Deep in Duich

by Scott Laddiman

While sitting wondering what I am going to do on my days off, I received an email from a fellow diver.
"Fancy a dip in Loch Duich?"

Loch Duich is on the West Coast of Scotland surrounded by rugged mountainous scenery and is known for its extreme depth, marine life and much better viz than its neighbour Loch Ness. Since my alternative was spending the day watching daytime TV, it didn't take me long to reply.

After a quick run to the local dive shop 'Aberdeen Watersports' Website to get a fill of Trimix, we were soon on our way. The 4 hour drive across seemed quick and we soon arrived at the small grassy area where there is just about enough room to park two cars.

The road on which Loch Duich sits beside is popular with tourists, and a couple looked at us very strangely as they parked beside us as we were getting kitted up in our undersuits.

The entry point at Loch Duich that we used is a walk down a small slope to a rocky area, which is just a few feet from the waters edge depending on the tide. It can be a little tricky kitting up with twin sets and stages and walking across the rocks until the water takes the strain. Once we were both waist deep we did our final checks and I briefly looked around at the surrounding scenery and descended below the surface.

My heart sank as I looked at the viz below us as it was only about 2m. I thought back to my dives in Loch Ness and wondered if all Scottish Lochs were the same. I was soon to be pleasantly surprised. Once we had gone past the 10m mark the viz soon cleared up and an abundance of life could be seen. This was is no way anything like my spooky dives in Ness. I put the bad viz at the start down to our own faffing which stirred up some silt.

We continued down a gentle slope and although the ambient light became weaker the viz was still an acceptable level at around 8m. At 30m depth the gentle slope then becomes a vertical drop into the abyss. We descended down the drop and levelled off at 50m.

The next 20 mins was spent marvelling at the amount of marine life that covered the wall. The drop off was a hive of activity and between checking on my air breathing buddy, and watching the activity on the wall, it was all too soon to start our ascent.

Having been used to spending my deco time looking into the blue and only having a shot line to look at and your buddies bubbles, I was happy to enjoy the marine life all the way back up to the surface. Never had the minutes of deco gone so fast. We had the pleasure of several schools of fish swimming past us during our 6m stop. I fully expected to be very cold at the end of the dive but although cool I was no way uncomfortable. As I hovered at 6m I thought to myself what a good inland site Loch Duich was, and if the weather turns against you then Loch Duich is a good alternative, as it is very sheltered from the wind due to the surrounding mountains.

As we slowly made our way up to the surface from 6m we past through a patch of mixed fresh and salt water, which made it seem as if we had blurred vision. This was a good sign as I knew our entry point was near a small stream, so we were near to our exit point. Our heads broke the surface to a bright and clear day and we had surface right in front of our entry point.

Loch Duich is a good inland site and is often dived for pleasure or is used by people wanting a deep dive site when the weather does not allow you to dive in the sea.

It is an easy dive but it has extreme depths of +50m so good buoyancy skills is a must, and ambient light fades at depth so a good torch is needed. It is also very remote so consideration is needed for any emergency. Although for some reason we did have the Coastguard van follow us to the dive site?! Thanks to my buddy Pete Calvin for a good day out.

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