Crawley Divers escape Heatwave

In July, six Crawley Branch Divers escaped the soaring temperatures and sunshine of the South East and headed up the M6 for the annual Hebridean pilgrimage aboard the MV Harry Slater.

The agenda was to dive, eat, drink and sleep, but not necessarily in that order.

During the week, we revisited some excellent dive sites; kept our eyes open for sea life and had some interesting walks ashore.

Highlights of the week:

An excellent slack water dive on the Hispania in the Sound of Mull. This has to be one of the most beautiful wrecks in British waters, being festooned with plumose anemones and dead mens fingers together with plenty of pollock and wrasse. The wreck is still very ship shaped and hasn't collapsed into a heap of plates.

The vertical reef wall outside Canna Harbour at low water. The wall itself was very pretty, and was home to around 20 seals who came to play in response to Fliss's call of "Coo-eee". Divers were rewarded with seals nibbling fins and coming close enough to be touched. Altogether a number one dive site.

Other wrecks visited were the Shuna, Breda, Rondo and Pelican.

We saw minkie whales in the Sound between Rum and Skye, porpoises everywhere, many different sea birds and a basking shark.

Other notable features of the trip:

• Snoring, coughing and heartburn
• SMB through the galley porthole
• Trips in the squidgy and wet orange bottoms
• Banjos and guitars
• Scotch mist, mist in the mask and scotch in the Mish
• Trouble with Muggles, trouble with ladders
• Wet dry suits
• Tranquillity (especially when Fliss was underwater)

The motley crew was Steve Ellott, Mary Lejeune, Shaun McConnell, Claire Humpheys, Steve Baker, Fliss Phillips.

Well Done

This page was last updated on : 09 Sep 2018