Voyager is THE SCUBA diving club in the central belt - West Lothian Scotland. Learn to scuba dive, or transfer existing PADI, BSAC, CMAS or other qualifications to SAA.

Its 7.15am when Julie picks me up, and its off to the West Coast to try out a new dive site for me, Quarry Point, just past the Furnace Quarry dive site on Loch Fyne near Inverary.

After a couple of hours travel and a lesson on how to judge what the tides are going to be like from Julie, we arrive at Inverary where we meet up with Gary, young Gary (Gary's son) and our new club members ready for getting in the open water, Scott and Pippa.

After a quick chat and use of the local free facilities we take a short drive round to Quarry Point. So far the weathers holding out OK.

Julie and Gary reckon its a good idea that I learn how to use a compass as I was going to have to navigate back to shore. Myself and Julie take a walk down to the waters edge and the reading back to shore is north, where we position the compass halfway between two points on the horizon, roughly following the path back to shore.

After a bit of fiddling and after having a few jokes (at my expense, of course) about us ending up in the middle of the loch due to my navigating skills, we get out kit together and suit up. We use this opportunity to show Scott and Pippa the full scuba diving assembled and what is actually involved in doing an open water dive.

Once fully kitted and suited up, we head round to our dive entry point at the other side of the Quarry. Our dive plan consists of going around the rocks at the Quarry, down to approximately 20 metres then coming up round the rocks then heading for shore, where I, with any luck, would lead us back to shore with my excellent navigational skills (har har). Spotting some folk fishing, we walk further across the rocks to get to our dive entry point and after negotiating some slippy rocks, we are in the water.

After a quick check of my stab jacket inflation and dump, dry suit inflation and cuff dump valve, both contents gauges and regulators. We descend into the initially murky depths.

The first thing I notice is that what a steep angle the bottom drops off at! I find myself dredging the bottom a bit until we get further down, where I get my neutral buoyancy and we start to move around the rocks, heading south. The visibility seems to have cleared out a bit past 6 metres, a common thing when diving these shores and with torches on, we start to look around the rocks for the marine life.

Spotting the usual variety of hermit crab and sea urchins, we descended down to about 18 metres, passing some fish, which I think are cod, Julie surprises me with a bloody great big crab, no thanks Julie I don't fancy handling that from the pincers end thank you! We come across a fishing basket which Gary later points out that it leads out to the nearby fish farm in the middle of the loch.

We start to ascend up at bit, slowly moving around the rocks, where out the corner of my eye I spot a plaice fish, great! I've never seen one of those before. Having regularly check both my depth gauge and compass, I notice that we are starting to head north and after a bit of finning, Julie prompts me to take the lead. Compass at the ready I head off, north, north, so far so good. Ascending a bit past nine metres, dump some air to maintain neutral buoyancy, keeping my torch forward so as not to blind Julie or Gary, I continue to follow the bearing I had set at the shore earlier. We move further away from the rocks, following the bottom along the planned path.

Wait a minute, am I on the right bearing? I wait until Julie is beside and ask if I am doing OK. After a slight change in direction, we head off, checking my compass for direction, depth gauge, coming up for 6 metres, dump some air, and have a nosey about at the same time - whew!

Finning past a big rock I once again correct my position in the water and continue Northward. Wait a minute, where's Julie and Gary? damn! I have been finning too fast, I stop, wait for a couple of seconds and they catch me up. Reaching just about three metres, we do our three minute safety stop. Then I lead us into shore, straight into a dozen jellyfish - Arrgh! Ouch! one gets me across the face.

Getting out of the water, we weren't that far (about 20 feet) from the bit we had planned to get out of. Not bad for a first shot at navigating! - Although I did get a bit of a ticking off for swimming like the Man from Atlantis earlier. We climb up the handy metal path and head back to the cars for a break.