7 divers from High Wycombe set off for a long weekend diving of the Farne Islands,north of Newcastle.   After an epic drive up we all arrived as the pub shut, so sadly missed a well-needed pint.   After a good sleep we headed into breakfast and met the skipper and mate that would be looking after us for the trip.  We headed down to the boat and loaded up in the calm harbour, all looking forward to good days diving ahead.

As soon as we headed out of the harbour we realised that all was not as calm as it seemed, with waves breaking over the sea wall.   There was a huge swell outside, but as it was quite long it did not seem too bad, so we carried on to the dive site.  We had to try a few sites before we found a sheltered one.  By that time a certain diver was having a total sense of humour failure due to sickness and almost had to be strapped into her kit and thrown overboard.

Once under the water it was far calmer, the dive site was a sheer rock wall going from 6 meters down to 26.  Sheer cliff faces and long deep gullies are a feature of the underwater landscape at the Farnes and in the good viz that we had made for an exciting dive.   Every vertical surface is covered with dead mans fingers, making the scenery look more like the Swiss Alps in winter, than an underwater scene.   Even though the Farnes is not a marine nature reserve for some reason there were lots of large lobsters hiding in nooks and crannies, Steve, Grant and I found a huge lobster out in the open with only one claw, which did make me think that if there was a lobster big enough to take a claw off this one, then I really did not want to meet it.

It seemed that every nook and cranny had a crustacean living in it, from big lobsters to colourful squat lobsters, velvet swimming crabs, edible crabs the whole lot.  An impressive sight where large sun stars, which are many legged starfish.

Steve decided to show Emma and Kim a particularly impressive sun star, which involved a long swim back the way we had just come.   I decided to hitch a ride on the back of Kim’s twin set, to save my legs.   She later admitted she was wondering why it was hard work swimming uphill.

After about 80 mins in the water we where starting to get cold so surfaced and ate our lunch bought from a very nice sandwich shop.  As we lazed and ate lunch the boat was floating in the lee of an island with a few other boats, after a while someone noticed that our skipper was on another boat leaving the mate in charge, as the mate was year old collie this did have us a bit worried.

Soon the skipper was back on board again and we set out for our second dive, again this was a wall dive and although there were seals on the surface nobody saw any underwater sadly.   On this dive we found a huge conger eel (about 27 foot long) and hundreds of tiny hermit crabs. Again the chill of the water ended the dive.

After an quick shower we all gathered in the bar to discuss the days diving, an early dinner and an early night as we had a very early start in the morning.   Next morning we gathered at the dive shop at 7:15 in the morning before we had even had time for breakfast.  And for once shock horror we managed to be early for the first time ever in Steve’s diving career.   Just as we were about to start loading the boat Steve had to suddenly start wearing his underwear out side of his dry suit, just as the boat was coming into dock the dog Buster made a flying leap for the boat, which as it was about 15 foot away was not very successful.  Steve had to fish the dog out of the water quickly to stop him being crushed by the boat, a very sheepish looking wet sheep dog was bundled onto the boat, where the skipper said he was wondering when that was going to happen.

We loaded up the boat and set out for the first dive, which was a wreck in about 32m.  We got to the dive site and the skipper threw the shot over the side.  With hindsight it would have helped if he had tied a rope to it first.   A bit of confusion later we had borrowed another shot from another boat and the wreck was shotted.  We all headed down the shot and arrived at the bottom with someone else’s buddy.   A bit of confusion reigned for a while whist the group buddy swapping session was sorted out.  Steve found the skippers shot and eventually sent it upwards on his lift bag, although it did look like the shot was staying on the bottom for a very long while.   The viz was about 10 meters and it was interesting watching the lift bag snake to the surface.