A lovely long weekend up at Loch Torridon with Brian, Alison and Kevin. Special thanks to Brian and Alison to for organising, bringing their boat and compressor and generally making the whole trip work!
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The sunset on the drive up was really spectacular.
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This loch was steaming gently - I'm not sure why!
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The view down towards Loch Torridon was spectacular.
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The mountains looked ominous with clouds flowing over them.
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We saw lots of edible crabs on the first dive...
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..including this one which had found a jellyfish to eat.
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A scallop pretending not to be there!
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A jellyfish that hasn't yet been caught by a crab!
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A dragonet tries to blend in.
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A burrowing anemone - only the tentacles are visible, waiting to drag any passing food into the body below.
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A Sand Mason worm, which constructs it's own armoured tower from sand.
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This edible crab has buried itself in the sand to hide.
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A tiny hermit crab in a big conical (and comical!) shell.
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Back on the surface, it rained all day. Still, at least it was calm.
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The second dive was a fast drift, but it did slow down at one point. This long-clawed squat lobster is rather surrounded by brittle-stars.
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This edible crab is also rather surrounded by brittle-stars. I find carpets of those things quite creepy...
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A peacock worm feeds on the lower reaches of Hines Shoal, a rock that stretches from the seabed (at more than 100m) to about 20m under the surface, just to the north of Rona.
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Those feathery tentacles are teh business end of a brown sea cucumber, most of which is hidden deep in a crack in the rock.
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A sea-fan.
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Football sea-squirts against a carpet of sea pens and sea fans.
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Plumose Anemones.
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A beautiful tranquil evening, although the rain didn't stop until pretty late.
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The next morning is grey but dry, so we get the compressor going to fill our air cylinders.
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We're staying in a little house, the main B&B building is on the left and another little guest house is in the middle. To the right are the wood shed and deer shed (for hanging venison).
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A little boat house on the beach.
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The view across the loch to Shieldaig - you can see the slipway where we launch...
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... but by the time we get there some idiot has blocked it by tying his yacht to it. Negotiation and clever rope work is required to get our RIB into the water, but as you can see we made it!
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A feather star clings to some kelp.
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A sea-scorpion hiding under a sea urchin. Thanks for spotting this Alison - he's a handsome wee chap!
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A sea hare slowly meanders over the rock.
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This hermit crab (with a cloak anemone obscuring it's shell) is looking to move house - hence he's wrestling another crab which is covered in the defensive ejecta of its own cloak anemone!
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A cushion-star wanders over some sea-squirts.
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A tiny but spectacular nudibranch.
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Tentacle...
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Squat lobsters always seem so cheeky to me!
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Sea hare - a tiny type of sea-slug.
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Some sea-squirts - very delicate.
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Starfish and urchins.
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Pleurobranchus Membranaceus. Wow, this really needs a common name. It's a sea slug about the size of a fist.
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Another of those - I'm not typing it again!
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Another beautiful sunset over Loch Shieldaig - I wonder if the ash cloud is contributing?
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Sand Mason Worm. Building your home out of the same material as the seabed is great for concealment!
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Not sure what this is - it's a segmented worm but it looks almost like an albino millipede.
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An array of life from starfish to seafans.
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Sunstar - these guys are really aggressive predators and eat brittle stars (amongst other things).
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An urchin and a crab in a field of sea squirts.
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Urchin feeding.
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The view up Loch Shieldaig from the slipway on a glorious afternoon.
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Brian pulls the boat out ready to head home.
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Kevin has an improvides shower.
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The sunshine makes the mountains look so different from on the way up when they were shrouded in cloud.
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A rather beautiful panoramic view on the way home - bye bye Loch Torridon!.
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