Good Farnes Charter Skipper?

[JohnD]

does anyone have experience of a good hardboat charter for the Farnes? thinking of organising a club trip there next year in September, maybe. also any recomendations of good sites would be handy too. cheers, JD

[Dr Stevil]

Sovereign are easy to work with as they do boats & accomodation as a packet deal. For sites see Ron Youngs book or Dave Cordes website
http://www.dcordes.freeuk.com/farnes.htm

However, it depends very much on the prevailing weather on the day

HTH
Steve

[Ron Young]

www.farne-islands-diving.com

10-15 minutes from Beadbell to the Outer Farnes

Cheers Ron

[Allan Carr]

The other good one is Farne Diving servcies, these days run by Lee Hall but with cabaret over breakfast provided by his father Stan!

www.farnedivingservices.co.uk

Only Sovereign and Farne Diving Services tend to do some of the trickier sites which are generally the best.

I don't recommend the Shiels' boats

[MATTBIN]

The Hall's have an onsite compressor, self use, single filtered (?) and sometimes a bit low on pressure. No Nitrox, unless its changed recently. Sovereign have clean and Nitrox, although make sure you collect and analyse in the evening as it gets a bit tense if you try that in the morning.
Prefer the Hall's skipper, nice old boy. Sovereign have good food and accom on site. At the Hall's place the local pub does pretty good evening food. Be aware the Hall's have a meat eaters attitude to veggies though at breakfast time.

Beware of the local pubs near the Sovereign base, (The Ship?) not the best food selection/choice or size of portions. I walked out as the service was so bad.

HTH
Matt

[Rick Huggins]

I had a great time with Soverign too, nice digs/boat and friendly skipper.

The food in the ship was sh**, I concur

[richarddbarker]

We always use the Glad Tidings boats of Billy Shields (01665 720308). They now have a diver lift fitted...luxury, make sure you ask for Glad Tidings VII though cos some of the other ladders aren't the best.

For accomadation you can try the bunk house at Annstead Farm, but beware it's cheap and cheerful, triple height bunk beds and all.

[Allan Carr]

I'm afraid that I have bad memories of the Shiel's. For many years they were violently anti-diver. I used to run a club trip up to the Farnes with the club RIB for many years. The Glad Tidings boats would often change course to aim for SMB's. On one occasion, I was recovering a diver off the St.Andre when Glad Tidings V (I think - the biggest one anyway) and the skipper deliberately positioned the stern in line with the RIB and blasted open the throttles. We nearly capsized and ended up hitting the rocks, pinning the diver against them. We were well clear of their postion and were causing no obstruction to their route.

[Dr Stevil]

Originally Posted by MATTBIN

Be aware the Hall's have a meat eaters attitude to veggies though at breakfast time.

Yeah, makes you feel like you're Zaphod Beeblebrox (ie you've got two heads !)

Originally Posted by MATTBIN

Beware of the local pubs near the Sovereign base, (The Ship?) not the best food selection/choice or size of portions. I walked out as the service was so bad.

This wasn't an isolated incident there's been several bad experiences with the food in The Ship, so best avoided. However it's a good place for a pint and the bar has some (allegedly genuine) bits from the SS Forfarshire hanging up (the wrecking of which boat which caused Grace Darling to leap to the rescue and so in turn spawned the RNLI)
For nightime food the Craster Arms (ironically in Beadnell not Craster!) is well worth a visit

[Dr Stevil]

Originally Posted by Allan Carr

I'm afraid that I have bad memories of the Shiel's. For many years they were violently anti-diver

Yes, I've heard that from several sources in the past, so this isn't an isolated criticism. They seem to be doing very well out of divers these days though...