms, and some Devonshire cup corals.  We saw Ballen Wrasse and a Conger Eel.  Our maximum depth was 32.5mtr for 37 minutes.  Back on the surface the sun had given in to light drizzle, but the sea was still flat calm.

The next day we decided to dive in Loch Melfort, which lies around the corner from Luing.  The dive is pretty muddy, but does offer some very impressive untouched scallop beds. We followed the slope down to 23mtr where it became totally barren so we slowly followed the slopes back up to around 10mtr.  We took one scallop each between the 3 buddy teams, we came up with about six scallops!!

The following day was a different story, overnight the weather had turned into gales and rain, we were pinned on Luing, but we managed to have a drift dive in Cuan Sound.  I did not partake in the drift dive, but I did join the second dive in Loch Melfort, where my underwater camera flooded and died.  I had photographed quite a lot of the previous dives and I knew they would all have turned out, and now they were lost.  On the scallop front, we were more successful, we came up with a full goody bag, approx. 25 king size scallops, the other buddy teams were also much more successful.

Early the next morning, the sun shone brightly, however there was a strong breeze, we were sheltered on this side of the island, but we had planned an 11 mile journey to Loch Buie on Mull.  We had a good look at the sea conditions and decided that we were going to go for it.  We headed out on the boats towards Mull, the sea had flattened off a little, and it was fairly smooth all the way out.  We arrived at the Meldon, our first dive. We donned our dive kit as normal.  The visibility was a little milky, this is normally a very clear dive, however we explored this shallow wreck.  There was still an impressive amount of life on the wreck, Ballen Wrasse and other fish that live within the kelp beds and the wreckage.  The sight of the massive stern still impresses me. We headed back after the dive towards Luing, a full 11-mile journey, and by now the sea out of Loch Buie had become much rougher.  The trip back took a lot longer than the journey out

By the afternoon we headed back for Oban to fill our cylinders again.  When we returned we retrieved the scallops from the harbour, and prepared them for our BBQ, Neil cooked them in white wine and garlic, they were brilliant, Neil and myself were the last two to go to bed, it was about 04:30 am and the sun was beginning to come up!

We laid off the dive plans till the afternoon, when we dived on the seaward side of Garbh An Eileach, the largest of the Garvellachs.  Again the sea was flat calm and the sun was shining.  There were shoals of fish, lobsters and crabs, and the visibility was the best we had seen all week, at least 15mtr!! (Typical I did not take my new camera).

Our last diving day involved another Oban trip in the morning and later we dived Loch Melfort again as the wind was blowing a hooley.  I did take my camera this time, but the visibility was terrible and none of the photo’s I took turned out very well at all.

That night the sea flattened off (typical) so we had a debrief and a good drink! The following day we would be heading home……..it would not be long before we would return to Luing in 2003.