PADI Advanced Open Water course - 12/12/2009 - 13/12/2009

After completing my basic PADI course in Lanzarote, I was impressed with the quality of instruction in Edinburgh in comparison. In September, I did my dry suit specialty course in Scotland and from there decided to do my Advanced PADI in Scotland as well. Field trials in October and November, combined with bad weather on one November weekend left me with four of the five dives to do in December. In Scotland.

The mandatory dives were Deep and Navigation. The optional dives I chose were Peak Performance Buoyancy, Underwater Photography (digital) and Multilevel. I did PPB in November while the water was still not freezing cold. The schedule for the remaining dives was Navigation & Photo on Saturday at St Abbs followed by Deep & Multilevel at Loch Long on Sunday.

The high for the east coast of Scotland that day was 4C. Puppy Max wasn't very fond of cold pavement, so he spent the dive briefing sitting on my feet instead of the ground. I was with instructor Nick and divemaster (woman whose name I've forgotten). Four brave Open Water divers were completing the first two of their dives that morning, too.

Navigation was easier than expected. I lost track of counting plenty of times but never strayed too far off course because of it. 4C meant that the surface interval was undesirable but necessary. We kept it to a minimum and headed back into the drink as quickly as possible.

The Photo dive was faffy at best. St Abbs was a nice change from Loch Long but instead of pea soup murk, I had photos off light blue churn. The stirred up particles limited visibility to about 5m. Because the autoflash was on, I got lots of photos of stirred up particles with blurred whatever in the background.

For whatever reason, I started driving home on the wrong side of the road and didn't remember on which side I was meant to drive until there was a car driving toward me. Oops. I spent the rest of the evening huddled in blankets trying to find warm.

Day 2 had me driving west to Loch Long, through fog and grit. Windscreen wipers were useless against the slight mist, just smearing the grit more across the windscreen. When I arrived to the site at Loch Long, fog meant we weren't in a rush to get in the water. Because of how far out some of us had to get (ahem), we needed to be able to see the other side of the loch. Within an hour, it cleared and we suited up.

The deep dive was first. My task to see effects of deep on me was to write my name backwards on land first and then at depth. Because of the cold, our deep dive was planned for about 20m max. We also brought a colour ball to compare at depth as well. The first few metres were cold but once we crossed the debris/thermocline, it got less cold. With all my layers and the dry suit, I was warm enough as long as we kept moving.

When we reached 20m, they had me write my name backwards first. As soon as I stopped moving, cold set in. Sloppy or not sloppy, I wasn't wasting any time sitting still. It took me 18s on land and 22s in cold water with clunky gloves. I don't think there was any nitrogen narcosis effect. Then we looked at the colour ball and indeed saw the lack of much colour at depth. The last task was comparing depth gauges between us. Mine said 21 to Nick's 19.5 and 20 and Tom's 19. I got fed up with sitting still before we finished comparing. Thankfully, we didn't stay much longer. The last stop was the safety stop at 5m for 3min, which was above the silt/thermocline and it was a very cold 3min of sitting still. With a high of -1C, I wasn't very happy about the surface interval either. Mandatory 1hr meant wet gloves came off but sea monster hood stayed on. My fuzzy gloves were much appreciated.

Multilevel dive was last. Because of the temperatures and the dry suit course, I had the option of bailing early if necessary. The plan was 16m for 10mins, 12m for 10mins and then a safety stop at 5m for 3min. The last bit I was least excited about, remembering the deep dive experience.

At 16m, we found the A frames and spent 10mins exploring those. The second interval at 12m became 10m because there were more interesting nooks to peer into at the shallower depth. I saw a dogfish nose hiding in one nook, but struggled a little with buoyancy control to stay there long, but I did manage the 10mins at 10m well enough. The dreaded 5m safety stop came next. I shivered through it but survived.

The -1C surface temperature was not a very inviting return. I needed help out of the dry suit because my hands weren't working. The Dumbarton pub stop for warm drink on the way home was welcome and like the previous evening, I spent the rest of this one huddled in wooly blankets trying to find warm.

Don't let the light blue fool you. Yes, I went diving in Scotland in December and yes, it was damn cold!

Instructor Nick

Stuff growing on rocks

My best shot of the trip, almost framed right.

Fish, lobster claw and lots of stirred up particles.

The blur, centre right, is a claw of a healthy and happy lobster, hiding under the big boulder.

RYA Competent Crew Weekend #3 - 13/6/2009 - 14/6/2009

Our third weekend with the comp crew course connected us with the third of three instructors and as far as learning went, it was the best weekend of the bunch.

Instructor Bob and John were enjoying themselves more than this photo suggests.

Our afternoon game was to pull up to the big yellow thing without hitting it. Everybody got a shot. Tom's run was the best among the students.

Instructor Bob making friends

Our parking space for the evening at the Holy Loch Marina

Blindfolded Jon sails the Clyde

Instructor Bob and Brian during the very useful blindfolded sailing exercise. No, we didn't hit anything, but apparently during my shot, I was photographed by a big group of passing scuba divers.

RYA Competent Crew Weekend #2 - 6/6/2009 - 7/6/2009

For weekend 2, Greg was our instructor and a very different personality from John. I got the impression that the two of them probably wouldn’t be sailing buddies. The routine was pretty much the same as before. Slept in the boat in the marina on Friday night and made a relatively early start for Saturday morning. The boys minus Brian were disappointed that they were not allowed their bacon rolls for breakfast, but looked forward to the promised bacon roll brunch once we were underway. Greg was much more thorough so we did an abridged repeat of the safety briefing and set out from Largs marina about mid-morning. Unlike the previous weekend, Greg drove us out from the marina.

This weekend, we started off with plenty of wind. The previous crew had put two reefs in the sail and we left those in when we raised it. We took turns helming and I was second up. Our course wasn’t quite upwind so we didn’t have to tack. The wind was gusty, though, so every so often, I would get knocked off the course that Jon and John had routed. Greg explained how to look for the gusts of wind and anticipate them with steering corrections, which helped a lot. I felt like I was flailing before then, just getting bullied by wind. I broke the previous week’s record with a new one of 8.2knots, which was soon broken by Jon when his turn to helm came around.
Our plan for the day was to sail to Cove Bay, practise some skills and then have dinner at the hotel. The original plan of a stop at Dunoon was scrapped for lack of shelter from the wind. It was less northerly than the forecast promised. The omnivores’ promise of a brunch with bacon rolls was blown away by the wind.

The same promise of bacon roll brunch evaporated. Brian and I didn’t care but the rest of them had been looking forward to it. We continued north, past the Holy Loch and lunch became a working lunch. We arrived to Cove Bay in the mid afternoon and found the area quite sheltered as we had hoped. We had a "proper" late lunch and made reservations for dinner at the hotel.

With the time we had left before dinner, Greg taught us a bit more about how to cope with a man overboard. The boys weren’t too pleased that it was always a man overboard. My answer (women are usually too sensible to throw themselves off a perfectly good boat) was not appreciated. Greg showed and talked us through the process for recovering someone under engine power. Then he let Jon and John each have a shot. Most everything made sense to me, including why one would choose to recover the casualty from the leeward side (it’s more protective) but I didn’t quite get from their angles of approach why their side was the leeward side.

Dinner time came soon enough and Greg took over helming again. We picked up one of the hotel moorings and then assembled the dinghy to ferry us across. And again, lots of watching once it was assembled. Greg shuttled us across in 2 groups and we hiked up the bank to the hotel for a nice dinner. Brian amused me by being the high maintenance diner of the evening. I had choices on the menu, but he didn’t like any of them. After dinner, we repeated the dinghy procedure while trying to avoid the midges and stowed the dinghy for the evening. Part of the Competent Crew course involved some playtime in the dinghy. That playtime would be on the schedule for first thing if the wind continued to cooperate.

With several hours of daylight left and attention spans for sailing fading quickly, I introduced the rest of the crew to Pass the Pigs while Brian plied them with whisky. Pass the Pigs is Yahtzee with pig shaped dice, perfect for secluding us across the harbour from Dunoon, the apparent swine flu capital of Scotland. After lengthy rule explanations, playing as we rehashed them, Greg perfected his pig rolling technique and thrashed us all. Bedtime followed soon after.

The next morning, we followed another quick breakfast (with more promises of bacon roll brunch) with the expected dinghy adventures. Tom, Brian and I each got a shot in the dinghy. Our mission was to paddle around the boat and then paddle in to finish. Both Tom and Brian struggled with paddling it like a rowboat. To be fair, the oars for it were pathetically small and awkward. We were essentially rowing a raft like a rowboat with six inch wide oars. Rowing with too much commitment was likely to end in some mistake with oar placement in the water or, better, the oar falling out of its slot completely. In my shot, I rowed the dinghy like a proper rowboat. Slowly, else all of the bits might fall off, but reasonably effectively, I worked my way around the boat and even managed to make the turn at the bow reasonably tightly. On the other side, I had to row into the stern of the boat to finish and that’s where it went wrong for me. I don’t see very well behind my back so I went by sound. And missed. I set up again and went for it, just barely crashing into the stern sideways.

Dinghy adventures out of the way, Greg had us sail off the mooring and do the sailing man overboard drills. The procedures for recovering a casualty under sail were much more complicated so I appreciated the value of the under engine recovery procedure immediately. The two methods under sail involved either tacking or jibing and some other sailing terms for how to return to the casualty and keep him on the leeward side of the boat. Once again, Greg showed and talked through it before letting Jon and John have a shot at each method.

Man overboards pretty well done to death, we began to head back toward Largs under sail. After MOB practice, sailing made a bit more sense. Along the way, Greg discovered a problem with the head (sailor speak for toilet) so our sail was interrupted with a maritime plumbing crisis. When that wasn’t resolved quickly, Greg had us sheet in the main and continue the journey back to Largs under engine. During the trip, his diagnosis of the problem shifted several times to eventually identify the problem. Someone at some point had left the diverter valve in the wrong position, a blockage had formed in one of the outlet pipes and the sewage holding tank on board was not only full but under pressure. Brian and Greg spent at least the next hour attempting to first release the pressure on the tank and then clear the block. The expected niceties came spewing out the release valve several times.
At one point, a seal popped up behind the boat to see what we were up to. It didn’t stay around too long.

We cruised past Largs and stopped for a quick lunch on a borrowed mooring. One again, the omnivores were denied their bacon rolls in favour of a quick meal. The mooring wasn’t really intended for a boat our size, so we didn’t linger. We returned to Largs where Steve, the boat’s owner met us and proceeded to clear out the holding tank with the shopvac. Brian continued to help.

The task of mucking out the holding tank was not a glamorous job. I didn’t realise at first, but Steve intended to vacate the entire contents of the tank into the marina, which didn’t make me happy. The lack of much current meant it would have had plenty of time to fester there. On the upside, perhaps the inevitable fuel spilled from the fuel berth would have something else feeding on it. Brian got to witness and experience the worst of it. The first time Steve set up the shopvac, he put the hose on the wrong end. It blew instead of sucked. Brian laughed and set bet you won’t make that mistake again. Sadly, he did and he blew bits of wet excrement everywhere. Brian got a light dusting from about shoulder height down. Steve got the works and I think spit a few times after he managed to turn the vacuum off. When we got to the car to go home, I sent Brian to the shower first. He ended up having to wear stinky sailing clothes home because his on shore clothes were the ones that he was wearing at the time, but at least we didn’t have to smell holding tank anymore.

On approach to the evening's mooring.

Brian got the honour of picking up the mooring.

Dinnertime - hotel at Cove Bay.

Our midge-filled view back to the boat, from the beach before dinner.

Instructor Greg got the hang of Pass the Pigs and demonstrated his victorious technique to the rest of us.

Clear, calm morning meant dinghy practice was the first adventure of the day.

If the RYA offered a maritime plumbing qualification, Brian certainly earned it helping to muck out the blocked toilet.

RYA Competent Crew Course Weekend 1 - Dolphins! - 30/5/2009-31/5/2009

I am not sure if it was Brian or Jon who was the initial instigator, but the three of us signed up for a three weekend sailing course based out of Largs on the west coast. Jon is a keen sailor. He got his Day Skipper last year but wanted to build up more experience before chartering a boat on his own. Brian and I signed up for the entry level qualification, which is Competent Crew. We were joined by John and Tom, who as luck would have it, would be with us for all three weekends of the course. John was doing his Day Skipper practical course and Tom was another for Competent Crew.
Three different weekends and three different instructors meant three different teaching styles. We were fortunate that we got to sail the same boat all three times with otherwise no crew changes.

On our first weekend, we had John, who very quickly turned us loose on the boat to let us sail. I think he did that partly because Jon had his Day Skipper already and partly because he may have felt it important to get us sailing first, before throwing lots of the boring planning stuff at us.

After a long safety briefing, we motored out of Largs harbour and across to Millport in Great Cumbrae Island. I got to drive for most of it, including the approach to anchor. John left Jon to look after me and he took the rest of the crew forward to set the anchor. We had about two spare metres and a rising tide, so in theory, should have no problems with getting stuck. We took a lunch break and discussed the afternoon and evening plans. Because the weather was nice, sunshine and reasonably warm, John wanted us to get our night hours out of the way. If the weather turned bad on the other weekends, we would be especially grateful to have those hours done. End of May meant night hours wouldn’t start until 10pm. Early/mid June would have been worse still. We weren’t thrilled with a 2am finish, but would have been less thrilled with a later finish in less appealing weather.

After lunch, we got out the sails and sailed off the anchor with a plan to reach Lochranza on the isle of Arran first, take a break for dinner and then head for the Kyles of Bute at night. Jon and John painstakingly plotted a course for us to Lochranza but instructor John told them to bag it and just sail visually. The wind kicked up for us on the journey to Lochranza so we quite quickly found ourselves moving at a good speed. Instructor John retreated to the cabin and left us to it for a while. Still at the helm, I reached just under 7 knots, I think. Brian helmed after me and broke my speed record with 7.2 knots. Braggart.

As we approached the Arran coast, the wind kicked up beyond its steady force 4/5 and several times the helm fought back against Brian. Collectively, with Jon to lead us through it, we decided to put a reef in the sail. Putting in a reef means drawing in a portion of the sail to make it smaller and therefore easier to use. The stronger the wind, the more reefs you put in to compensate. Our sail had rigging for up to 3 reefs but we only needed the one. Brian could steer again.

Soon after we put the reef in, the wind died. We couldn’t tell if it was the hills on the north side of Arran blocking the wind for us or the usual late afternoon winds subsiding. Either way, after chasing the wind around for a while, we had to switch to engine to make the rest of the journey to Lochranza.

We rocked up to Lochranza in time to be welcomed by the resident midges. As twilight approached and the wind disappeared, the welcoming committee grew larger. Walking around the harbour was ok but standing still not so good. After a quick look around, we retreated to the boat to make dinner.

It felt like hardly no time had passed at all by the time 10pm arrived. We set out for the Kyles, heading roughly northeast. Sunset disappeared into twilight which disappeared into almost night. We were able to sail at 3 knots for about an hour before deciding yet again that to get where we needed to get, we would have to use the engine.

Day skipper trainee John helmed the entire four hours into the darkness as we fussed about which shapes corresponded to what points on the map. Jon made a list of all the known objects we would pass, including buoys and lighthouses so we would know we were headed the right way. Eyes can play tricks on you and you can naturally categorise lights based on brightness and imagine them closer or farther away. Frequent consultations with the chart helped offset this tendency, but it is impossible to wipe it away completely. Cabin lights were kept to red only to not interfere too much with night vision.

As we approached the red can channel markers one after the other, Jon, John and John realised that we would not make our planned destination for the evening. After much discussion, they chose an alternate harbour to make home sweet home for the night. We rocked up promptly for 2am and the final challenge for all of us was picking up a mooring in the dark. Only instructor John and Jon had ever done that before and I think instructor John was the only one who had done it at night. Comedy followed with us approaching too quickly, not communicating loud enough (partly for not wanting to wake the neighbours and the rest from inexperience), and driving over the mooring. Jon and I got tangled up in each other in the bow since we were clipped into the safety line. Instructor John ended up fishing the mooring out about three quarters of the way down the boat on the wrong side from intended. Mistakes or not, we were on the mooring. Bedtime. Well, whisky and wine time (separate, not mixed) and then bedtime.

The late start the next morning was needed, not nearly enough sleep to make up for the long night though. The still morning gave way to a reasonable amount of wind with plenty of sunshine. We got to sail off the mooring.
Instructor John taught us about sail trimming the next morning more by doing than explaining. We had to sail into the wind, so lots of tacking followed. We got reasonably good at tacking and moving the headsail from side to side reasonably quickly.

Our treat of the weekend was a pod of dolphins. They don’t normally wander too far up the Clyde so the sighting was a rare one. Tom was the first to spot their telltale jumps from the water. They’re bigger and jump a bit higher than porpoises and travel together rather than as individuals. One of our tacks took us quite close and they came over to play in our bow wakes for a while. I took lots of pictures, missing more shots than I captured. The dolphins played for what seemed like a good 10 minutes before getting bored with our bow wake and finding a new boat playmate nearby. They reminded me a lot of my dog. Play play play... Bored now... Play play play elsewhere... Bored now... Play play play....

Not long after the dolphins disappeared and we got closer to the wrong sides of the islands between us and Largs, the wind abandoned us again. While it was enough to sail, it wasn’t enough to get us to Largs in the right time window for the next crew to take over. We fired up the engine and got back with a few minutes to spare. Before the drive home, we wandered into Largs town centre in search of ice cream and found a great place just across from the train station. The night hours took their toll, though. Jon, Brian and I were zombies for the drive home.

Our boat for the three weekends was Bolero IV.

Skipper John had John and Jon navigate while I was at the helm. The plan was pick up a mooring or drop an anchor at Millport (Great Cumbrae island), have lunch and then start sailing.

The rest of the boys learned how to drop the anchor while Jon stayed with me at the helm.

Brian strikes his movie star pose at the helm.

Brian silhouette at sunset (Lochranza, Isle of Arran)

Dolphins!

Dolphins!

Dolphins!

Dolphins!

Brian confirms that yes, the water is cold

Helming

Islay Whisky Festival - 22/5/2009 - 25/5/2009

Amy and Bram took a bit more stuff than we did, a bike trailer each compared to our two panniers each.

On the boat to Islay, Amy's strategy in the game Cheat seemed to be to collect all of the cards for herself rather than get rid of them.

Maartin and Brian cycle away from Port Ellen

The cycle from the Islay ferry to the distilleries in the south of the island was much more sober for some people than the cycle back to Emma's parents' guest house.

Lagavulin Distillery's open day was pretty good, too.

Amy's whisky face is about as good as mine (Bowmore distillery)

Group photo on the way to Bruichladdich

artistic bike by the sea

The party at Bruichladdich was the best of the open days while we were there. They're the only independent distillery on the island and much more of a boutique distillery. Sluggish economy and the slow nature of the whisky business means they're struggling. They have a few years to go yet before they bottle their first 10 year old under the new owners, so hopefully they can make it.

Amy led a ceilidh lesson for Lies and Maarten.

Amy's description of cycling in Orkney seemed to fit Islay cycling. Whichever direction we were cycling, the wind was blowing the other way.

The problem with all downhill to the Caol Ila Distillery is that it's all uphill on the way back. Enough free whisky might make you forget that point, though.

Kittens - 15/5/2009 - 16/5/2009

Over the weekend, Brian and I went to visit Amy and Bram in Auchtermuchty. They adopted kittens and we got to see them within their first few hours of exploring the cottage. Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum are sister and brother and are very different creatures. Photos and videos can be found here.

River Teith - 10/5/2009

Trip report coming soon

Alan waits out the faff.

Upstream view to the first bridge across the River Teith.

Squinty Brian

Ali complained that all kayaking photos of her are from the back.

Brian doesn't look completely unhappy

Alan avoiding mayflies

Assault of the mayflies

Lanzarote Above Water Adventures - 27/4/2009 - 3/5/2009

Blah blah blah coming soon

Eventually Ben figured out what the suitcase was all about and he wasn't happy.