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Conservation Bay, Loch Carron – June 2013

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Click on image to view the photo gallery

 

When you read rave reviews about dive sites you always take them with a pinch of salt. One reason is that there are as many different opinions of what constitutes a good dive as there are divers. With this in mind and having done a fair amount of research it was time to dive Conservation Bay and form my own opinion!

 

Conservation Bay is situated along the north shore of the Strome Narrows near the mouth of Loch Carron. It is just to the west of the very picturesque North Strome, itself the site of a couple of shore dives which I have yet to explore. Continue reading “Conservation Bay, Loch Carron – June 2013”

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Inverinate, Loch Duich – June 2013

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Click on image to view the photo gallery

This was the second of two very different dives in one day in neighbouring Sea Lochs – Loch Duich and Loch Carron. The first dive had been earlier in the day at Conservation Bay, Loch Carron (the subject of a future blog entry!).

The morning’s dive had been stunning and our expectations of Inverinate were ‘realistic’ since it is so much further into Loch Duich than Conservation Bay is into Loch Carron. This generally makes for less current and less life to see, although we were very pleasantly surprised and impressed with our first dive at this site. Continue reading “Inverinate, Loch Duich – June 2013”

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Rosehearty and Millshore – June 2013

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Click on the image to view the photo gallery

A dull, drizzling morning developed into an afternoon of blue sky and blazing sunshine when we dived Rosehearty and Millshore recently. Contrary to the report we received from a surfacing diver, the visibility was actually very good (as can be seen from some of the photos). All the usual life was present and I even met my first Duck underwater whilst leading the group round the corner of one of the rocks at Millshore. I’m not sure which of the two of us got the bigger fright but the Duck decided to end his dive shortly afterwards! A Duck was preferable to the dead Badger that we met there last year, which has to be the oddest thing I’ve ever encountered on a dive. Having commented recently about how I didn’t think I had seen a Lumpsucker before, I saw the third one in as many weeks.

Continue reading “Rosehearty and Millshore – June 2013”

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El Cabron, Gran Canaria – December 2012

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I was lucky enough to finish off my diving for the year in warmer waters than of late with some diving at El Cabron, Gran Canaria. At 20 degrees C, the water was a whole 10 degrees warmer than it was in the Clyde a couple of weeks ago when we were diving the wreck of the Akka amongst other things, but it was still good to be wearing a fairly thick wetsuit with hood!
 
As well as a nice little shoal of Bastard Grunt (that’s what they’re called, not a sudden bout of profanity), there was a lot of the usual life you see when diving around the Canaries. A Tiger Moray was hiding in a crevice, a cluster of Squid eggs were hanging from the underside of another and there were a pair of Cleaner Shrimps who had set up their cleaning station next to a Giant Anemone (there was no cleaning going on, possibly due to the Christmas holiday 😉 ) I also spotted a Canarian Lobster, which is a species endemic to the area but doesn’t bare too much of a resemblance to the Lobsters we are used to seeing whilst diving in the UK. Continue reading “El Cabron, Gran Canaria – December 2012”