DAY TWO

Day two dawned gloomy and drizzling. The area outside the hotel added to the gloomy aspect and didn't improve as we wandered across the road, past the derelict Little Chef and to the pub with a locked door. The pub finally opened twenty minutes late. We paid our £4 and sat down. After a brief interlude and a small argument we were allowed to choose our food from the buffet, not brilliant but filling so £4 well spent.
Having made a few phone calls the week before I had found Dumbarton SAC in Alexandra, just up the road from Dumbarton. Most importantly they had a compressor and a guy named Charlie. The compressor was housed in a garage belonging  to one of the club members . It turned out to be the centre of diving activity in the area and Charlie was a revelation.

Outside the garage filling our cylinders

While we waited for our fills he got his maps out and started to tell us about all the dive sites and how to get the most out of them. We went away with filled cylinders and a copy of a map showing known and unknown dive sites around the Loch Fyne and Loch Long area. Years of diving ahead.

Part of the dive map

Thanks to all the members of Dumbarton SAC for their welcome and friendliness.
On their advice we decided to change our plan and headed out to the Twin Piers and Conger Alley dive sites

Twin Piers
The dive site is found by the side of a busy main road and is easy to enter ...... once the six foot drop via a wooden ladder is negotiated, oh, and avoiding the missing rung!

Dive 1 with a view of the twin piers

A simple swim out between the old pier supports and then a gentle weave between the posts started the dive. The mussels clinging to the sides of the old pier were covered in starfish gorging themselves greedily, they piled on top of each other to get at the rich pickings. The empty mussel debris had drifted down the slopes like scree down a mountain side. Towards the 25 meter mark we found many small anemones climaxing in a big beautiful firework anemone.
We exited to brilliant sunshine after preparing in heaving rain.

Conger Alley
The entrance to Conger Alley is inconveniently slap bang next to a busy main road so having found a good parking space we decided to dive from where we were along the kelp reef and then turn down into Conger Alley exiting at Conger Alley and bringing the car to load. This worked well although the dive start was a good 500 meters in length.
It turned out to be well worth the time.
The shallows were full of life including many Stickle Backs and the occasional Ling. Once we started our descent the rocky Loch bed was alive with life. The rock reef is about 25 meters wide and descends to about 25 meters. Outside of this the bed is sand and mud, making this an ideal haven for life. We spent half an hour exploring this area and investigating the nooks and crannies.


Packing away after the second dive

Over the two days we had some good dives and a good laugh.