Andrew Bryson(Offline)

So, as Gary might say, we were at Stoney Finnart today. Finnart is a dive site at the foot of Loch Long on the west coast of Scotland. It's a shore dive, and is quite commonly used for training as it's very easy to park, access, and dive. Quite often the car park can be pretty full, so I think that's where he gets the Stoney bit from! Then again, maybe it's the pile of junk scattered across the sea bed...

Anyway, let me introduce you to our two divers:



Gary is on the left, and myself on the right. FYI, we're both wearing Protect Explorer suits.

Here's some of the views. Up the loch:



And down the loch:



Gary is taking part 1 of tech 1 soon, so he's keen to get a bit of relevant practice in. Finnart takes a while to get any depth - the pictures above show the tide alost fully out - but pretty soon it starts sloping off to +25m meters (I've never bothered to go deeper as there's nothing there, that I know of).

Anyway, we kicked out for a bit until we thought we were in about 6m-9m of water and started our descent. Gary was leading everything today, so we started off with a 3m/min descent, arriving at the bottom in 7m of water. The visibility at Finnart can be pretty bad, but I was surprised to find it was ~6m; quite pleasant really.

We carried out some valve and s-drills, and they went quite well. Gary has been having trouble with stiff valves on his twinset recently, but after some lubing during the week, they were really working easily for him today. The first s-drill was a bit rushed, but we sorted that out and ran through the drill again. A bit of line was then run; just basic out and back in.

After a while of mooching around the various bits of scrap and concrete blocks, we headed down to 21m and started an ascent. I was quite surprised to find ambient light at 21m, as it's usually pretty pitch black down there. Plan was to do 3m/min to the surface, with a few minutes at 6m, and maybe some valve drills. By about 15m the ascent was getting a little scrappy, so we just continued 3m/min, stopped at 6m for 3 minutes, and then 3m/min to the surface. Today the tide wasn't running much at all, so we didn't move much from the dive site; probably about a 2min-3min fin back to the shallows.

We got our sandwiches and hot drinks out during the surface interval and discussed the dive, and the plan for the next dive. Here's a man deep in thought, visualizing the next dive:



We even managed to locate and explore a new cave system:



But enough of that, on with the 2nd dive.

The plan for the 2nd was pretty much the same as the 1st except no line laying.

We did another descent drill into similar depths as before, then the usual valve and s-drills. After this we ended up running a litte bit of line, but this time using a spool. Between 16m and 20m there's 4 very very large platforms made out of concrete, typically L shaped, though one of them does have a large 'A' frame coming out of it. On this dive we spent at few minutes looking around one of them at 18m before beginning another ascent.

This ascent went a lot better that the previous. Everything was a lot more controlled, and during our stop at 6m, both of us carried out a valve drill before surfacing.

All in all, a good day out. Though Finnart isn't the most exciting site around, it's only about 1h 25mins from my house, and serves us well enough for practice. Perfect.

Though I wasn't actively looking around for wildlife during the dives, I did spot lots of crabs, squat lobsters, prawns, and a pretty large cod. Can usually find some congers eels, and various types of flat fish at Finnart. So much to see, just need to open your eyes to it.



andy

Rick(Offline)

What's that big lump on the front of Gar-ee's suit in the first pic.....and your tie off needs work?? :D

The suits look good lads and nice wee write up!

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Gary Moffat(Offline)

Nice write up Andy

The day out was excellent, I got to get some good practice in for Tech 1 and also resolved some kit problems – valves in particular ( manifold serviced and Crysto lubed and Knobs replaced with originals, working perfectly now)
Weighting corrected for Sea dives now sporting a nice 1 Kg V weight and 2Kg adjustable Tail weight – Weight belt gone.

Both dives were very educational I always come away feeling good knowing I have learned something new either about procedures, skills or my self.

As Andy says Finnart is mainly used as a training area for clubs and schools, easy access, accessible year round with Sea temp normal not lower than 7 Degrees Celsius (warmer in the sea than on the surface ).

Finnart has absolutely stunning Scottish scenery on route and at site and its Free :D perfect for surface interval, so many vistas to admire.

Most excellent days diving with excellent company.

Bart78660(Offline)

Nice cave! Looks like you are keeping the fun in diving ()

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Clare Gledhill(Offline)

Great report Andy - and glad to hear that the training is going well Gary

So you get to see beautiful scenery and dive with sea life when training - and I get bacon butties and stoney cove's car park. Hmm...

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lizardland(Offline)

I dived there a week or so earlier and sh@t myself when I swam into a seal the size of a small donkey at 15m. Ahhh the joys of diving silent!!!

The oil terminal to the left is a very interesting dive too. I, er, unexpectedly ended up in it once after some creative navigation. Loads of stuff to nosey around but I'm not sure BP would be entirely pleased

vid(Offline)

Andy
nice report, glad to hear there's a stoney across the border too

how have you found your explorer since it arrived? did you manage to compare to a TLS? and which did you buy in the end - which type trilam and what specification?

vid

Andrew Bryson(Offline)

Hi vid

I'm really happy with the suit. My old Otter was aging , so the time was right for a replacement. Don't get me wrong, the Otter has been a great suit, and hasn't restricted my diving in any way, but it was time for a replacement and I wanted something lighter / little more flexible. I would have gone for an Otter Brittanic, but I know two people that've had really bad fitting MTM suits, and have had them remade; I really can't be bothered with that.

Once I had a look at Gary's suit, I was happy to commit to Protec.

A friend has a TLS 350 and was strongly considering getting a Protec. His TLS has been leaking on and off for a while now, and the problem has never been nailed. The only thing which hasn't been replaced is the zip, so he's going to get that done instead of jumping in and buying a completely new suit.

The Protec Explorer has neoprene lined boots which are really flexible, and give me no problems at all with the various kicks. I used some thin thermal type socks for the first few dives in my suit and my stability in the water was pretty solid meaning I could stop and not tip back or foward. On the 50-60min dives my toes were getting a little cold towards the end (usually above 6m where fresh water run-off really lowers the water temperature) so I bought some Xotherm socks. Now, these seem to have provided a bit too much buoyancy in the foot department meaning I have to scull with my fins slightly to remain stable. Not a big problem. Due to this, I would maybe consider just getting normal boots fitted to the suit instead of neoprene lined. Obviously this won't be a problem when the water warms up. Think I'll go back to my thermal socks for the next dive and see how I get on.

So for the suit spec, it's a trilam material, has braces, apeks inflation, and apeks low profile dump. The zip goes down the way to close, and it's got a metal cover zip which works in the same direction. Ian (Mr Protec) will do bottle neck or conical seals, I went for bottle neck, and there's a warm colar on the neck seal. Two pockets.... yada yada

Let me know if you want any further information. There's some further photos / info on http://www.poddle.net/~andy/misc/protec/ too.

I'll stop blabbling now and go to bed.

andy