What I did on my holidays! A Seasearch volunteer shares her holiday experiences doing Seasearch dives.

Earlier in the summer, Seasearch volunteer, Kirsten Harris, was holidaying in Scotland and shares her experiences of undertaking Seasearch dives while there.

Our last trip to Loch Aline on the west coast of Scotland was nine years ago, so my husband and I were very excited to be going back again in May this year. Last time we had terrible rainy weather (in July!) but this time the forecast was sunshine all the way.

We stayed in the Highland Basecamp Bunkhouse in the village of Loch Aline, on the banks of the Sound of Mull. It provides an excellent base to explore the local shore dives in this beautiful part of the country. Prior to travelling we checked the tide times carefully with a local skipper as several of the shore dive sites in the area can have very strong currents.

Our first dive site was the wall in front of the Loch Aline Hotel. You can park right beside the beach and walk in across pure white sand. Once deep enough, you swim over an area of sand which has beautiful tube anemones (Synarachnactis lloydii) and hermit crabs.

📷 Hermit crab

Crossing a band of kelp, you reach the edge of the wall, which drops to 100 metres. We stayed in the 15-20 metre range, which is where the life is most prolific. The rocky boulder wall is a little silty, so care needs to be taken with buoyancy. The rocks are covered with Sea loch anemones (Protanthea simplex) and Lightbulb Sea Squirts (Clavenlina lepadiformis) with the occasional Candy Striped Flatworm (Prostheceraeus vittatus) feeding on them. We also saw some beautiful pink Ascidia virginea squirts and were surprised to see so many large Devonshire Cup Corals (Caryophyllia smithii) in a beautiful range of colours.

📷 Devonshire Cup Coral

There were a few nudibranch species, including Edmundsella pedata, Janolus cristatus and lots of Fjordia lineata snacking on the numerous tufts of hydroids.

📷 Some of the nudibranchs spotted by Kirstie

This is a beautiful wall dive which is covered with life, but care needs to be taken as there can be strong down currents here. It is best dived at high water slack (Oban) but check locally before diving.

📷 Laudale Slip at Loch Sunart

The second site we dived was Laudale Slip at Loch Sunart, a Marine Protected Area, which is a 45-minute drive from Loch Aline. We chose this site partly because we saw from the interactive map on the Seasearch website that there had not been any information submitted since before 2020. This is a tidal loch, and this particular site can be dived at most states of the tide although high tide is easiest for entry and exit. When you enter the water, you initially swim across sand and gravel, with hermit crabs and burrowing anemones.

This gives way in about 10 metres to a cobbled seabed, with Mermaid’s Tresses (Chorda filum) covered in brown algae. As you move down the slope you reach a fine silt seabed at 15-20 metres. There are plentiful burrowing anemones at the slightly shallower depths, and many pairs of beady black eyes belonging to the hundreds of Long-clawed Squat Lobsters (Munida rugosa) at this site.

📷 Squat Lobster

A first for me, we came across a beautiful Slender Sea Pen (Virgularia mirabilis) and a Tall Sea Pen (Funiculina quadrangularis), but only one of each and they each had a light coating of silt. We also saw a couple of Black gobies (Gobius niger), some very shy Leopard-spotted gobies (Thorogobius ephippiatus) and a lovely Thornback ray (Raja clavata).

📷 Gobies spotted on the dive

In spite of the sunshine on the day, this is a slightly gloomy dive but well worth it, as the life there is rich and varied. We have submitted Observation forms for both sites that we dived, and we aim to return next year and dive other sites along Loch Sunart, including the protected flame shell beds.

Loch Aline is a very long drive for us but is well worth the journey!

All photographs by Kirsten Harris.

AUTHOR

Kirsten Harris
Seasearch Volunteer

Kirsten learned to dive in 2004 in Devon and joined Seasearch in 2007. She became a Surveyor in 2014.

She enjoys underwater photography and shares her love of the ocean and its inhabitants with the children at the nursery she works in, instilling an early understanding of conservation and the importance of caring for the sea. She has also participated in seagrass surveys with Citizen Science and has been involved with ghost net retrieval projects with Ghost Fishing UK.