Claire Youdale describes helping COAST with dive surveys around Arran.

Arran may not be the first place that comes to mind when planning a dive holiday, as a lot of divers head straight past the Clyde to areas like the Sound of Mull or Scapa Flow, but the variety of underwater life around these shores is astounding. When the seas are caught on good days it’s possible to see up to 15m rivalling many other temperate destination. Plumose anemones waft in the current, wrasse dart in and out of nooks and crannies and the occasional basking shark filters away with each leisurely sweep of its tail.

During the summer of 2009 I took part in a series of Seasearch dives around Arran, recording the types of marine habitats off these shores and the variety of life found there.

Seasearch are a nationwide voluntary organisation collecting data on the marine environment around our shores, to record what’s there but also to help identify areas that need protection. Volunteers come from all ranges of backgrounds and as such can be Observers or Surveyors depending on the extent of their underwater marine knowledge and which Seasearch courses that have been undertaken.

Howard Wood of COAST, who is a Seasearch surveyor, and I, a diving beginner but with a marine background completed many Seasearch Observer and Surveyor dives around Arran during my stay. Here is a short description of two of them off Holy Isle and Newton Shore in Lochranza.
Underwater marine habitats differ as much as those found above the tide line, with forests of kelp, plains of seagrass and deserts of muddy sediment with oases of life around rocks or anchor points.

The first dive we did was around the back of Holy Isle between the two burns, on the boundary of the new No Take Zone. The habitat under the water is similar to that seen on the beach, a jumble of fallen boulders with many caves and crevices for beasties to hide in. I always enter the water with an eager sense of trepidation on what we are going to see, what the habitats are going to be like and will we see something really exciting like a conger eel or and octopus. We descended to 12m and swam along the boulder slope.

Many cuckoo wrasse came darting out of holes defending their territories from a potential threat. These fish are especially interesting as they all start of life as females each with a small territory within the larger territory of a male. When the male dies the largest female will turn into a male and take over where he left off! Larger ballan wrasse were also lurking among the boulders where sun stars glided along on their tube feet in search of the next meal and edible sea urchins grazed on the algae. As I was looking into a crevice I was surprised by a solitary devonshire cup coral like a little jewel nestled in the surface of the rock. Looking away from the boulders into the open sea we saw a shoal of whiting and further into the distance pollack that had so far escaped the fishing nets. All too soon my air began running low and we had to ascend back to the surface to tell those waiting on the boat what we’d seen.

The second dive was a shore dive at Newton point in Lochranza where I was staying. Having spent two years teaching A-level students at the field centre about what lives on these shores, I was pretty excited about what we were going to see below the low tide mark. It was also fairly new territory for Howard as he has last dived this part of the island 20 years ago.

The thought of what we might see made the traipse from the car to the entry point, with some very funny looks from passing dog walkers, worth it. The tide was in so once we were in the water the intertidal zone with its glistening anemones and curious blennies soon gave way to a forest of Laminaria digitata or oarweed. Looking through the fronds we found little goldsinny wrasse, spiny starfish on the hunt and parchment worms in their papery tubes. As we got deeper the oarweed petered out to gravelly sand and dead maerl sediment. Here burrowing cerianthus anemones were common with the tentacles sticking out above the surface to catch their food and hermit crabs bumbling along the sand. Some hermits have a cloak anemone living on their shells, this relationship is mutual with the crab gaining protection and so does not have to change its shell and the anemone feasts on any food the crab drops whilst eating.

I was amazed at the variety of life found here with shoals of saithe and juvenile cod whizzing by and a dogfish reclining on the sand. It stayed still just long enough for me to take its picture before swimming off with a flick of its tail. The closer you look on a dive the more you see; orange blob sponges and tiny chitons only reveal themselves under close scrutiny and you suddenly realise you’ve been staring at the same patch of gravel for five minutes!
The variety of life found under the water in both the north and south of the island is amazing and is only going to improve with the No Take Zone providing a sanctuary for juvenile fish and scallops to grow and spill over into the surrounding area.

I’m eagerly anticipating my return to Arran for some more diving experience and also to give me the opportunity to explore new areas of the island’s coast in order to collect more data for Seasearch.

;Claire Youdale