Farne Islands Trip – April 2010
Farne Islands
Selby Aquanauts had our first sea dive trip of the year to the Farne Islands over the weekend of 24/25 April. The Farne Islands are a group of small islands and rock outcrops up to 4 miles away from the coast.
The weekend started with all of us making our way to Seahouses on the Friday to get into our various accommodations that we had booked. Once sorted it was down to the Ship for a few pints of “Farne Island Bitter” to get into the spirit. We managed to take over a good area of the bar and had a very enjoyable night.
Up bright and early we met at the harbour to get our gear loaded onto our boat run by the Shiels family, Billy and his son William. They operate a fleet of 7 boats, Glad Tidings I – VII. For this weekend we were aboard Glad Tidings VII, a spacious boat complete with a divers lift.
There were 11 of us in total and after the usual SAA administration and safety checks it was off to the first dive site of the day.
Bluecaps:
This is a scenic dive down to about 25 metres, a series of islets whose exposed tops are dark blue hue (hence the name). This is a reasonable site, the underwater terrain, especially at the extreme eastern end of the site consists of almost sheer walls and gullies with small overhangs and large crevices where seals sometimes "snooze". Wrasse and octopus are numerous here, and if you frequently look over your shoulder you'll almost certainly catch a glimpse of an inquisitive seal.
After this dive we moved onto our second location.
St Andre:
The St. Andre was 70m long, 1100 tonnes and sank in 1908, like most of the wrecks here it's flattened. From the shallows under the island at 9m, girders ribs and plates lead down a slope to the first boiler standing on its end at the eastern edge of the site in about 21m then, about 10m further on, to the second at about 22m lying on its side.
We headed back to the harbour to offload cylinders and get air fills from the local air station and plan for the evening’s entertainment.
That evening we made our way to the “Curry Leaf” Indian Restaurant to enjoy a good meal and banter. It was then back to the Ship pub for a steady beer as we had to be onboard early the next morning as we were heading for the Somali.
our motley crew in the Ship
Bright and breezy, the next morning we loaded up onto Glad Tidings and headed out to the location of our first dive of the day.
The Somali:
This wreck lies upright in 30 metres of water off 1 mile East of Beadnell Point. The ship blew up in 1943 with cargo including lead soldiers, pots of hand cream etc. She was found in 1973 and souvenirs were found during this dive. We dropped down a shot line and had a very good dive on this wreck, well worth the early start.
The Somali
On completion of this dive we nipped back into the harbour and after a decent surface interval headed out to our last dive of the weekend.
The Hopper:
The reef drops from the surface to 20 metres then shelves to more than 30 metres. There are narrow canyons leading up and through into the small lagoon behind, seals zoom through these as they inspect you. In one of these there is what appears to be a cannon (but unfortunately it's just pipe) an old anchor and other bits of debris. This site has a colony of seals and these were encountered during the dive. This dive was around the 20 metre mark with a variety of marine life seen.
We returned to the harbour, offloaded our gear and headed for home.
A big well done to Steve and Shaun for doing well on their first UK sea diving trip and also to Janine for diving on the Somali.
This was a great weekend enjoyed by all who attended and thanks to Mark for organising this trip from all of us.
Selection of photo's from the weekend.
Being met by one of the local birds!!
Can you tell who it is?
Hanging round with the buouys!!
Shaun, we said "Dive" not "Drive"!!!!
We said up at "the crack of dawn" not the "crack of Shaun"