Farne Islands 2005

Thursday

Once again we found ourselves heading north up the M1 past the angel of the north, to the Farne islands for another fun (and hopefully seal) filled weekends diving.

Having taken the day off work we arrived in plenty of time to settle in to our B&B before strolling down to the harbour to check out our boat for the weekend. Then a gentle stroll back up to “The Lodge” for a few (non-alcoholic of course!) drinks whilst we waited for the rest of the group to arrive. The food at the lodge is excellent so we had to make the most of it! The diving, air station accommodation and the lodge (ok so it’s a pub!) are all owned by the same family, and when we arrived John and I were greeted like old friends, even though it’s only our 3^rd visit! So we caught up with the underwater visibility, the tides, weather, potential dive sites and all that!

Friday

 After a lovely lie-in and leisurely full English breakfast we headed down to the harbour for a 10am start, except this was a Farne islands 10am and not a Newbury 10am which confused a few people (especially those who struggle to chill out!)  Eventually the boat turned up (there was quite a queue for the steps where we loaded, the tide was out so it was the only loading point for both dive and passenger boats) Sovereign IV is a huge boat (licensed for 43 people) but we still managed to have piles of kit everywhere! Andrew said it was the worst he had seen and poor John nearly died with embarrassment!

Dive 1 was the Crumbstone, and it was fantastic! A few of us had problems getting in the water as Bud, the ever present skippers mate gets a little upset when divers leave the boat and does his best to prevent you leaving so you have to watch you feet! The dive was beautiful, the steep cliffs were just covered in orange and white dead mans fingers, but that wasn’t what we came to see, we came to see seals, and we weren’t disappointed. There were seals whizzing past checking us out almost before we hit the bottom! Both john and I had our fins nibbled and I think everyone had a similar experience!

We were told to keep an eye out for octopus, Susan and Paul S found one but we didn’t, oh well maybe the next dive! Sovereign IV has a lift so getting back onto the boat couldn’t have been easier, even for Paul A and Jane who were on their first charter boat trip.  Everyone was buzzing about their seal encounters, even Paul A who had elected to wear his wetsuit (despite the warnings about the water temperature being a lot colder than down south!) he decided to wear his drysuit for the rest of the trip (sensible man, unlike Dominic who wore his semi-dry for most of the weekend-mad!)

Dive 2 was the wreck of the St. Andrew, a rather flat wreck, but covered in life,especially the ever present Dead Mans Fingers and large Ballon Wrasse. We pottered over the wreckage back to the cliff, we didn’t see an octopus here either, oh well there is always tomorrow!

Then it was back to the B&B for showers before we found ourselves back in the Lodge for another excellent meal, a few glasses of wine and a chance to compare what we had seen on our dives, and to compare the merits of the Toffee Lumpy Bumpy and the Chocolate Death Wish, I think the chocolate won!

Saturday

This mornings start was even later so we had the whole morning to get organised. We decided to load the boat early as there wasn’t anything else to do, one slight technical hitch though! The huge spring tides meant the boat was on the mud at the bottom of the harbour and we were at the top looking down a long ladder! Hmmm. Never mind, nothing that cant be sorted with a long piece of rope and some interesting knots as we lowered all our kit and cylinders down to the boat. Today’s boat was Sovereign II, much smaller than IV but due to the breakdown of sovereign III we were moved to II and the divers from II and III shared IV (if that makes any sense!) despite being a lot smaller than IV the layout was better for divers so it felt much roomier, the only downside was the lack of a lift which meant a first trip up a moving ladder in full kit for Paul A and Jane, gimmie a lift any day! Today’s skipper was Toby, and at least his assistant (with two feet not four paws) didn’t keep trying to prevent us from entering the water and he knew how to make a cup of tea!

Today’s dive is Blue Caps, yet another beautiful wall covered in life, the cracks contained crabs and squat lobsters. We were also beginning to notice a worrying increase in the numbers of Lions Mane jelly fish, not particularly dangerous but still we didn’t want to get stung.

Still no octopus, never mind there is still plenty of time!

Back on the boat and a large swell had appeared from no-where so Toby decided to give us the afternoon off for safety reasons. That evening following a wander around the harbour we met Gordon and Moira so decided to try the Ship for food (there were a few of the party who also seemed to have made the same decision) The food here was also excellent and although the portions were quite sizeable I don’t think they were quite as substantial as those in the lodge!

Sunday

This time an early start to catch the tide before all the water vanished out of the harbour!

 So off we went flat calm sea and beautiful hot sun! There were rumours of a pair of Minke whales but we missed them. We pottered around for a while trying to find a less than crowded dive site when Toby started to head for home, was he sick of us? Did he not like the weather? All was revealed when we met Sovereign IV and took her in tow back to the islands (no point heading for the harbour as there was no water anyway!)

So we anchored in a lovely little bay and watched the birds and seals or dozed in the sun whilst Toby took a quick look at the other boat and managed to fix her (good thing too as I am not sure we could have fitted 36 divers on our boat!) then off we went  to find ourselves a dive site, unfortunately we were not alone and the fantastic scenery of the Knivestone was somewhat spoilt by the numbers of other divers, again there was the wreckage of some unfortunate ship and stacks of life, I even saw my first Pogge (it’s a rather odd looking fish not an Irish band!) but still no octopus, maybe on the last dive.

We all agreed we wanted more seals for our last dive so off we went to find some, but typical you can never find seals when you want them (all we had were the wrong type of seals! Big bulls who ignore divers and not last years pups who will play) anyway dive site finally chosen and off we went, this involved a swim through a gully which got narrower and narrower until it was only just the width of a diver, then suddenly we were out the other side! Viz not as good as the other dives and there was a bit of a swell, but we saw a couple of seals and lots of lobsters and the ever-present jelly fish. I think those that went the wrong way and not through the gully saw more seals than we did. Although I looked really hard I still didn’t manage to see an octopus, oh well there is always next year!

Then that was it, it was all over and time to head back to the harbour to unload, pack the car, sort the money and head back south.

We thoroughly enjoy the diving in the Farnes, there is so much life here, and a lot of things you don’t often see in the south, including the seals! Most of us had cameras, and from what I have seen so far the photos look excellent (except Dominic who took his camera on two dives and flooded it twice! Never mind, good excuse to buy a new one!) I don’t know about anyone else but I am definitely going back!

Thanks to Cathy de Lara for the report and pix