Werewolf Fish - 26/05/2018

I've done St Abb's already this year, but this time myself and the Wylie Fox were warming up for Scapa Flow in June so we turned our attention to the Glanmire and it's square profile.

Regular readers will know I've done it before in the Rope to Nowhere and Return to the Glanmire. In each case I never exactly covered myself in diving glory. Today I knew it would be different. Firstly, I was pretty dived up and secondly I had learned lessons.

I was right, Wylie Fox and I descended the shot line and dived the wreck and surfaced doing our 10 minutes of decompression on the way up. The dive was quite unremarkable apart from a pleasant snakelocks anemone. That was exactly the sort of experience we both wanted for our Scapa preparations. 

It was the second dive that was to be the standout however. A shallow dive (14m) at Skelly's Hole. I swapped buddies so that I could do some compass work with Walker Texas Ranger. WTR was leading as part of his ScotSAC Sport Diver training. 

The site is pleasant with a series of narrow ravine's and gullies and at certain times of the year home to the Atlantic Wolffish and Lumpsuckers. I've seen a small lumpsucker once many years ago, but an adult has always elluded me and I had never seen a live wolffish.

As we cut our way through the ravines we first saw a large male lumpsucker. It was bigger than I'd expected and way more colourful. It would not have looked out of place in the tropics.

Then one of the other members of our group signalled he'd found something. I'm not sure he knew if it was a conger eel or a wolffish, but it was definitely the latter. 

I surfaced delighted.I can't wait to return at the end of June.

Lumpsucker

Wolffish

Lumpsucker

Dahlia Anemone

Flabellina Lineata

Dahlia Anemone

Snakelocks Anemone

The Gambler - 11/06/16

In diving, as in life, I am relatively risk adverse. My modus operandi is to wait as long as possible before booking to ensure the conditions are as I like them. On occasion this approach means I miss out fully booked trips, but you can't miss what you never had.

After agreeing on Friday night to dive at St Abbs early on Saturday morning. Now, as regular readers will know, I'm great in the mornings. So it was brilliant when my buddy, the Bombay Bad Boy (BBB), agreed to drive. I'd never spent time with BBB before but he seemed like a decent fella and his chat was moderately amusing. It made the drive that much shorter. 

Diving from Eyemouth, the boat headed out to St Abbs Head and Peticowick for some boat dives around the area.  

Dive one saw BBB almost earn a different nickname - The Grim Reaper - as he found dead creature after dead creature. The highlight of his corpse-fest was a dead wolffish, but that find was top trumped by the guillemots dive bombing us during our safety stop.

Diving with a new buddy meant that we had been under for about an hour with both of us cold before we surfaced, neither willing to signal to the other. We chatted back on the boat and agreed that the 2nd dive would only be 30 minutes -a limit that would be too long for me. 

As I went to reduce drysuit squeeze on the second dive my valve stuck and began to over inflate my suit. I disconnected it and put the cap on but not before it sucked in a substantial quantity of cold, North Sea water. It was to be a long 30 minutes.

Back on the boat I explained my slightly erratic behaviour as we warmed up with tea and chocolate buttons. Still it was a good day -  with no sea sickness.

Anemone

Bloody Henry

Dead Wolffish

Guillemot

Anemone

BBB

Sunstar

HArbour friend

BBB's small roll

The Rope to Nowhere - 10/05/2015

Diving St Abbs area on Scotland's south east coast has been on the "to do " list for quite some time. Previous trips haven't suited my hectic schedule, but finally I was able to make it. We were to be diving the Glanmire followed by a shallow scenic dive departing by boat from Eyemouth.

Captain Al and I had had a pre-dive discussions about diving the Glanmire, which lies in 30m. It's a square profile dive which is well suited to a 32% Nitrox mix to extend your bottom time by around 5 minutes. We both plumped for that. Sadly, it meant I had to get one of my tanks O2 cleaned at Aquatron, my local dive shop at short notice, but they were very accommodating!

I won't lie, I was feeling a bit unwell even on the trip over. I took a variety of medications to soothe pending sea sickness, and I knew from previous experiences I'd be fine in the water and while the boat was moving.

Anyways, once on the boat we kitted up and prepared to go in. We dropped in last and went down the line. I felt like I was following a rope to nowhere, then at about 15-20m I started to see the wreck take shape. The current was strong on the line and I knew that if let go before hitting the deck we would be blown off - as happened to my chauffeur for the day Jim and his buddy. 

As we touched down, at 30.1m, amongst the ships boilers I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned round to see Captain Al in a maelstrom of bubbles. On the surface I'd later find out it was free flow. I offered my octopus, but he was well equipped with his pony and we started to ascend. Heading back up the line he seemed to temporarily fix the problem and suggested going back down, but to be honest. I've always erred on the side of caution and, despite his best intentions, I rejected the offer in exchange for both of us making it to the surface without any further problems.

So that was it, my visit to the Glanmire was fleeting. At the surface Captain Al apologised for 'ruining my dive', but in all honesty I think my dive would have been ruined by not making it back to the boat safely. That constitutes a successful dive in my view and, as a bonus, at least we saw the wreck. Moreover Jester had made me promise not break Captain Al prior to the trip. I like to think I held up my end of the bargain.

There were a number of people who while they made it back alive, didn't make it back safely and had to sit the second dive out as their computers had locked them out for failing to maintain safety stops, missing deco stops or some other misadventure. :)

After a brief vomit over the side of the boat I was feeling good for the second dive. For that we entered a small bay behind St Abb's Head and dropped into a fairly shallow 14m to the wreck of the Odense. You can read about through the link, but aside from some metal and a boiler there isn't much left. There are, however, some nice anemones, the odd wrasse, edible crabs and lobsters. Oh, and great volcanic rock formations.

A note to the Glanmire: I'll be back.

Odense

Odense

Dahlia Anemone

Dahlia Anemone

Rocks

Dahlia Anemone

Deeplet Anemone

Captain Al

The Poseidon's Parlour Seal of Approval - 26/09/2014

Yesterday I meandered down to the Farne Islands, England with Ace Divers. A few chums had been booked on the trip for quite sometime, but I heldoff until I saw the weather report. It's a risky approach in terms of availability, but I've never  regretted not being there when the weather is poor.

My buddy for the day was the Zookeeper, with the occassional appearance from Alky-Fras who was solo diving but hanging around us every so often.

If any of you have never been there before the Farne Islands are group of islands of the North East coast of England. In diving terms they are notable for two things:

• a selection of over 40 shipwrecks
• a colony of over 6,000 grey seals

Our diving for the day was focused on the seals.

I've dived here before on a couple of occassions and it was that I first met the Zookeeper last year. So I was pretty familiar with what was going to happen. :)  Due to tides, we dived the same spot twice but had quite different experiences.

The first dive averaged about 6m and it took us about 15 mintes before we had our first close encounter, but when it happened it happened in the usual style - fin nibbling. I was busy filming one nibbling the Zookeeper when I felt a tug on my own. I looked round to see two, one on each fin, like a pair of comedy seal skin slippers.

From then on in it was seal interaction gold. I was diving a 15l tank (thanks Campbell) so even after an hour underwater I still had 150 bar left!

After lunch and a cup of tea I was  ready for a more scenic dive, but most of the people wanted more seals - can you ever have enough?

The tide was in so the dive site had changed somewhat. Most people hung around the main seal entry exit point, but we went off on a wee adventure. We found some nice stuff too:

• an octopus
• a bloody henry or two
• millions of nudibranchs
• more seals
• loads of common lobsters
• squaties etc

Ahter my experimentation with macros last week I started trying to photograph the nudibranchs. As I did I felt a mouth round my head. Sadly, the Zookeepers camera battery had died, but it seems I was wearing a seal like a top hat. We stayed down for 58 minutes.

Nobody on the boat was seasick largely thanks to Stugeron.

The Zookeeper is excited

Scorpiofish 

Nudibranch

This One Goes to 11 - 24/09/2014

For those of you who have never seen Spinal Tap there is a glorious moment when rock legend Nigel Tufnel explains how his amp goes to eleven. It is an amazing scene. Well this week I'm going to take it to 15. 15l that is. 

As I'm boat diving at the Farne Islands, I thought I'd try out out a bigger tank. So I'm borrowing one of Campbell's. I'll let you know how I get on. In the meantime, enjoy the scene!