Imported post
<font color='#0000FF'>St Mary's has plenty of council car parking so no problem there, Could be packed with kids on trips and you can end up with a bit of an audience sometimes, you know how facinated people get with the kit.
Bear in mind that its a marine reserve (including the birding areas on shore) so you may encounter a warden or two asking questions, they can be a bit cranky at times but as long as you're not taking wildlife its no problem.
However, one of the LDS's (The Diving Centre) takes a sea-swimming club down there at times, they seem to fancy theirselves as some kind of "scuba-police" so don't be shy at telling
them to bog-off if one of their "little hitlers" starts asking who you are where're you from etc.
Browns bay is IME not too much of a problem re tides, except that is is pretty shallow at low tides 3-5 metres sometimes, best to park at the pointy northern end of the bay where there are lots of steps, at low tide you'll see a big rock pool (about 6ft by 6ft), there's a convenient entry point into a little gulley just of to the right of this. Avoid the steps in the middle of the bay which are usually very messy, it's not nicknamed dog-s*** alley for no good reason
Two minor things, the locals who live on the sea-front can sometimes get a bit miffed by divers stripping off in front of their houses , and keep an eye out for the little scrotes from the Meadowell Estate who hang around the sea-front looking for things to nick and generally making trouble etc. I once took some of the guys for a splash at nearby Cullercoats bay, and had to to threaten some of these towrags who were going to throw a dustbin off the pier at the divers I was shore-covering for, so avoid this bay if Brown's is undivable!
I'm not doing much for The Joint Gateshead/Newcastle bid for City of Culture am I?
Chee-az
Steve