Sound of Mull 2009

For the second year running, the start of the annual Rossendale Sub Aqua Club trip to Oban started in a force 8 gale.

Searching for a sheltered dive site on the Saturday morning, the Kylebahn pulled into the calmer waters of Ardtornish Bay . Under the shadow of the ruins of Ardtornish Castle , eight divers kitted up and prepared to enter the waters where amongst the gradual gradients of the inner bay seabed lie an abundance of scallops. the boulder slope that follow the shoreline from Ardtornish Point towards the bay provides a good scenic dive where the rocks are covered with dead men's fingers and the occasional strand of kelp provide homes for crabs, squat lobsters, brittlestars and plumose anemones.  

Due to the adverse weather in the exposed Sound of Mull, a second dive took place later in the afternoon at the same site giving the divers a chance to collect scallops for tea.

Sunday morning bought altogether different conditions, a flat calm sea and a blue sky gave the group the opportunity to dive wrecks. The first dive of the day was on The Rondo, a steamship that ran aground on 25th January 1935 near Salen in the Sound of Mull. The Rondo lies almost vertically, pointing downward with the rudder in about 5 metres of water and her bow being in around 50 metres of water. The interior of the wreck is accessible with the hull forming what can be described as ‘a nice cave with the rocky slope'. The dive features fascinating marine life all the way down and back up again and with the wreck's hull covered in denses arrays of plumose anemones.

The second dive of the day was on the Thesis, an iron steamer with a cargo of pig iron that, on the 16 October 1889, ran onto a reef just off the eastern shore of the southern end of the Sound. Removal of the plates of the hull during salvage has let in more light leaving a latticework of girders covered with white and yellow dead men's fingers.

Large shoals of pollack hang just above the wreck and the light that funnels through the many holes in the ship's side make it a truly unforgettable dive.

The Rondo

The Thesis