Water

Artist unknown

Sunday saw my first cold-water dive to the maximum depth I am currently qualified to do (20m). The visibility was quite poor at 2-3 metres and any unnecessary movement with the legs, kicked up silt that obscured the person next to you. I can honestly say that I was a little nervous, and occupied my mind with the intricacies of varied life that was abundant on the reef at this depth. The dive site was Loch Creran, a specific area of conservation (SAC) between Oban and Appin on the West coast of Scotland.

Squid and octopuses have eight legs and both belong to the molluscan group Cephalopoda, which literally means "head footed”.

Photographer unknown. Image taken from the article text 'Envisat fishes up facts behind Chilean giant squid invasion' March 2004, by the European Space Agency and is for my own research purposes only.

The large deepsea squid shown above triggered its own photograph on a special undersea camera used by Antartic Division scientists during their last expedition to Heard Island, and mimics the movements of the true Giant Squid which was photographed for the first time recently by Japanese scientists. Hobart-based Liz Turner, Curator of Invertebrate Zoology at the Tasmanian Museum in Hobart, Rosny Collections and Research Facility, says “For the world to be able to see the photographs of a live Giant Squid is a huge leap in the quest for knowledge about these gargantuans of the oceans”.

Photograph by Brian J Skerry. Sourced from National Geographic for my own research purposes only.

Five centimetres of snow fell last night. Not much to the countries that are still used to heavy dustings of snow over high ground, but to coastal Scotland this has become very unusual over the past two decades. As you can see from the related link, the rural highland economy benefits from their five small ski centres, but in recent years the reliability of high snowfall has become less and less. However one hopes that this latest cold-snap, although bad for the domestic heating bill, may at least support livlihoods further North.

Ian the writer, poet, artist, elven dancer and general singing philosopher of the Western Isles and Dawn, his shipmate and fellow creative being. Every one has their own way of distilling the processes of work and this is theirs; navigating large pieces of fruit over water, between points of land, by the strength of the breeze.