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| We had a great couple of days diving with Bill Ruck on his great wee dive boat Top Cat out of Lossiemouth. The sea was calm, the visibilty amazing on the Sunday, the weather just lovely and the diving superb. Bill and deckhand Jim looked after us tremendously including lunch of Bill's legendary curried spuds and a cup of piping hot tea or coffee placed in your still dripping hand as soon as you got off the ladder and deposited your gear on the wide deck! On the Saturday morning we dived the San Tiburcio, a huge WW2 wreck lying with the deck at 30 metres. The remains are in two distinct pieces and we were on the bow. Although there was a good bit of plankton snots in the water there was plenty of light, certainly enough not to need a torch to clearly see your way around this soft coral and anemone encrusted gem. The afternoon dive was on the MV Unity a former fishing boat that lies at 27 metres. Again the wreck was covered with inverts with the added bonus of shoals of codling and lots of wrasse around. The visibilty here was a bit better but not yet up to the legendary Moray Firth Standards | |
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All photographs by Jim Anderson.
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Life
on the MV Unity.
Sunday's
weather was even better and the visibilty just got better. Thw morning
dive was onto the SS Moray, a coaster that Bill has been diving only
for the last year. The wreck was heavily salvaged in the 1960's and
the boilers are the biggest features to be seen. The bottom is at
30 metres with lots of debris on the sand sillouhetting the shape
of the hull. Rocky, low reefs next to the ship give a nice contrast.
The wreck was home to a great number of species but we all remarked
on the numbers of Ling seen out swimming around - visibilty was much
improved at around 10 - 12 metres and again torches were superfluous.
After
another lunch of curried spuds we headed back towards Lossie and completed
our weekend with a lovely long shallow dive on Queen Street Reef. This
area of rocky gullies, sand patches and low walls lies to the east of
the harbour and offered another superb dive. This time the visibilty
was up to standard at 15 metres and we added John Dory and Giant Anglerfish
to the species count.