Andrew Knox and me met up with one of the Conger Alley guys and his mate, plus a few from Inverness SAC, at the picnic site after the Corran Ferry, on the road to Fort William to try a site none of us had done before.

Andrew and me went in first. Found a sandy/shingle gentle slope at 5 Metres, unchanged at 10M, no different at 15m, or 20M and at 26M we gave up and headed back. The whole site was covered in brittlestars and a few small hermit crabs plus one large edible crab. Other than that, it was a very uninteresting dive site.

For our second dive therefore, we decided to leave our new friends and drive round the Loch to a layby just before Appin, where I had been told we would find Seapens, a creature neither of us had ever seen before.

Following the instructions we were given, we surface swam for about 100 metres on a 300 degree bearing before dropping down. We had been told it would be 8 mteres deep here but we only found 4M. We continued on our bearing for another 15 minutes, down a very gentle sandy slope with very little of interest. (I got 2 scallops. Andrew got one.) Eventually, at 22 metres, the sand gave way to a very fine silt where we found a number of Slender Sea pens,

5 or 6 minutes later, we had seen a dozen or so more of these starnge creatures up to 3 feet high, when I  finally spotted what I had been hoping to see. The Phosphorescent Seapen.

By this time, my air was getting low and so we headed back to the shore. Total dive time 42 minutes, most of it over featureless sand and silt for 5 minutes spent studying the Seapens. Was it worth it? Yes. I had wanted to see these for some time. Would I go back? No bleeding chance!! This is a boring site with little else to offer.