Wavedance - dodging the fog
By Nicola Faulks
Date of dive: 10 August 2025
2025 just feels like the year that was so full of promise diving wise, then everything just went south…. we have had so many dives cancelled this year because of the weather. What looks like nice blue sky to those on the west coast, generally translates as steady easterly winds building up a big swell on the east coast. A swell that we can’t shelter from, so our diving gets cancelled, especially when diving out of the Tyne.
But today – the day dawned so blue, calm and flat. It really did look like one of those star days. But on the horizon was a little reminder of what a warm atmosphere and a cold sea can spring on you. A fog bank, way out on the horizon. We just had to take a chance, dive in a sheltered area and hope that the fog wouldn’t engulf us. With a knowledgeable skipper, and all of the dive boats working together, the dives went ahead.
So we all loaded up on to Wavedancer and headed out in to the flat calm sea. First dive was on the Skellies then round to Anemone gully. There is always a lot of life on this dive, especially if you can find your way past the mats of brittle stars and in to the gullies full of anemones and soft coral. It was just at the bottom of one of the gullies, as the sea bed transitioned from rock to mixed substrate that SiFish spotted the largest lobster I have seen in a while. It was so large it even challenged him to a duel. I think the death ray torch trumped the pincers though. We were asked why we didn’t take it for tea. Well, we are diving in a Voluntary Marine Reserve, which is a no take zone, so he stays behind to father some more generations!
Once we were in the aptly named anemone gullies, we saw lots of soft coral, on every surface. A few nudibranches still hanging out too, but my favourite has to be the orange plumose anemones.
Billy our skipper for the day provided tea and coffee during the surface break which was most welcome. We then headed over to Black Carrs for the second dive, a dive on which I always spend a lot of time looking for wolf fish. They are always easy to find, generally between 15 – 20m depth in horizontal cracks. If you are lucky they can be found in pairs and sometimes in the open. On this dive I think SiFish and I found about 15 individuals; but what is interesting is that some of the other divers found none – oops.
The visibility on this dive was excellent, the tide having swept away all of the murkiness in the water. The wrasse were all looking healthy too, wondering what us divers were doing in their habitat. After an hour of marvelling at the fish life, we headed back up to the surface to find that the fog had stayed away, and the sea was still relatively calm. Phew!
