Our interest in this little slice of Scottish heaven lay in the abundance of wrecks off the coast of the islands. The whole Argyle coastline is littered with shipwrecks dating back to the earliest of times. The proximity to the North Channel, the main shipping artery from the North Atlantic, unpredictable tides and the prevailing South West wind have taken a terrible toll on ships through the ages, even modern vessels with their sophisticated navigation technology.

Our merry crew consisted of all the usual suspects, Alan Porter, John Hall, Dave Chapman, Colin Harthill, Roy Henderson, Paul Wainwright, Forbes Donald, Mark Taylor, Dudley and Chris

We hired the 55ft trawler SS Charna and took the club inflatable to ferry divers to and from the dive sites. There were 10 of us in all and the boat had 10 single bunks around a central living and dining room. There was a curtain across each bunk for privacy. We were all so tired at the end of the day I dont think any one cared about the cacophony of snoring that split the air each night. The Charna came and collected us in the West Coast port of Oban for the journey across to Mull, Coll and Tiree. We had a young student called Elizabeth who was supposed to cook but spent the whole trip on her back with seasickness so mostly we ate Pot Noodle. The Captain, Jim, divided his time between the boat and the pub and appeared never to sleep.

As we were still considered novices we often found ourselves teamed up with other more experienced divers, but sometimes we were allowed in together. The boat had an iron ladder on the side so either you climbed down the ladder in full kit to get into the inflatable alongside or you did a giant stride from the bow, a rather daunting 2m+ drop to the water. The difficulties negotiating the ladder soon made the leap of faith preferable although various loose fittings went flying and many a tank boot popped off! Close your eyes and think of England!

The Hispania was a Swedish merchant vessel of 1340 tons carrying steel from Liverpool. She was wrecked in 1954. It is the most intact wreck in Scottish waters and is marked by a buoy and so easy to find. She sits upright in 30m with the deck at 15m. The rails and deck are complete with bollards. It is easy to swim along the decks and penetrate the ship into the companionways. The whole wreck is encrusted with sea life and large colourful anemones. All in all a very pretty wreck indeed

The Tapti was a 6609 ton motor vessel with cargo of pig iron which ran aground in 1951.

She lies off the island of Coll, quite broken up on the bottom with lots of wreckage strewn about. Luckily she is marked. with a buoy so she was quite easy to find. There was lots of non ferrous metal but we had no lifting bag so we brought out a brass valve and flange. We were able to enter the cabins and find the toilets and we returned the next day for more brass and lead piping. I am sure there is more than 1 wreck on this site, the wreckage was so prolific, if you look at the wreck map this little corner of Coll coastline seems to have been a popular wreck site.

We did 2 night dives, one in kelp beds and the other under a pier. The shallow depth gave me problems with buoyancy as I was underweighted. The bottom was literally alive with lobsters, crabs , hermit crabs and brittle stars. Dudley followed an octopus. The kelp beds were less active than the pier, probably because of all the fish entrails that get thrown in off the pier.

We dived a few dives in Tobermory Bay. You cannot look for wrecks ALL the time ( just most of the time.) Again lots of sea life, brittle stars, squat lobsters and soft shell and spider crabs, some quite huge and decorated with weed and debris for camouflage. We saw many scallops swimming. They sit just under the sand and as you swim over them they flip up and swim by opening and closing their shells using the big adductor muscles, ( the bit you eat with garlic butter), and using jets of water to propel themselves forward. It looks like something out of an undersea Disney cartoon and you sort of expect them to burst into song! To this day I have never eaten one. It just seems wrong. Also the main fishing technique is to drag big chains behind the boat ploughing the sea bed and scaring the scallops up into nets. The damage to the seabed and marine life in general is incalculable so it's also a matter of principal. They are so defenceless.

Unfortunately this cuteness does not impact their huge culinary popularity. If you google scallops the first 20 pages are recipes!

Scallop eyes are a innovation among molluscs. Each eye has a pupil which contracts and dilates to regulate the light. Instead of a lens there is a concave parabolic mirror of guanine crystals which focus and and retro-reflect the light onto 2 retinas. These eyes cannot resolve shapes with high fidelity but they demonstrate exceptional contrast definition, and the ability to detect changing patterns of light and motion, which explains why they rise up from the sea bed as the diver swims over them.

They rely on their eyes as an 'early-warning' threat detection system, scanning around them for movement and shadows which could potentially indicate predators. Hopefully these are very slow predators who tire easily as after 4 or 5 swimming claps the scallops sink exhausted on the sand and may need to rest a few hours before they can swim again. Sitting ducks essentially.