21/22 September

[Andy Winterburn]

Dave

Never having written a dive report you’ll have to bear with me and remember I hadn’t been drinking.
Tuesday 4.30am up and at ‘em I’d arranged to meet 7 other divers to travel up to the Farne Islands and dive the Somali (again):sad:
At the RV I was told that one had woken the day before and had chest pains, another was to arrest some-one for murder that morning and that a third had just dropped out last evening. two others were to meet us at the harbour. Remind me again why people don’t organise dive trips
Hmm the skipper had set a minimum of 6 on the boat, ooops.

The 3 of us arrived at 7.40 no skipper, soon after the others joined us and the boat skipper turned up, I got a bollocking, he wasn’t impressed that there were now 5 even though we agreed to pay for 6 and WE were late?. :shocked:

No Somali :biggrin: but we could catch the slack water somewhere else, the skipper seemed to improve with time a lot of time (not a morning person, I suspect). We arrived at the site (I can’t remember the name but will post it later) and the water was calmer than my bath.

Skipper: The brief, get in the water, drop down, don’t worry about the teeth, the seals never bite. :biggrin:
Oh, and try to find some depth otherwise it will limit your next dive.
Well I don’t think the skipper had ever seen divers get into the water as fast no one wanted to be last on the boat with a skipper like that. :whip:

Anyhow as soon as we got below the surface we were met by seals, the vis was about 25 metre (I said I hadn’t been drinking). They stayed a respectable distance from us, some would come to within 7 or 8 metres of us, my buddy and I sat on a large rock at about 18 metre depth to wait for them, a cunning ploy that didn’t work. So we swam back to the wall and made our way towards the drop off. As we did we encountered more seals, vis was deteriorating to about 10 metres oh hum.
We explored some gully’s on the way back, finding 3 seals laid on the sea bed and several swimming around in front of us, as we moved nearer to the seals laid on the bottom, they would get up and move off, only to return to the bottom a short distance way.
They were so close you could have touched them (big teeth don’t forget) this game? seemed to take forever, them moving, us following, until eventually we came to the end of the gully which was a dead end, off they went towards the surface, as we weren’t ready for that yet, retraced our fin strokes. We were again met by, I swear the same seals, which stayed a little distance from us as we swam back, they also ‘buzzed’ us as we came up the DSMB.

On board we told our tale about the family of seals and what we had seen, only to be shown marked fin tips and told of seals playing with the other party divers. :sad:

The dive was organised with Sovereign diving and cost £25 per head with a min of 6, and as I said there were only us diving, it would have been beautiful even to dive the Somali, which is normally like rush hour at the weekend.

[Davey Willo]

Andy that sounds absolutely awesome mate, I can't believe you had so much fun with the seals you lucky s*d, maybe its horny season and you boys were looking attractive...

25m Viz?? are you sure??...
I'll bet your the sort of bloke who tells the wife that this <<----->> is 9" ;)

Only joking mate, can you believe there was space on the boat and its only up the road for me, coulda been there in an hour... I could cry.. Do you have another one booked anytime soon?

[Andy Winterburn]

No sorry, next trip to St Abbs, staying at Billy's and is scheduled for the 9th and 10th October.
But might get one in before then funds and the wife permitting. Usually the problem is the mid week and filling the boat.

[John Holmes]

:wavey
Hi Ben,
Could you give me a bell asap mate - 07802 530115
Cheers
John

[Mr T.]

Hi Guys,

I've had a mail from Davey Boy and John Holmes re this weekend 21st & 22nd. Are we up for a wet? Saturday or Sunday gets me vote - like I have a choice.....it's a weekend, right?.

Trearddur Bay?? Please say yes, I like T-Bay and it's only about an hour and half from my gaff. Davey, if you and your kid (Mark) need digs, I can put you up in the east wing;) so you can come down on the Friday or the Saturday night and rug-down.

So what's the scores on the doors troops?

Hey John, sorry for emailing direct mate.

[Davey Willo]

Bren,

I'm only coming to stay if the butler and his attractive daughter are still in your employ....

Sounds good mate, I'll ring you later today.

[Tim Ingmire]

Hey Guys,

What happened to St Abbs on Saturday?

Is it posible to fit in St Abbs and Anglesey over a weekend?

Cheers,

Tim

[Dr Stevil]

I'm planning to be there with my girlfriend on Saturday, see Divesite X thread  for description of me, my kit and my car, I believe there could be a small posse of YD'ers there from what was said. Does anyone else care to give a description of who/what to look out for?

[Ben Harris]

Theres 4 YD`ers in T Bay on Sunday if your still there or up for a dive on Sunday (22/9), Meeting somewhere there about 10 ish.

Anyone in the area give me a call - 07968 327 355 for details if you want to meet up.