Nudi GB

When you get your eye in you realise that colourful sea-slugs are not confined to the tropics – southeastern Scotland, for example, can also be a happy hunting-ground for macro enthusiasts. RICHARD ASPINALL drops into the Scottish Nudibranch Festival

- Richard Aspinall

WHAT AN AMAZING SITE! ”I enthused to Jim the skipper, as he helped me off with my fins. He laughed. “Most people say: ‘Why did you bother with that one? It’s just seaweed and nothing to see!’”

I sat back on the bench and released my BC straps, eager to have a look at the back of my camera to see if I’d captured anything of value.

In and among the usual out-of-focus images in the viewfinder, there were a few that made me happy. Jim Anderson had been right – this was one of the best nudibranch sites in Scotland.

We had left Eye mouth that morning, past the grey seals that spend their days posing for the tourists, and out onto the wonderfully calm sea.

We had headed north, up the coast to St Abb’s Head, that massive bulwark of rock that, as it falls away into the North Sea, becomes a complicated series of pinnacles and gullies.

As I was deleting images, a few more divers were returning. “Did you see how many Acanthodoris pilosa there were?” asked one. Within minutes of taking off their gear, the experts were comparing notes, and I was lost.

I’d have been disappointed if it had been any other way. We were halfway through a series of dives as part of the Scottish Nudibranch Festival, and I would be learning a great deal.

While I was at the happy-to-see-a colourful-one stage, I was glad there were folk around who could tell me exactly what it was that I was photographing.

I’m a long way from being a nudibranch obsessive, but I can see why they are such a source of interest.

NUDIBRANCHS ARE among the most colourful animals in the oceans. There is nothing quite like them, apart from flatworms perhaps, which confuse many of us eager-to-learn nudi newbies.