Beyond the odd carp and fake shipwreck Stoney Cove doesn’t offer much to see. I was eager to explore some of the abundant British marine wildlife I’d been told so much about by moon-eyed dive buddies. So my next port was Coll, a small Hebridean island just west of Mull. I’d read much about its empty white beaches, forgiving climate and famed basking shark population.  

Tiree clocks some of the UK’s highest number of sunshine hours but neighbouring Coll is the summer base for Basking Shark Scotland. A small team of marine biologists run seasonal programmes that cover most options for spending time in, on or under the water. You can snorkel, swim and dive - even, if you absolutely must, stay warm and dry on a boat.  

Cold-water diving is not everyone’s cup of tea and requires some experience. I’m not wholly confident about how I will cope so I opt for a combination of snorkelling and diving. It’s one thing to do practice dives in a controlled environment, quite another to contend with whatever a fickle Atlantic might throw your way.  

Calmac Ferry’s creative approach to timetabling just gives me time to settle my tent on a solitary dune-topped beach before we’re off to sea – six guests, two guides and Cameron the skipper. We’ve barely left the jetty when scores of exuberant dolphins and their calves race up beside the boat. The water is so clear they are visible several feet below the surface before they leap up to bellyflop in a giddy display. It becomes a daily occurrence on the trip and is worth the price of entry alone. 

When the dolphins depart we settle in and scan the sea for more dorsal fins, amateur Ahabs all. The odd gannet bobs to the surface, nonchalant about the galaxies beneath. We make our way to the Cairns of Coll, a group of rocky outcrops north of the island. Our first foray into the crisp Atlantic water easily rivals anything I’ve seen in the Caribbean. I slide off the boat into turquoise water of incredible clarity. It’s around 12 degrees, brisk but bearable.

Extravagant kelp tentacles roll and sway and sun-strobed sea grass pulses as if lit from within. I’m instantly mesmerised by the peculiar inhabitants. Minuscule sea gooseberries luminesce, hair-fine filaments dangling. A cat-sized Lion’s Mane jellyfish hangs suspended above me, a liquid cloud with tendrils trailing - “organised water”, as one Victorian naturalist described them. Tattoo-backed crabs square up to each other, claws aclack. Everything dances a stop-motion quadrille in the current. It’s exhilarating but nothing compared to the following day when I meet Ariel the local grey seal. 

I hear the seals singing before I see them, a comical off-key chorus observing our boat from the rocks. “Ignore them and they may come to you,” is the advice from our aptly named guide Lois Flounders. No drysuits are available to hire for this trip so I’m issued an 8mm wetsuit. I wrestle on the damp neoprene and snap on my fins. The water today is deepest green but still clear. It’s a few degrees colder than yesterday and the chill numbs my lips initially but I soon adjust and when Ariel appears all other concerns dissolve. She is dappled grey velvet with stout white whiskers. Inquisitive and mischievous she whirls around me, nibbling a fin then pirouetting away to play hide and seek in the kelp beds below. It is wildly, deliriously fun and I make silent vows to Poseidon to never forget this moment. 

The basking sharks remain elusive and though I would love to see them and know that humans are off their menu I’m still unsure how I would react to a close encounter with the second largest fish in the sea - effectively a massive mouth with a tail attached. We instead have the rare privilege of spotting John Coe and Aquarius, two British orca A-listers closely monitored by the marine community, the last of their pod. We keep our distance but can still see them breach, recognisable by a distinctive notch in John Coe’s fluke. Everyone on the boat is captivated, binoculars aloft for long after we are supposed to head for shore.

After four days at sea, on my final evening, I buddy up with local diver Tom to go pier diving. It takes a while to weight my wetsuit correctly - it’s much more buoyant than the drysuit I’d trained in. But soon enough we sink 10 metres to the sandy floor. That moment never ceases to delight - when a scene so unpromising from the surface transforms into a teeming liquid domain as designed by Dr Seuss. A rainbow of anenomes branch out from the pier legs, like furry cauliflowers. In every direction nudibranchs and blue-rayed limpets, vivid sponges, soft corals and dead men’s fingers. A gormless school of goby fish stream by silently muttering to themselves. Bloody tourists I imagine they’re saying.

Eventually it is too cold to stay, we’ve been down for nearly an hour. Time and perspective so shift underwater that on that dive alone I feel like I’ve been a million miles away for days. Even so, it doesn’t seem long enough. It’s not just me who’s smitten with this place. After we disembark the boat I sip hot chocolate on the dock with Lois Flounders. She tells me that she’s moving to the Maldives for a year to study manta rays but has already booked her holiday. Where on earth would you go on holiday from the Maldives, I want to know. “Coll of course.” 

Words: Jenni Doggett
Photography: Rachel Brooks + Roz Gordon