APPLEYARD ART - Paintings of Sheffield, Derbyshire, Scotland and Underwater themes

The weather was pretty grim and we had choppy seas, but around the west coast there’s always loads of places to dive which we did nearly every day and didn’t miss a single dive due to the weather (only to the hangovers!). The fish life was brilliant and it was this that I wanted to paint. There were some massive shoals of fish around, as well as dogfish, tonnes of jellyfish, wrasse, congers and John Dory. We dived our way up from Fort William to Skye and Raasay and back again.

On the boat off Skye, the surface display was brilliant: Minkie whales, dolphins, porpoises, seals and lots of basking sharks. I had some great encounters under the water too. I had a lot of flatfish, mainly topknots, landing on my paintings. Another dive I looked up to see a big head watching me from the kelp and it was a beautiful dogfish who stayed around for ages. Conservation Bay was as good as ever, teaming with life it’s still one of my favourite shore dives. We had a great few weeks and despite the crap weather I can’t wait to get back there.

Thanks to Gordon and Aileen at Dive Skye.