Wreck Diving In Mull

When I first dived at the Sound of Mull on the west coast of Scotland I simply fell in love with the place. Since then it has made its way onto my annual ‘must do’ diving list and I usually make it one of my first diving trips of the season. Year after year the Sound has never failed to deliver. It has everything that is best in UK diving – magnificent coastal scenery, sheltered dive sites that let you get in the water in almost any weather (and the weather is usually very good) and most important of all, absolutely fabulous wrecks!

Even getting there is a pleasure! It’s a fairly long drive – about 5 or 6 hours from Manchester – but it’s gorgeous. Passing through the Lakeland hills of Cumbria on the M6 you get just a taste of what is to come. Stop for a break at Glasgow and then take the A82 north and west up to the coast. This is where the scenery becomes simply breathtaking! I think the western highlands of Scotland is just about one of the most beautiful places on Earth and the jewel in the crown is Glencoe.

On our journey up this year (which was the first time I’d been able to persuade Tim to join me) we were blessed with clear blue skies as we crossed Rannock Moor and over the mountains to Glencoe. The hills were covered in snow and just magnificent to behold. We dropped down from the glen heading towards Fort William but just short of the town took the ferry at Coran. After making the crossing the roads were all but clear and I was wishing we’d come in the TT as we made our way to our final destination – Lochaline.

Lochaline

We were not going to be diving from the Isle of Mull itself, but from Lochaline on the mainland. This is a small village with little more to it than the terminal for the ferry across to Mull. That, and the dive centre.

The centre is what would be described as ‘basic but comfortable’. Accommodation is in 12 small rooms, each sleeping two in bunk beds and with en-suite facilities. There are 3 showers, a drying room, an additional toilet and then in a separate building a large kitchen and lounge with television. There is also a small shop which stocks all those minor essentials that you might have broken or forgotten and which provides fills for both air and nitrox.

There is additional accommodation in the Old Post Office down by the pier – those that have used it (I haven’t) seem to prefer it – it has proper beds! That said, with rates currently at just £14 per night at the centre it represents great value, bunk beds or not.

The village boasts only limited amenities. At the pier there is the Lochaline Hotel which has a restaurant serving food more akin to ‘pub grub’ than ‘haute-cuisine’ but it’s plenty good enough for a crew of hungry divers. At weekends it does get busy so it may be an idea to get a booking in advance.


By the ferry terminal there is a social club and visitors are always welcome. There is also a small take-away café with a very accommodating owner who by prior arrangement will open up for you for breakfast and stay open to give you tea when your boat returns from your day’s diving. Wonderful service!

Near the dive centre is the White House Restaurant. This provides what is probably the best food available but is only open in the summer months – from late April onwards. Serving only locally sourced, fresh produce the menu consists of what was best that day so your choices are limited, but what you do get is beautifully prepared.

And that is just about all there is!

Associated with the dive centre, but owned and operated independently, are two charter boats; the Brendan and the Peregrin. I have dived from both and they are excellent boats. This year we used the Peregrin – it’s slightly larger and its skipper Alan has a knowledge of the local dive sites that cannot be surpassed. The tidal conditions within the Sound can be very difficult to interpret but Alan has never put me on a dive site in anything less than perfect conditions. He really knows his stuff. Neither boats have lifts but both are equipped with good ladders and on-board compressors – which was perfect for our team; almost all of us diving with twin-sets and appreciating a top-up between dives.

It’s got to be worth saying at this point that both boats offer just about the best value diving I have found anywhere in the UK. For less than £30 Alan will give you up to three excellent dives a day and for an extra £5 supplies an on-board lunch that includes the best home made vegetable soup you’ve ever eaten! All in, at around £45 to include accommodation, lunch and 3 dives this set-up just can’t be beaten for value. If it was on my doorstep I’d be there nearly every free weekend – it’s almost cheaper than staying at home!

Back in the Briney

Tim and I had not dived in the sea anywhere since our trip to Egypt last October. We’d made a couple of abortive attempts over the winter at St Abbs and Anglesey but on both occasions had been beaten by the weather. Our diving for more than four months had been confined to quarries and we were desperate to get some salt on our gear!

We made our way up to Scotland on the Friday, hoping to get to Lochaline for 3.00 pm when Alan had promised us a bit of a bonus dive if we got there in time. We’d stopped off to see Andy at Dales Divers on our way up the M6 so I could get my tanks filled and lingered a little too long chatting away.

So, it was with some regret at 2.15 pm when I called Alan to let him know we were still only at Glencoe enjoying the scenery and the beautiful weather and we weren’t going to make ropes-off. It turned out to be a great shame as those guys who had made it got to enjoy a dive on the Thesis – one of my favourite wrecks anywhere. I hoped we’d get the chance to do it again over the weekend but it wasn’t to be.

Arriving at the dive centre we picked a room for our stay (you’ll find the keys are just left in the doors – take your pick!) and met up with Chris and Paul who’d also arrived a little too late to catch the boat. We took a wander down to the pier where there is a great wall dive down to 90m! Access is a little awkward and you also need to hit the tides just right. We judged the conditions were not favourable so resigned ourselves to not having a dive until the morning.

We waited for the return of the boat and then reacquainted ourselves with the old friends from all around the country who make this annual pilgrimage together. It was good to see them again – especially in such pleasant circumstances. We got ourselves some food in the café and then into the neighbouring social club for a couple of pints, a bit of catching up and general banter and piss-taking!

We got ourselves off too bed before it was too late as we had an early start to come.

At last!

When we woke conditions could not have been much better. Blue skies stretched across the horizon and the winds were light. Short of the boat having sunk over night nothing was going to stop us now – finally after all those months we were going to get in some proper sea diving.

I sorted a bit of breakfast and then we got our gear together for the short drive down to the boat moored next to the ferry terminal. The Brendan was moored alongside and we had a bit of playing around while we transferred all the kit over for the divers on the other boat. Shortly we were ready to go – except we were short of Dougie and Gavin who, not wanting to rush breakfast, had interpreted the 8.30 ropes-off time right down to the last second. Being the last to have coughed up his money for the trip Gavin was nominated as the weekend’s galley slave and was sent below to put the kettle on.

Finally we were off and with the sun rising above us we set out into the Sound. The sun sparkled off the waves as we passed by the snow-capped hills along the shore and cruised around to the south side of the Isle.

Our first dive was to be a wall at Garvellachs, which was a good hour or more on the boat. As we came out of the Sound the seas got a bit choppier but at our dive site it was good and sheltered. There was a seal playing just off the rocks and we were hopeful of a close encounter. Alan took the boat in towards a small island and we dropped in.

At first visibility wasn’t too great. I had Tim descending behind me and when I levelled off at 15m to check he was still there I found I couldn’t see him. I went through the usual search routine before surfacing and before too long Tim popped up not too far away. We went down again, taking good care to keep in touch with each other. The visibility cleared as we got down to 20m and we settled in to our first decent dive in months.

This early in the year there wasn’t the profusion of life that you might expect in the spring but it was still very beautiful. I used the dive to experiment with my camera and finally managed to find some settings that would produce respectable results. The water was only 7c so it was the cold rather than air or decompression limitations that decided the end of our dive. Unfortunately, that seal never did show up.

Dundonald Drift

Our next dive was to be a drift in Dundonald Sound. We were glad to be back in the sea but Tim wasn’t too keen on the idea – it’s hard to take photographs of things as the current is sweeping you past them! But this was to turn out to be his favourite dive of the day.

The first thing we saw when we descended was an octopus. I turned myself into the current to get steady for a photograph but that in itself was enough to spook it into a hole before I’d even got my camera turned on. Never mind.

We let the current take us but it didn’t carry us too far before we settled into some slack water. Tim settled down to photographing some squat lobsters – he was finding it oddly exciting and I couldn’t understand why until he explained he’d never seen any before! Perhaps we were going to move on to his first encounter with an edible crab?

Before too long some divers from another boat came by kicking up the sand and spoiling our viz, so we moved back out into the current and let it take us on. I have often commented – and I’m sure we have all noticed – that it is a basic and universal rule of diving that any diver from another boat is automatically a muppet! No exceptions this time.

It was on this dive that I really did get to grips with the settings on my camera. On UK dives previously I had been struggling in low light conditions – shots without the flash would inevitably suffer shake and those with flash were frequently over-exposed. I hadn’t been getting any colour out of my subjects and I’d been getting frustrated by it. Even Tim’s suggestions hadn’t helped much. But, more by chance than anything else, my experimentation finally hit the mark and at last I was able to get some properly exposed pictures full of vibrant colour. I came up from that dive well pleased!

(If you have a Fuji F810 set it on ‘Auto’ and ‘Macro’ and use the flash. Don’t worry about the white balance.)

Soup, Sarnies and Coal

During our surface interval the on-board lunch was provided – a very welcome and healthy offering of home made vegetable soup, sandwiches, fruit and even pro-biotic yoghurt drinks!

We followed that with our first wreck dive of the weekend – the Meldon. It made a decent final dive of the day because it sits in relatively shallow water of only 13m, with its rudder post breaking the surface at low tide. It is probably one of the Sound’s least interesting wrecks, being a bulk carrier with a cargo of coal, sunk by a mine during the war. The stern is reasonably intact while the prow was blown apart by the mine and is now fairly broken up. We navigated a circuit around the wreck, finding a shoal of large pollack. Despite it being a shallow dive we didn’t linger for too long. Despite the glorious conditions at the surface the water was still very cold and the three dives had sapped the heat from us – we were really starting to feel it!

We made our way back into port thoroughly satisfied with our day’s diving. Life was good. Some of the guys made their way into the social club to see the end of the Scottish cup final while we dropped into the café for a bit of dinner before she closed. We joined them in the club a little later and Tim gave me a sound thrashing at darts!

Proper Wrecks

Sunday was to be the best day of the trip. The weather was still fantastic and I couldn’t help but laugh out loud with the joy of life as I walked down to the jetty. It just doesn’t get better than this!

Our plan for the day was for two dives on the wrecks of the Shuna and the Hispania – the second of these being just about one of the best wreck dives I have done anywhere.

I’d done the Shuna two years previously, but equipped with only a single tank then had not ventured below deck level. Now carrying a twinset I’d be able to get down to the seabed at 35m. In his dive briefing Alan described the impressive propeller that we’d find there. If we’d prepared a bit better we could have made more of the dive – we had two stages containing 80% with us for accelerated deco but hadn’t brought them on board with us! We’d been expecting to dive the Rhondo during the weekend and were planning on using them for that. Instead, we were going to have to settle for longer stops.

We descended the shot line and dropped down to the starboard side of this large ship. She sits upright on the seabed (as do almost all the wrecks in the Sound), so makes a perfect wreck dive. We made our way to the stern and I first made out the huge rudder as it emerged from the gloom. Sat next to it was an enormous prop. Its twin still sits on the deck above, ready as a spare, and I’d seen that on my previous dive here. I hung about for a while waiting for Tim, presuming it was an ideal photo opportunity, but his camera remained unused. There simply wasn’t enough light at this depth.

Halfway along the port side I decided we’d spent more than enough time at depth and we ascended up the anemone covered side of the ship to deck level, taking pictures as we went. We explored the superstructure and Tim got me to pose in the remains of a cabin for a moody shot. There was no doubt much more to this wreck for us to look at but we’d spent a good 10 minutes at 35m breathing air, so 35 minutes into the dive we decided to ascend, knowing we’d have some long stops to do. In all it was another 30 minutes before we were out of the water. It was bloody cold and I’m sure we were both wishing we’d not left those stages in the boot of the car. Not much use to us there!

Naturally we were the last back on the boat and we really needed that hot soup to warm us up!

Simply the Best!

Our next dive was for us all the best of the trip. The Hispania is an absolutely gorgeous wreck – completely covered in life. Much the same size as the Shuna it sits in slightly shallower water. She was once upright but now lists to one side and seems to be further over every time I dive her. She can be a difficult wreck to dive as the tides are hard to predict and can be fearsome if you don’t hit slack spot on. Fortunately we had Alan.

Ours was not the only boat there and the other two put their divers in before us. Alan was quite convinced they were going too early and urged us to be patient. Clearly they were on another boat, so had to be muppets! We waited over half an hour before we went in. We met the other divers on their way up the shot with wide-eyed expressions – it looked like they’d had a tough dive. We hit the decks with the remnants of only the slightest current. Alan had got it spot on for us. Looking into the open holds they were clouded with silt, so we guessed the early divers had been forced inside to shelter from the tide.

With the benefit of slack water we could explore the hull of the ship safely. We did a circuit before rising again to the decks to take a look around the superstructure. Though there is plenty to look at inside, penetrating the wreck was not really an option carrying our cameras, but they were put to good use as we recorded the abundance of life covering the wreck.

We’d not fully recovered from our long dive in the morning and were quickly feeling the cold. We surfaced after 40 minutes but we were well pleased with our day’s diving.

That Leaky Feeling

After a quiet evening Monday arrived and our last day of diving. Knowing some had long drives home Alan can be very accommodating with the dive plans. We had arranged an early start with the boat coming back into port after the first dive to drop off anyone wanting to get going, before heading out again for perhaps another two dives.

Tim didn’t want to be on the road too late so we opted for just the one dive.

This was to be one of the Sound’s most unusual sites. The Rhondo. Prior to sinking this ship had been grounded in an attempt to salvage it, but it had then slipped and fallen down the face of a pinnacle. The result is that the wreck lies almost vertical, with the stern almost breaking the surface and the crumpled prow buried in the seabed nearly 50m below. It makes a good dive for mixed ability groups as you can choose your own depth.

I’d dived this wreck twice before but had never gone deeper than 30m. I was keen to explore deeper but couldn’t convince Tim; more depth means less light and no pictures! And I had to concede, there’s not much life on the wreck below 25m, so that was to be our dive plan.

We dropped in and I headed for the shot, but could hear Tim gasping behind me. Looking around I could see him floating on his back and apparently very uncomfortable. He’d left his comfort zip only slightly open and the freezing water had rushed in – just where you wouldn’t like it! If he’d realised it was an open zip that was the problem we could have sorted it but Tim had assumed he’d holed his suit. We signalled the boat but they couldn’t work out what the problem was. It was only when they came in close enough to hear us that I was able to tell them we needed to get Tim out of the water. By the time we’d got that message across and they’d got the ladder set up ready to pick him up we’d been in the water 10 minutes and Tim was soaked through.

Once we had Tim out the final divers jumped in. Fortunately they were a group of three so we were able to split into two buddy pairs.

My dive was much like my previous two – descending down the wreck to 30m and then slowly making our way up it, examining the growth. The wreck is normally covered with nudibranch but it was perhaps a little early in the year. While there were plenty of eggs in evidence I spotted only a handful of the brightly coloured slugs. But there were plenty of jewel anemones and as we floated around the rudder doing our safety stop I spotted a scarlet scorpion fish lurking in the vegetation.

I’d been in the water 10 minutes longer than my improvised buddy so was grateful for the signal to ascend, even though it meant our diving was over for the trip.

Home and Dry

Getting back on the boat we found Tim stripped down to his soaked under suit with mug of soup in hand trying to warm his cockles – quite literally! Fortunately we weren’t too far from Lochaline so he was soon able to change into dry clothes. We offloaded the boat and packed up the car ready for the 6 hour trip home.

It had been a weekend that had lived up to my expectations. We’d had wonderful weather (just about the best in the country for those three days) and had dived some great wrecks. I was disappointed that we’d not done the Thesis but that gave us good reason to come back again.

But next time we might just wait until spring – when the water is a bit warmer!