Often referred to as Seal Island, Eilean Fraoch or the Minard Isle is an interesting scenic wall dive site. There is an abundance of marine life, including sea birds, seals, anenomes and a variety of fish including butterfish, pipefish and flatfish to be seen here. There are some excellent walls on this dive with a good covering of plumose and dahlia anemones.
The best life is found on the outside of the buttress making up the wall and under the slight overhangs half way up. As you would expect there are tidal currents around the island, allowing you to drift over broken rocks and past walls. These tidal currents get faster as you reach the surface. The wall is east facing so visibility can be reduced and it does get dark very quickly at depth.
Entering at the southern tip, divers can drop down one of the rock chutes to their desired depth. The wall starts at 10m and allows you to dive to 45m+ if you so desire. There is a drop down to 70m close by for those more adventurous and suitable kitted out and qualified. Heading up you will find shallow sand and shell beds from 15m, where you can find scallops.
Only accessible by boat this is a special scenic dive site where the seals will often come and play amongst the bubbles, and sometimes tug on your fins - yellow fins seem popular at the moment!
