diving in Farne Islands 21-27 July 2018
we've just returned from a week of diving in the Farnes (north England, near Newcastle) - unusually, we managed to get all 6 days diving as the weather was cooperative.
there were 11 divers on the trip (including me and Himself) although the number of divers on the boat varied daily. we mostly dived in the sub-25m range, although we did one wreck at 31m.
apart from the wrecks (the Britannia at 25m and Christiansen at 32m), we dived reefs and walls - although we saw big animals (seals, friendly ballan wrasse fish) mostly the dives were ones i refer to as "rummaging" - peering into small holes/crevices to see what's in them, poking at kelp and other seaweed - which meant we saw So! Many! crabs and lobsters... i stopped telling M about the ones i saw, unless they were unusually large or small.
we saw lots of small fish too, and so many nudibranches that M was overjoyed (nudibranches - sea slugs - are his personal favourites). we saw many many scorpionfish, and i managed to spot several on my own. it always impresses me when i can identify what i'm looking at, and tell M (yeah i'm easily impressed!).
M found the littlest hobo flatfish i've ever seen and took photos, even though the flattie was all piss off no really go away.
i saw new-to-me fish too: on one of the early dives, we encountered an anglerfish! luckily it was either asleep or feeling generous because it let M take 8450945546456 photos :D !! the other new-to-me fish we found was a butterfish, which is not yellow or spreadable - it looks like a sea snake - but endlessly charming. we ended up seeing about a dozen of these, over the week.
on one dive (I have no idea which sites we did. i r smrt) we saw tiny tiny hermit crabs over most of the dive site floor. i could have watched them for far longer than i actually did - but i didnt want to lose my buddy :)
the only vaguely disappointing thing was the lack of seal presence - we saw a few but they didnt really stop to play :( . one joined us at the surface at the end of one dive, peering at us curiously but declined the offer of a marker bouy to play with. still, seeing them was enough. i think they interacted more with the other divers.
i managed to outbreathe M on a couple of dives, surfacing with slightly more air, - grumpy M is grumpy :D and the last dive we did was so shallow (mostly 10m) that we clocked up 61 minutes which was amazing!
there was one dive (Whirl Rocks) which had two directions of current, about halfway through the dive, one of which was dragging me _up_ . i was diving a wall at the time and was trying to let it pull me to the kelp (kelp is my friend. kelp is sturdy enough for me to hold on to) but we'd met another pair of divers and i'd become tangled in their fins. between that and M's problem getting the marker bouy to surface, omg i was SO DONE at the end of the dive. but the next day, i did the Christiansen and we re-dived Whirl Rocks with much less current and my good mood was restored :)
tl,dr: weather was good, diving was fab, other divers on the boat were nice (even though one kept dropping his weight pouches o.O), and my diving just ... worked.
there were 11 divers on the trip (including me and Himself) although the number of divers on the boat varied daily. we mostly dived in the sub-25m range, although we did one wreck at 31m.
apart from the wrecks (the Britannia at 25m and Christiansen at 32m), we dived reefs and walls - although we saw big animals (seals, friendly ballan wrasse fish) mostly the dives were ones i refer to as "rummaging" - peering into small holes/crevices to see what's in them, poking at kelp and other seaweed - which meant we saw So! Many! crabs and lobsters... i stopped telling M about the ones i saw, unless they were unusually large or small.
we saw lots of small fish too, and so many nudibranches that M was overjoyed (nudibranches - sea slugs - are his personal favourites). we saw many many scorpionfish, and i managed to spot several on my own. it always impresses me when i can identify what i'm looking at, and tell M (yeah i'm easily impressed!).
M found the littlest hobo flatfish i've ever seen and took photos, even though the flattie was all piss off no really go away.
i saw new-to-me fish too: on one of the early dives, we encountered an anglerfish! luckily it was either asleep or feeling generous because it let M take 8450945546456 photos :D !! the other new-to-me fish we found was a butterfish, which is not yellow or spreadable - it looks like a sea snake - but endlessly charming. we ended up seeing about a dozen of these, over the week.
on one dive (I have no idea which sites we did. i r smrt) we saw tiny tiny hermit crabs over most of the dive site floor. i could have watched them for far longer than i actually did - but i didnt want to lose my buddy :)
the only vaguely disappointing thing was the lack of seal presence - we saw a few but they didnt really stop to play :( . one joined us at the surface at the end of one dive, peering at us curiously but declined the offer of a marker bouy to play with. still, seeing them was enough. i think they interacted more with the other divers.
i managed to outbreathe M on a couple of dives, surfacing with slightly more air, - grumpy M is grumpy :D and the last dive we did was so shallow (mostly 10m) that we clocked up 61 minutes which was amazing!
there was one dive (Whirl Rocks) which had two directions of current, about halfway through the dive, one of which was dragging me _up_ . i was diving a wall at the time and was trying to let it pull me to the kelp (kelp is my friend. kelp is sturdy enough for me to hold on to) but we'd met another pair of divers and i'd become tangled in their fins. between that and M's problem getting the marker bouy to surface, omg i was SO DONE at the end of the dive. but the next day, i did the Christiansen and we re-dived Whirl Rocks with much less current and my good mood was restored :)
tl,dr: weather was good, diving was fab, other divers on the boat were nice (even though one kept dropping his weight pouches o.O), and my diving just ... worked.