Marine Conservation Society: Lancashire area group

This will be an informal event looking for and recording some of the creatures that can be found on the shore at Roa Island. Low tide is at 7:30pm and will be particularly low – at 0.5 metres it should expose more of the shore than most tides which means that many creatures that are often only seen by divers may be found. There are also some creatures that divers don’t normally see that are easier to find when the tide has gone out.

Suitable for all ages; children must be supervised by a responsible adult. Meet at the top of the Jetty next to the Lifeboat Station @6:15pm – map reference SD 232648.

What to bring?

Must haves -

• Wellies, sandals or other shoes that you don’t mind getting wet and probably a little muddy;
• The same applies to your clothes; also bring some warmer clothes – the shore is exposed so can feel chillier than places on shore.

Optional extras -

• A towel and a change of clothes just in case may be a good idea;
• Shallow trays or a bucket to put creatures in to study (but be sure to put them back carefully exactly where you find them!);
• A net;
• A camera – but be aware that sea water and cameras do not mix well, if you bring a camera and have a waterproof housing then please use it and in any case take extreme care on the shore not to drop (or even put) your camera into water;
• A torch – preferrably a waterproof one, or another good option would be a head torch (sunset is @8:10pm, dusk 8:45pm).

Anything that you bring or wear will be at your own risk.

If anyone wants to car share please let me know and I will try to arrange to meet at the westbound layby on the A65 about half a mile east of junction 36 of the M6 – map ref SD 541821. But note that timing will be a little tight for some of us to get away from work and get to the meeting point in time and that I will NOT do this unless it is requested and I can arrange to leave in time to get to Roa Island.

Contact: Lewis Bambury

Tel: 01524 414318
Mob: 07798 707318

Over the last few years we have built up a species list for the Hotel beach and wall at Lochaline. Most of the work has been done by Ron Crosby, with occasional contributions from other embers of the group. This year, however, we are glad to welcome contributions from Ron Ates and Godfried van Moorsel, both based in the Netherlands. Their additions (and corrections) take our list up to 122 named species – not bad at all for 100m stretch of coastline! Mind you the coastline is very conducive to diving, with easy access over a gently sloping beach, leading to a near vertical drop down to 80+m. This makes a wide range of habitats readily accessible to the diver – and reminds us about how much there is in the seas around our coasts.

Below is a quick breakdown table of the life recorded, for a full species list see our survey page:

Group	No. Species
Algae	15
Sponges	8
Cnidarians	20
Worms	13
Bryozoans	4
Crustaceans	8
Brachiopods	1
Molluscs	19
Echinoderms	8
Tunicates	9
Fish	17

Thanks to Gordon for organising an excellent dive weekend based at Tralee Bay (see map) near Oban last weekend (6th-9th May 2011). Eleven of us from the MCS and Preston Sub-Aqua Club enjoyed some spectacular dives.

These including a fast run through the Creran Narrows, which Jo and I followed with a linked dive into an eddy pool by the North West shore, to get some better photos of the brittle star beds there, (it never ceases to amaze me how much colour there is in these beds, which appear from a distance to be rather unpleasant grey cob-webby places) before a rather hard swim back on the surface.

We also visited the wormery – where the serpulid reefs seem more substantial than ever – less substantial reefs are also to be found in the inner basin of Loch Creran.

Our final dive though was at Galanach, where I wanted to visit the sea-pen beds, with the intention of getting some better photos. As a rather nice bonus, however, I saw a large thorn-backed ray, which hung about long enough for me to get his mug-shot!

We also managed a small amount of microscopy, looking at a single plankton sample from Galanach. Unfortunately the phytoplankton have now disappeared (they formed a substantial component of the samples at Lochaline last month), though there is a large amount of zoo-plankton, with copepods and barnacle larvae (cyprids) as the major component.

A  dive weekend held in conjunction with Preston SAC  to the sea lochs north of Oban was held over the third weekend in May. Diving in the Kerrera Sound and Loch Creran was quite interesting with the usual tremendous diversity of marine life although it was quite gloomy with underwater visibility down to only a couple of metres at best. A dive on the underwater cliff about 200 metres  to the west of the old railway pier at Kentallon inLoch Linnhe was the highlight of the trip. Underwater visibility was at least five metres at the top of the the wall which plunges down in a series of steps to approx. 35 metres deep. The wall is covered in a profusion of life, with vast numbers of peacock  worms Sabella pavonina & sea squirts,  Ciona intestinalis. This was an excellent dive to conclude the weekend. Many thanks to Gordon Fletcher for organising the trip to co-incide brilliant sunny weather.

Prior to this trip I had thought that diving the Scapa Flow wrecks would be a bit dull – large piles of scrap iron in the deep dark cold of Scapa Flow. I was wrong. The wrecks are covered in life – thick fields of plumose anemones, sea-firs, colourful feather stars and fish adorn the hulls, which are coloured with orange rust and pink encrusting algae. And in amidst it all, you catch the occasional glimpse of ordnance, or the the viewing slot of the armoured bridge, just to remind you that you are, after all, diving a state of the art killing machine from the early years of the last century…

Thanks to Lewis Bambury for organising and inviting us along on this trip, and to all the members of Lunesdale Sub-Aqua Club who made us feel so welcome!

More information on the wrecks in Scapa Flow from Scapa Map

We arrived at Glen Luce through torrential rain on the Friday night, at start of the August Bank Holiday. Saturday, thankfully, was a stark contrast, with just a couple of showers, otherwise warm and sunny. The strong winds and heavy rain of the previous day had, however, done its damage to underwater conditions around the coast. The most sheltered spot, at Lady Bay, looked promising, with no swell, blue skies and water – but rubbish underwater visibility. At least we could eat our sandwiches and dry off our kit in the sun afterwards! The morning was followed with excursions to Stranraer and Port Logan, there being little prospect of any diving that day…

The weather got wetter overnight, and Sunday was quite grey, with light drizzle in the morning. We first tried to get access to Drumbreddan Bay, but the track (and public footpath) were submerged under a deep spill of slurry, which looked to have been festering for some time. Consequently we made our way down to Ardwell Bay. Here there was a deep swell, which would have made diving quite difficult in shallow water close to the rocks. We decided to chance snorkelling, which was a very enjoyable experience, the movement of the weed in the swell makes you appreciate some of the mechanical stresses seaweed (and shore organisms in general) have to survive. While we were in very shallow water, we did spot some mearl (unexpected in less than 2m depth), wrasse, and plenty of weed!

After the snorkel the weather closed in, stopping any further hopes of diving that day, so we made our way down to the tea house on the Mull of Galloway. Here the weather was quite atmospheric, with, for once, visibility above the water challenging what we had experienced below it!

Still, despite the weather (which again was very soggy for our drive home on Monday), we all enjoyed the weekend – good company, good food, and good accommodation (thanks to White Cairn Caravan Site at Glen Luce). Thanks to Jo for organising the trip!

Above right: Photo montage from top to bottom: Lady Bay on Saturday – sheltered but poor (underwater) visibility. Corsewall Point was too exposed to dive, with large waves and a deep swell. On Sunday the vis had cleared to >1m, so we were able to snorkel at Ardwell Bay (photo of Fucus sp.), though the swell was still strong. By early afternoon the cloud had closed in, and visibility (above water) was pretty poor (photo of the Mull of Galloway lighthouse)…

Barry

We were enticed into the calm, sheltered blue waters of Lady Bay (Mull of Galloway) on Saturday (29th September 2009), only to find that conditions were pretty much un-diveable, with lots of suspended silt giving a visibility of about 10cm! You could see which way was up, and that was about it…

Having got wet, however, I decided to try and get some samples for microscopy, and got a rather nice sample of sea mat on a laminarian. Sea mat is an ectoproct, a colonial animal that is commonly found forming white reflective sheets on kelp fronds, look closer and you’ll see that the sheet is formed of lots of tiny cell-like structures, but that is about as much information as you’ll get with the naked eye.

Under the microscope, however, we can see that each cell is an individual animal – the colony being formed by numerous clones living tightly packed together. When feeding, each animal extends a cone of tentacles, which are quickly retracted if it is disturbed.

Above right: Two micrographs of Mambranipora membranacea (L): Top showing extended feeding arms of the lophophore. Bottom, showing the growing edge of the animal, on Laminaria sp.

Barry

I too have to thank Gordon for doing most of the real work in organising the weekend.  The drift through the narrows was one of those dives that gets imprinted in your memory, and I couldn’t believe the numbers of sea lemons on the stanchion when we dived on slack.  The life and colours were brilliant.  I hope those doing the photography ‘course’ found it useful and enjoyable, and that you’ve looked at your pictures and filled in that matrix

If anyone’s interested I’ve put some of my pictures from the weekend on the web at

http://www.zen102367.zen.co.uk/diving/lochcrerran09/crerran09.html

Lewis Bambury

After a weekend of heavy swell pounding into the rocky gullies on the east coast which prevented any thoughts of diving, and this was July, Monday dawned bright and sunny , the swell was replaced by an almost smooth sea with in excess of 10 metres underwater visibility.
Nestends gully at Eyemouth must have the easiest access to the water of any dive from the shore anywhere in the UK. From the point of entry you immediately drop into a few metres of water amonst quite a dense healthy kelp forest with all the usual kelp forest inhabitants.
As the gully continues downward and the forest is left behind the floor is made up of large boulders, stones and sandy patches, again all supporting an abundance of marine life. The walls of the gully rising almost vertically towards the surface are covered with anemones and soft corals. Sea slugs, squat lobsters and crabs lurk in the many cracks and crevices and snake pipe fish and scorpion fish are usually quite common sights towards the mouth of the gully.
Across to west coast to Lochaline on the Sound of Mull. Another easy access walk in dive from the shore. A short swim down over the white sand with its numerous tube anemones and the occassional kelp covered rocky outcrops brings you to the top of the Lochaline wall. This is an almost vertical rock face with cracks, crevices and ledges, which plummets down to more than 100 metres deep.
There is a great diversity of marine life living on the wall, seaweeds, sponges, anemones and worms etc. Over the past three years members of the Group have recorded more than 100 different species of plants and animals. On this dive to a depth of 30 metres there seemed to be an abundance of fish including, leopard spotted gobies, corkwing wrasse, scorpion fish and dozens of juvenille cockoo wrasse.
Our list of recordings consists of the common and the more obvious plants and animals, a concentrated effort looking at sponges, hydroids and sea weeds etc. would at least double the numbers on our present list, and what about the life at the bottom of the wall?, that could be very interesting!
About 20 miles east brings us to Loch Creran, a favourite dive location with our Group for many years. There are a number of very good varied dive sites with easy access from the shore around the loch, but when the tides times are right Creagan Bridge Narrows is, I think, the outright favourite. Vey different to the dive at Lochaline wall, the narrows is only about 6 metres deep at low water, start the dive just before the end of the ebb, drift through the channel, as the tide turns at the end of the period of slack water you then drift slowly back to the point of entry. This is a very crisp and vibrant site where you can find many plants and animals that are associated with high energy locations.
These are three very easy access sites, suitable for novice diver and upwards, each with their own very special characteristics, there is always lots to see, in fact you often see something new every visit, so its always nice to return.

One of the other dives over the weekend was a drift through the Creran narrows – there are some super photos taken by Lewis available on his website at:  Loch Creran photos June 2008 (Lewis will be giving us a talk on underwater digital photography later in the year – keep an eye on the diary for more information!)

More information about Loch Creran is available in a new guide published by the Argyll and Bute Council. To quote from their website “(the guide) describes and illustrates the amazing wildlife and natural habitats found in and around Loch Creran, its geological and historical background as well as a description of current commercial and leisure activities.” To find out more and download a copy of the guide: Loch Creran Guide (Thanks to Louise for this info).

Barry