Sarah & I had a couple of fantastic dives at the weekend in the Firth of Forth. It was maybe just as well that we weren't fully aware in advance of the accidental sewage discharge from Seafield. Upon discussing the issue on the boat, nobody seemed too concerned. Certainly, Sarah and I have probably built up an efficient specific immune response to many of the nasty coliform pathogens through our veterinary work over the years.
We were booked on a trip organised by Chris on congeralley.com. The charter boat was the Pegasus of Dive Safari Scotland with Brian as our skipper. We arrived in Dunbar at 9am and made our way to the harbour, unloading our kit on the quayside. The access to the boat was the easiest that I've had recently: all that was involved was carrying the kit down some stone steps to the boat's deck. Everyone got their kit loaded in good time to allow ropes off at 10am. It was interesting to be on the water in Dunbar harbour rather than within it as on our last visit there!
The cruise to the Isle of May took about an hour & was a pleasant calm trip with little swell. The boat seemed to skim along at a good rate of knots. Upon arrival, we pitched up at the scene of the sinking of the SS Island. There's little of the wreck to see under water - just a few plates & boilers - much of the wreckage has actually made its way onto the rocky shore! Sarah & I buddied up and made our stride entries, descending in about 15m depth. I led the dive & we immediately happened upon a couple of the metal plates that were easy to spot in the visibility of approx 10m. They weren't very spectacular with little or no colonisation so I decided to take us away from the shore to get some depth so that we could get a reasonable 2nd dive without worrying about a reverse profile. Moving away from the shore, the rocks became covered in a carpet of brittlestars somewhat reminiscent of our dive 2 weeks ago in Loch Melfort. However, periodically there were little oases within this desert usually in the form of beautiful multicoloured anemones. Having missed out on photographing the anemones at Diver's Hole the weekend before, I resolved to redeem myself and became a compulsive anemone photographer on this diving day!
Our planned max depth was 25m so on reaching 23.1m I decided to return towards the island. The water temperature varied from 6.8-9°C. There was a mild drift which dragged us to and fro and we made our way back in a leisurely fashion, spotting one of the largest starfish that I've seen, with a puny brittlestar perched on its back.
Eventually we got back to the rocky walls and gullies marking the shoreline. There was some colonisation here with deadmen's fingers. I led us through some of the gullies and managed to lose sight of Sarah at one point which wasn't a pleasant experience. I think that she was slightly above me at the time making it hard to spot her. She got a bit cold so we headed up to the top of the gullies & I inflated my dSMB. I used my new Buddy Blast air horn which also acts as an air nozzle under water. It was really easy to use as I could stick the whole apparatus within the baffle of the bag and activate it by squeezing it within the material. We surfaced very close to shore so had to swim out towards open water for the boat to pick us up. The diver lift was an absolute joy: what an easy way to get onto a boat (especially with twin 12s)!
After the dive we cruised alongside the island with the local populations of puffins and seals proving captivating. It was then full steam ahead towards the Bass Rock with lunch eaten en route.
The Bass Rock offers spectacular wall diving. We approached the north cliff face and dropped in to free fall alongside the cliff. There was a shelf at about 17m which we swam along to our max depth of 20m. The visibility was about 8m, the dive being a bit darker than the morning's (hopefully not due to sewage!). However, there was much more life on offer. Some beautiful spiny squat lobsters, large velvet swimming crabs and multiple anemones were on tap. I spotted a butterfish & the toothy mouth of a fish that I couldn't identify unfortunately before it receded into its crack. From the shelf, we returned to the wall and drifted along it. Sarah was fortunate enough to see a free-swimming octopus; I only saw its ink trail - she must have scared it! The profusion of life on the wall was glorious. This was a first class dive & one that I would like to repeat soon, maybe heading a bit further down the wall next time (it goes down to 46m apparently).
We were booked on a trip organised by Chris on congeralley.com. The charter boat was the Pegasus of Dive Safari Scotland with Brian as our skipper. We arrived in Dunbar at 9am and made our way to the harbour, unloading our kit on the quayside. The access to the boat was the easiest that I've had recently: all that was involved was carrying the kit down some stone steps to the boat's deck. Everyone got their kit loaded in good time to allow ropes off at 10am. It was interesting to be on the water in Dunbar harbour rather than within it as on our last visit there!
The cruise to the Isle of May took about an hour & was a pleasant calm trip with little swell. The boat seemed to skim along at a good rate of knots. Upon arrival, we pitched up at the scene of the sinking of the SS Island. There's little of the wreck to see under water - just a few plates & boilers - much of the wreckage has actually made its way onto the rocky shore! Sarah & I buddied up and made our stride entries, descending in about 15m depth. I led the dive & we immediately happened upon a couple of the metal plates that were easy to spot in the visibility of approx 10m. They weren't very spectacular with little or no colonisation so I decided to take us away from the shore to get some depth so that we could get a reasonable 2nd dive without worrying about a reverse profile. Moving away from the shore, the rocks became covered in a carpet of brittlestars somewhat reminiscent of our dive 2 weeks ago in Loch Melfort. However, periodically there were little oases within this desert usually in the form of beautiful multicoloured anemones. Having missed out on photographing the anemones at Diver's Hole the weekend before, I resolved to redeem myself and became a compulsive anemone photographer on this diving day!
Our planned max depth was 25m so on reaching 23.1m I decided to return towards the island. The water temperature varied from 6.8-9°C. There was a mild drift which dragged us to and fro and we made our way back in a leisurely fashion, spotting one of the largest starfish that I've seen, with a puny brittlestar perched on its back.
Eventually we got back to the rocky walls and gullies marking the shoreline. There was some colonisation here with deadmen's fingers. I led us through some of the gullies and managed to lose sight of Sarah at one point which wasn't a pleasant experience. I think that she was slightly above me at the time making it hard to spot her. She got a bit cold so we headed up to the top of the gullies & I inflated my dSMB. I used my new Buddy Blast air horn which also acts as an air nozzle under water. It was really easy to use as I could stick the whole apparatus within the baffle of the bag and activate it by squeezing it within the material. We surfaced very close to shore so had to swim out towards open water for the boat to pick us up. The diver lift was an absolute joy: what an easy way to get onto a boat (especially with twin 12s)!
After the dive we cruised alongside the island with the local populations of puffins and seals proving captivating. It was then full steam ahead towards the Bass Rock with lunch eaten en route.
The Bass Rock offers spectacular wall diving. We approached the north cliff face and dropped in to free fall alongside the cliff. There was a shelf at about 17m which we swam along to our max depth of 20m. The visibility was about 8m, the dive being a bit darker than the morning's (hopefully not due to sewage!). However, there was much more life on offer. Some beautiful spiny squat lobsters, large velvet swimming crabs and multiple anemones were on tap. I spotted a butterfish & the toothy mouth of a fish that I couldn't identify unfortunately before it receded into its crack. From the shelf, we returned to the wall and drifted along it. Sarah was fortunate enough to see a free-swimming octopus; I only saw its ink trail - she must have scared it! The profusion of life on the wall was glorious. This was a first class dive & one that I would like to repeat soon, maybe heading a bit further down the wall next time (it goes down to 46m apparently).
Once everyone was safely back onboard, we made our way back to port. Everyone seemed elated with the day's diving. We all seemed to agree that visiting the Isle of May was highly prized but the Bass Rock took the biscuit (actually, a whole box of Twixes that the skipper kindly supplied for our delectation)!
more photos
stewart's video (watch out for Sarah on the diver hoist at the very end: smiley!)
1 comment:
Glad to hear you had such a nice day out in the east. The seals there are normally very playful so I've heard. And you can't help but be impressed at the seabird colony.
Nice to see the pic of Dunbar Charlie, 'aw, there's home!'.
Only hope I will be up there next time ya'll plan a dive there.
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