Trip Report to the Sound of Mull, June 2010 by “Bendy Bob Jemmett”

The team enjoying superb weather (Bob).

Whilst sitting on the M6 car park near Preston I got to thinking when was the last time I had dived the Sound of Mull? 8 years I guessed. But on checking the dive logs I was shocked to see it had been well in excess of 10 (back then I kept dive logs!). That’s ageing and bringing up kids for you – not only does it play havoc with your wallet and activities it seriously affects your memory also! [note to self – do more diving!].

So, would the diving have changed? Would the Sound of Mull experience live up to those memories and embellished stories of 25 mile sea journeys in small floppies, mammoth malt whiskey tasting and scallop Thai curries?

After a pretty long hike up there, seeing a mad Scot in the central reservation of the M74 and a dash to catch the last ferry, we arrived a tad weary at Lochaline on the eastern shore of the Sound of Mull. Change one – the rudimentary “dive centre” and air station was now a proper dive centre with café, all the mod cons and nitrox. Though I have to say that the 80 shilling in the Lochaline Hotel had changed little in over 10 years – charm or orrible chemical bear?

Day one - we were greeted by blue skies and flat calm seas as we loaded into Sound Diver. Mark’s new Offshore 125 is a great day boat, stacks of deck space, good lift, deep kitting up benches, compressor with extra long hoses and all the gadgets and electronics you need! The viz in the harbour looked encouraging – so that’s a good start!

We headed south towards the Thetis, a small steam ship in 14 – 27 metres. Perfect as a check out dive for the mixed experience crew we had. Maybe it was the 8 – 10m viz but this was certainly a better dive than I last remembered – stacks of wrasses and small stuff as well as all the squidgy encrusting life you’d expect. Plenty of long clawed squatties and the odd ling in a hole kept the interest up. For those of you who have not dived this you can easily swim around the 450 ton wreck a couple of times in a dive – all the bits and pieces are where you would expect as the bow and stern are pretty intact. Great swim throughs and the bow is particularly pretty. Great starter – bring it on!

After as many cups of tea and coffee we wanted we steamed north up the Sound at a leisurely pace to the Shuna. There was no need to hurry so the message from Mark was simply – relax and enjoy the scenery. I have to say that I was not salivating at the prospect of diving the Shuna again - I’ve only dived this wreck twice and it was a monochrome silty wreck in less than 2 m viz – not easy to orientate yourself on a 4500 ton wreck even if it was intact. Well, the viz was an impressive 5-7m, easily enough to see right across the ship and it revealed much more life, colour and interest than I remembered. Peacock worms everywhere and many types of sponges and hydroids. If you do decide to wander down the steps into the engine room and companion ways, do remember that this wreck is a low energy site and tends to silt. After a trip from bow to stern it was time to drift back with the gentle drain of tide back to the shot which was after of the engine room. Completing our deco stops at 6 metres I could clearly track the white and yellow cylinders of divers on the decks some 12 metres below! Was my memory playing tricks on me or were we just lucky with the conditions? The reason, apart from being lucky appears to be that a fish farm in the bay which the Shuna is in closed a few years ago and the viz has dramatically improved since then.

Plumose anemones – a regular sight on wreckage and rocky outcrops (S Millard).

Ballan wrasse on Aurania wreck (S Millard).

Back to the pier for a chill out – no need for cylinder lugging as there is a great compressor on board. The on-board filling is just one example of a boat that has been well thought out with divers in mind. I have to say that I did really enjoy the venison burgers at Lochaline before we left for dive 3 which was a very gentle scenic with some pretty encrusting life on a mixed mud, shingle and rocky outcrop slope. I managed to entangle myself in my SMB taking photos of Lion’s Mane jellyfish in the gently current – it took several somersaults to rectify that much to Brendan’s amusement.

Lion’s mane jellyfish with attendant juvenile fish and extra long tentacles (Bob)

A quick fry up of scallops was the ideal appetiser for dinner. A couple of swift pints (or more) then showered and spruced it was dinner time in the café - convenient and good value. The quality of pool later on that night in the local club is probably best deleted from all our memory banks.

Day 2 - after a cracking start what would day 2 offer? Suggestions of Bovascodale made way for a trip to Coll to dive the Tapti. Early morning sea fog still clung to the north of the Sound and over the hills giving an atmospheric trip out. Even our scouse cultural attaché Steve seemed to be taking in the spectacular scenery! [note to self, people really do mellow with age, but not quite like a fine port]. Blue skies soon appeared and complemented a flat calm sea made both of which made this 35 mile boat trip pass quickly, especially when we stopped to watch 4 basking sharks working a plankton accumulation, one of the sharks was huge – clearly a fine age and battle-scarred with the tip of the tail fin missing.

One of 4 basking sharks on the way to Coll (Bob).

So, would the Tapti live up to memories? Well for me the answer was no, not at all. Generally you expect better viz out to the Western Isles, what we got was perhaps 4 metres. Not inspiring but there still remains plenty to see with a pretty bow and plumose anemone adorned railings. A passing seal made an all too brief visit to raise expectations and Debby’s torch got nibbled by a conger eel. [Note to self – basking sharks appear for a reason, plankton soup so do not expect blue water conditions even if you are travelling for 2 hours for that mega viz experience].

More cups of tea (thanks Steph) and an hour steam had us anchored over the Aurania wreck. This was an enormous liner wrecked in on the west coast of Mull. Due to the exposed position right under the cliffs it has been absolutely hammered by storms and wave action. Having said that the sheer scale of the wreck means that there are many solid pieces of wreckage all over an extensive wreck scatter site. More mooring bollards and winches that you can shake a stick at and four boilers in two pairs – evidence of a once substantial ship. Fish adorn this wreck with many large and beautiful wrasse being particularly inquisitive – anyone would think they may have been fed by a passing (rebreather) diver?

Calf Island drop off, sheer walls to 50m plus (Bob).

The trip back to the Sound was good in that it provided a decent surface interval and time to sit back, chill, sunbathe, drink more tea, whatever took your fancy.

Third dive of the day was Calf Island. This is a site I have dived many times as it was a poor weather tuck in or banker dive on the numerous “floppy” trips I’ve run up here. To be honest the dive was a lot cleaner that I remember, encrusting life being indicative of slightly higher energy with a beastie to interact with in ever spare nook and cranny. Lines of camera shy leopard spotted gobies are just put on this earth to frustrate the photographer leaving just a puff of silt behind. The marine life was diverse, sea squirts, cuckoo wrasse, Devonshire cup corals and the ubiquitous long clawed squatties every where as well as two species of boot lace worms and a very friendly dogfish all added to the interest. The higher energy stone buttresses were covered in various anemones. The sheer wall goes down to 50 – 55 m so this is one for decent buoyancy control when looking down into the blackness. Having said that, wall diving really goes give you the 3-D feeling. Ok, so this was as good if not better than before! Great!

Snakelock anemones – always a treat (Bob).

Day 3 - six dives completed, three to go. Monday brought us a leisurely start with dive 1 being a scenic / wreck dive. The John Prescott (not 2 jags please) is literally 5 minutes out from Lochaline. Mark had dropped the shot just off the wreck so we made sure it was certainly not going anywhere and wrapped it around the wooden keel. We gently drifted along the edge of the drop off which was decorated with lots of dead men’s fingers before dipping down to 40metres of so. Much of the same encrusting life and beasties crammed into every crevice, gulley and crack. We ended the dive in a bay on a mixed bed slope with lots of sea pens and juvenile fish and anemones amongst the weed.

Emerging from a companion way on the Hispania (Bob).

We arrived early for the Hispania and waited patiently for the tide to slacken. As we had become accustomed too, Mark had judged this perfectly so we started the dive on the last of the tide and did the usual spectacular tour of the wreck. She is even prettier than I remembered – the passage of time seems to have enabled the marine life to proliferate and mature and a few plates are starting to disintegrate which adds to the interest and photo opportunities (another note to self – make sure your strobe optic fibre cable is not crushed!). The wreck now has a 10 – 15 degree list to port (towards the slope into the middle of the Sound) which adds a bit more perspective and interest to the wreck in my view. You can spend your dive touring the beautiful companion ways, decks and upper superstructure or there are several very easily swim throughs pretty much all the way from the stern hold past the engine room to the bridge area. As good a dive as I’ve ever had on the Hispania!

Sound Diver over the Rondo – not an easy half in, half out shot with a reasonable amount of surface movement! (Bob)

Dive three saw half the group dive the Rondo and depart home whilst the remaining half dozen did a “scallop dive”. To be honest this was a highlight dive of the trip for me because we were only expecting a rummage and to pick up a handful of scallops. As it turned out we found a patch more reminiscent of a fish market and it was gratifying to be selective about hand picking – far more sustainable than a scallop dredger. The real highlight of this dive was however the nursery and breeding grounds in shallow water amongst the kelp [note to self, do not get carried away about kelp, remember you used to be a teckie wrecker!]. It’s been a long time since I saw so many egg laying and breeding sea hares, mermaids purses with various stages of developing dogfish and flatties and two good sized crawfish. One was a buried female so this certainly gives some encouraging signals about the overall health of the area. Debby forgave me once I had released her back to the wild.

So, how did it match up to previous visits? The weather was perfect and the viz generally in excess of 10 metres. Several of the dive sites were cleaner with less silt than I remembered and diving from a quality hardboat was so much more relaxing than hammering up the Sound in an inflatable. So, bring it on for 2011 – Sean’s already booked the boat for a week and I can’t wait. Definitely not leaving it another 10 years – the diving really was sound!

Bendy Bob molesting a crawfish – for release, not for the pot! (B Connolly).

Thanks to Sean for organising, Mark and the team for the skippering, catering and general good care of the motly crew. Cheers to Sean for driving even though he was burned by a Nissan or some other 1 litre hatchback. As for the team, well I guess I will see some of you there next year!

Bob.