Dogfish Reef & The Caves

A cold Sunday morning and we’re all up before dawn and heading up to Furnace, a little village just outside of Inverrary. We all met up at our favourite cafe in Inverrary, Brambles. After breakfast, we made our way to Furnace, about ten minutes away to our first dive site:

Dogfish Reef – Loch Fyne

This place is known to divers as “Dogfish reef” due to a large amount of Dogfish that are almost always there. Normally sat in between the rocks not doing much until you bother them. It gradually slopes down to around 60m in places and is very easy to navigate.
The visibility on this trip was great and the guys on rebreathers were in for over an hour and managed to find a motorcycle down at around 55m. It must have been ridden off the quarry pier years ago, probably stolen. We tried to figure out what sort of bike it was but our best guess is a Honda motocross….something.

We then headed back to Brambles for what was supposed to be a hot drink but ended up eating loads, the food there is hard to resist. Over lunch we managed to decide on our next dive site:

The Caves – Loch Long

It’s been a long time since any of us dived at the caves, the entry here is pretty unusual. There’s space for two cars in a layby next to a small bridge and you have to go under the bridge to gain access to the water. A rope has been installed down one side since the last time we were there which was really handy. It’s not much of a slope but when you’re carrying gear down it’s pretty easy to fall on your arse. Thanks to whoever installed that rope, you did a good job!

The visibility here was poor down to about 9m, then it got a little better and then a little worse if you went deeper. We managed to see lots of translucent prawns, a large lobster and some really huge hooks and line. It looks like someone was trying to land a shark here at some point.
Navigating this site is also pretty easy. You know when you’re back at the entry point when the water temperature drops a couple of degrees due to the fresh water running into the loch from under the bridge.

The Caves would probably be easier to dive on a high tide as it’s pretty slippy trying to get back out and under the bridge again. A good days diving!

Divers:
Callum Mckay – Triton CCR
David Millar – Triton CCR
Lewis Millar – Triton CCR
James Lynott – 15L + Pony
Joe Mcinally – AP Evolution +