26th July 2014
by Nicola Faulks
The weather looks great this weekend, lets dive both days! So we did….
Saturday dawned with blue sky, flat calm sea and the expectation that there would be great visibility below the now non-existent waves. We launched the boat and all jumped in: Si, Brian, Sue, Tony and me. Once the coastguard call was out of the way we headed out to Crumstone south. Just so calm, we dropped in a shot and first pair in were Tony, Sue and Brian.
The sun intensified….. it was a very warm day. Swimming on painter was the only relief from the heat. All three surfaced after 50 minutes, telling us what a good dive that they had had. The visibility was probably more than 10 metres. So Si and I dived in next, just to the east side of the Crumstone, where there is a small natural bay, but only dive-able when there is no swell. The visibility was great, with so many nudibranchs to see, I was in heaven. Si as usual was wondering where all of the rust was! Not so much rust here but lots of critters to look at.
Once we were all back in the boat we had lunch then decided where to head next. Lots of options were open, but by now there was quite a current running from the north to the south; so we decided to dive the south side of Inner Farne. Not so much of a rust dive, but very scenic once you drop out of the kelp.
I dived with Brian on this one. Just about 5 minutes after entering the water, we looked up to see that we were being surrounded by a large shoal of Saithe. With the sun coming down through the water and the fish it was quite a sight.
Many nudibranchs were found dotted in amongst the kelps and other sea weeds, all flashing bits of yellow, orange pink and purple. We then went deeper to find the cobble and pebble seabed, with huge horse mussels, feather hydroids and some pretty yellow ringed sea squirts. It was so lovely just pootling around, spotting butter fish, velvet swimmer crabs and looking under rocks to find brittle stars, chitons and other hidden critters.
Sadly all good things must come to an end, so we surfaced back into the sun, to find Si waiting for us. Once back on board, we headed back into Seahouses, already planning tomorrow’s dive sites.