2005: THE FARNE ISLANDS
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One Wednesday, Geoff announced a trip to the Farnes and was jumped upon by the other members of the club. Fortunately for Dan and I, he then organised another later in the year which we managed to reserve a space on.
The Farne Islands is a wonderful place to be, and when it is good, it ranks up there with the best diving in the world, nevermind the UK! We were lucky on the Saturday as we had two magnificent dives with over 15m visibility.
The first stop was a site called the Hopper. It was so stark and dramatic down there - the boulders on the seabed seemed almost white, and were dotted all over with Urchins. We followed the base of a wall along, and came across a crab eating a jellyfish, and then a bit later a crab and a blenny tucking into an unfortunate urchin. There were lots of sunstars and big fat purple starfish.
The afternoon dive was the Knifestone. We had seen the seals on the surface but as we were finning along, I decided I'd just spin around and check out what was about when I saw a dark shadow in the distance. Squealing through my reg, I managed to lurch towards Dan's fin to give it a sharp tug. As we then turned round, we came face to face with a beautiful grey seal. We all 'sat up' in the water as we inspected each other, and then it swam off into the blue. We saw another two seals in the distance throughout the rest of the dive, but they didn't come as close.
The scenery at the Knifestone was probably an absolute contrast to the Hopper. There was a lot of vegetation, but not the all-covering brown kelp sort. It was more like a garden with all the colours, and quite a few nosy ballan wrasse in residence. Using the trick learnt at Stoney, rubbing a rock with your finger to stir up a little sediment causes quite a lot of interest!Unfortunately the weather turned, and by Sunday it was looking pretty rough. The diving was cancelled, but I think we were all still high enough on the previous day's exploits to mind.
Thanks Jessica for the photos from the first trip, and thanks Geoff for organising it.
LB