Previously Published Articles
Please scroll down to view extracts from a number of previously published magazine articles and book reviews. The full articles can be downloaded by clicking the links at the end of each extract.
Scottish Diver Magazine January-February 2011 Creature Feature
Snake Pipefish (Entelurus aequoreus)
A few years ago if you had asked me about snake pipefish my answer would have been along the lines of yes we are supposed to get them around the coast of Scotland but the only place I have seen one was much further south at a dive site on the Cornish coast. That has all changed and I would now suggest that in Scottish waters you are just as likely to see this species of pipefish as any other and in some areas it is possible that you may be more likely to see this one.
Scottish Diver Magazine January-February 2011 Armchair Diver
Seasearch Guide to Seaweeds of Britain and Ireland
Authors: Francis StP. D. Bunker, Christine A. Maggs, Juliet A. Brodie, Anne R. Bunker
Publisher : Marine Conservation Society, Unit 3 Wolf Business Park, Alton Rd, Ross on Wye, HR9 5NB.
ISBN: 978-0-948150-51-7
Size: A5
Price: £16.95
After many years of diving and trying to photograph anything that moves across, adheres to or swims over the seabed I feel confident in my ability to identify most of the stuff I encounter either on site or shortly after. There is however a problem and it could be called the seaweed chasm. This may sound like some submerged leafy gully off St Abbs Head but it is not, the reality is a knowledge chasm.
Underwater Photography Magazine January-February 2011
Parting Shot 3
In June six recession hit container ships which had been laid up for about a year in the sheltered waters of Loch Striven on the west of Scotland were towed one at a time out of the loch and up the Firth of Clyde to a transit anchorage off the port of Greenock. Here a local commercial diving company were contracted to check and clean everything below the waterline of each vessel before they returned to service. I was given the opportunity to photograph the commercial diving operation as the last of the six vessels was made ready for its return to sea. Within a few minutes of agreeing to go along I found myself wondering how I was ever going to make this work.
Scottish Diver Magazine November-December 2010 Creature Feature
Seven Armed Starfish (Luidia ciliaris)
Most people think of a starfish or sea star as having five well defined arms with numerous tube feet located on the underside. Many people also know how sea stars feed by using suckers on the tube feet to clasp and eventually prise open bivalve molluscs. In the real underwater world it is not that simple since many sea star species have more than five arms and dietary preferences are not confined to molluscs.
Scottish Diver Magazine September-October 2010 Creature Feature
Elegant Anemones (Sagartia elegans)
Available in a wide variety of colours carpeting inlets, surge gullies, pier piles, shipwrecks, or reef walls. This is the elegant anemone a species that makes a significant visual contribution to many of our popular dive sites. Someone once told me that anemones are simple animals, of that I am not yet convinced so read on and hopefully you will understand why.
Scottish Diver Magazine July-August 2010 Creature Feature
Ballan Wrasse (Labrus bergylta)
At the end of Girvan pier on the end of my fishing line, that was my first encounter with a ballan wrasse. I was in my early teens and to me this amazing copper coloured fish was something fairly exotic. Having separated fish from hook some wise words came from a nearby older wiser angler "chuck it back, it's full of bones". Back it went and the quest for more culinary friendly species continued. Step forward a few years, I had learned to dive and frequent sightings of ballan wrasse became a welcome component of my underwater excursions.
Scottish Diver Magazine January-February 2010
Red Sea Trip
Red Sea nineteen ninety three, it rhymes a bit doesn’t it? It was also the last time that I dived in the Red Sea, that is prior to September this year when I had the opportunity to join a Red Sea liveaboard for the first time. Following my shore based trip to Sharm in 1993 I never felt compelled to return to the Red Sea largely due to a preference for more remote less commercial locations but also for a degree of independence regarding the organisation and implementation of my diving trips. So how did a tailor made diving trip fit in with my idea of diving abroad or should it be how did I fit in with a tailor made diving trip.