Mid Week Trip – Farne Islands

We had our second mid-week trip of the season following on from the success of the first one in May.
This time it was to the Farne Islands, using William Shiels as our skipper on his boat Glad Tidings. Eventually we managed 6 club members who confirmed they wished to attend the dives so the trip was confirmed.
We each made our way to Seahouses ready to depart at 0830 sharp. A slight change to usual for Steve this time, he decided to sleep in before the trip rather than on the way home!! No problems though as he broke the land speed record to get to Len’s place and they managed to get to Seahouses for 0825!!!!!!

We made it!!!

Again there was plenty of parking spaces and loads of room on the boat for the 6 of us.    William took us to our first dive site of the day, Hoppers Rock. We had done this on our weekend trip earlier on in the year and it is a good site. As we approached we could see plenty of seals and the visibility looked great. All paperwork completed we paired up and had our first dive. This was one of the best dives so far this year, there was plenty of sea life and the seals were in a diver friendly mood coming in close, nipping fins and generally having fun. Visibility was up to 10 metres giving the opportunity for some photos to be taken. This dive was around the 20 -25 metre mark.  Steve even managed another 40 winks.

More sleep

We then spent our surface interval on the boat discussing all sorts of niff naff and trivia, ebay bargains and also watching William building lobster pots, the seals were also still hanging around the boat waiting for us to get in again.

The next dive was off North Wamses again a good dive; the visibility had reduced slightly due to the weather conditions but was still very good. Plenty of wrasse, lobster and seals again.

When we had finished William headed back towards port turning into the wind, these conditions meant that it was like getting sandblasted except by saltwater. Steve still managed a cheeky nod!!!

Back to dry land, a crowd of onlookers were surrounding the steps, was it to see the 6 divers on the boat??? No we were half an hour late for them to depart on their trip bird watching!!!!!!!
Time to head home after a great day.

The journey home was fairly eventful as it was the, Len had a moment of panic when he saw 7 police cars behind him on the A1 with Blues and twos flashing, how fast was he going??? No problems, this was the day they found Raoul Moat and the cars were heading there. There were also another 10 or so marked and unmarked cars heading North up the A1…that means there would be no traffic police about for the journey….hopefully.

Steve managed another cheeky nod before offloading the gear. This was another great days diving and these mid week trips are becoming well worth it. Thanks to all who attended the day, William for taking us out and especially Mark for organising it again.

Misc Pictures

I'm sleepy!!

So am I!!

More club members pics