Originally posted by Melanie in the Autumn 2000 club newsletter

Plans were made, remade, finalised and then changed again, but finally we all congregated at the chalets south of Oban , arriving in dribs and drabs until late in the evening. I was in a chalet where catering is of high priority and Ted (with a little help) had managed the usual superb curry accompanied by a G & T just right to start the weekend. The Saturday morning dawned bright and clear and early as Ruud had obviously had not enough to drink the night before and awoke everyone in all chalets with his morning call. After everyone had surfaced and woken up, it was off to the slip to sort out the days diving. Three boats and sixteen divers all organised was not an easy task especially as the it was the first trip away for most of the trainees. Then it was off out of the loch through the narrows following the buoyed channel,( that's it Ted, it's red to left on the way IN). The sea was calm so we headed out to Bach Island where all had a good dive, although in places it was a bit of a guddle in some silty stuff, but lots to see with a camera! Back home for lunch and a quick fill of some bottles, keeping Ruud supplied with coffee and food to keep him working.
The second dive was on the cliff at Ard na Cuile. We started in the bay and worked round onto the cliff face which was excellent. Saw a lovely large lobster with its cast shell under some boulders but could not retrieve the cast, so had to make do with a claw, just to make Alejandro jealous. Louise managed to lose a fin in the bay, but apart from that everyone seemed to have had a good dive. Home for yet more food and drink, a bottle of gin does not last long when Mark comes to visit. The next day dawned bright and sunny again and it was off for yet more diving. This time it was out to Dubh Sgeir where there was a wonderful cliff face in ledges going down to 40 metres which, with the depth fiend as my buddy we descended to the bottom of and could look up and see pairs of divers on the wall above us. We pottered up from this depth slowly admiring the life on the wall in my case, slightly faster if you were Alejandro (and that was me without the camera). Approaching decompression time Alejandro sent up the SMB and the reel kept unwinding, funny we couldn't feel any current, and yet the line kept unwinding until all 50 metres was out and yet we were only in about 15meters of water. At this point Alejandro let go of the reel and it bobbed away up and beyond and then stopped, we ascended to it and Alejandro began to reel it in. I tried vainly to get all the knots out of the line, but to no avail there was so much line out it was a danger to life and limb. We surfaced to be met with a very sheepish face in the boat. Two previous divers had been getting into the boat when Nicky spotting an SMB on the surface beside the boat assumed it was that belonging to the divers on the other side of the boat and began to haul it in, and haul it in and haul it in, until asked why he was hauling in Andy's SMB when it is already in the front of the boat. Ahh! Umm! Ops!. (Alejandro now has his name on the top of his SMB). Time for lunch and compressor duty for some, feeding time for others and a laze in the sun watching out for sunburn. The afternoon dive was split between those diving out of the loch on the southern end of Kerrera and those diving off the jetty due to boat problems. Those in the loch saw a ray, those of us off Kerrera saw a lot of sand and kelp. Home for yet more of the food and mothers' ruin. Who let Mark out with the strong stuff? one large glass of the export gin and Ted was up for anything. This evening saw entertainment in the bar. There was live music which was the undoing of several folk. Ted could not keep his feet from tapping and with very little persuasion he was seen hugging Edna round the bar in almost perfect time to some music or other ( it was just not the same as was being played). At the appropriate moment the cake was brought in and a happy birthday sung to Alejandro and the cake stuffed (sorry Ruud, your share went, you should have come to the bar). Its amazing where a large cake can be hidden in your dive luggage when you suddenly find you are travelling with the person for whom it is meant to be a surprise, gin takes up so much space in the food bag! Ted had some explaining to do to Rena when he got home, but took the approach of getting his side of the story in first with a confession, bearing little resemblance to the facts, but that is what a good story is all about.
The last day dawned bright and clear again, so there was more diving to be done. This time some went off to the quarry on Seil island while the rest of us dived at Ard na Cuile again, but further along the cliff. It was memorable all round. The water was clear and as we waited for the last couple of divers one boat headed off into the bay to see if Louise?s fin could be seen from the surface, and yes there it was. Alejandro volunteered to go in and get it. Meanwhile Ted and Edna surfaced so we tell them to wait, till Alejandro has the fin, then his boat will come and get him. Funny response from Ted, not his usual cheerful greeting still, he's only got a minute to wait and there's the boat. Ted gets into the boat exhausted, it was two weight belts he was carrying, one he found on the bottom and decided was too good to leave. The others were having an equally successful time with Andy losing one of his weight pouches in the kelp and wondering why he was needing to carry rocks around. And that was just insult to injury after his back pack broke earlier. Still we all made it back, Colin returned in time to pick up the boat and all headed home after Hugh had cooked his usual lunch and all were packed away. Another successful weekend and an introduction to the highs and lows of a weekend away with the Grampian branch for the new trainees. (They said they enjoyed it)