Farne Islands

Dive 8 - Wamses

Saw plenty of seals on the rocks before we started. Slight trouble getting down with 10Kg. All got the boat down to the island, I used the "toilet". We stayed farily near the surface to start with becuase it was quite shallow and aimed to keep the the rocks to our left. We soon surfaced though, scared the seals and they all jumped in. Two of them stayed with us so that was great. Aidan pointed out that it didn''t really count as diving if we were that shallow so we went a bit deeper. Saw some small startfish, plenty of white sea urchins and a bit of kelp but otherwise it was quite barren. Saw a crab too. Deployed the DSMB and were picked up by the boat, didn''t get as far round as we expected.

Dive 9 - Knife Island

Changed tanks and put it a bit lower this time. Also added a 1Kg weight to each pocket. Went to a very small island this time. The skipper showed us a channel to swim through and then we went around the other side and jumped in. Lots of seals on the island again. Swam through the chanel (got a little narrow and Aidan had to go up) then spotted a seal zomming under us. Aiden kicked one in the head but neither the seal nor Aiden noticed. Next found a seal nibbling my fin, stayed still and it started playfully biting my wetsuit. I moved away when it opened its mouth again a little higher up my leg, didn''t want to be bitten there! Nice clean, white teeth though. The channel opened up a bit and everyone else was ahead of us because they were watching the seals. They were playing swimming around and being very curious. Aiden put his hand out and one came and nibbled that. Boggie later said that he had stroked one under the chin for about 10 seconds. We moved on and I noticed Aidan''s snorkel and knife were loose. Tightened them up but the snorkle later dropped out, in fact the knife did too. Boggie found the snorkle but the knife was lost. Anyway, played with plenty more seals - very inquisitive, playful and friendly and then moved on to the wreck - the Abyssinia. Emptied the jacket to sink down and impaled myself on a large bit of metal sticking out. Luckily it wasn''t too sharp but will have to watch that. A seal shot out of one of the holes in the wreck. They go all the way through so the seals play in them. There was a crab on the vertical sie of the wreck which suprised me that it could stay on but there was a strong current. I deployed the SMB again but very limply this time, Aiden wound in and we did our saftey stop again but because we were just under 6m the computer didn''t seem to count the time correcty, think we were there for about 5 mins in all and got dragged about 150m away from the island. Got picked up by the boat though so that was OK.

Dive 10 - Amphitheatre Dive

Did the amphitheatre dive, saw shrimps, a black lobster and lots of wildlife. Visibility reasonably good. Boggie takes thingsnice and slowly so plenty of time to see everything. About 30 mins into the dive though and still quite near the bottom I began to feel rather sick. I signled to Boggie I wanted to go up and Boggie took out the DSMB but then I said I was OK and he continued. Felt a bit worse so told him I wanted to go up. We surfaced very slowly and I was sick about a minute after we reached the top. Still don't know why.

Dive 11 - Knife Stones

Did the first dive again, this time in a 4 with Martin and Sarah in case I had to go up. This time had worse visibility, saw the large anchor chains, went around the other side of the wreck. Spent plenty of time looking amongst the various panels and wholes in the wreckage. Saw an old lobster trap which had disintegreated and had a good nose around some of the 1m holes in the wreck. Found a large red lobster. Near the wreck a seal came to say hello. Came right up to my face and its nose touched my mask. Moved above my head and kind-of sat on me then had a nibble on my hood before a blew some heavy bubbles to scare it away and Boggie waved his hand behind me.

Dive 12 - Knivestones, North Edge

Skirted around rock amoungst wrekage. Nit grey this time. Saw the large propeller, continued along the bottom with rocks to the left. Dead men's fingers, sunstarts, a few seals but not so many. Saw a very small worm/sea-snake thing which Trevor tried to film but couldn't find it. Had a look at the sea urchins and sun-stars on the wall. Heard boats overhead. Started surfacing about 5 mins after I was on 90bar. Surfaced slowly and did the saftey stop but when we surfaced the boat was a long way away so took a few minutes to be picked up. Felt a little sick but not too bad. Only had 10 bar left on the boat so Aidan told me off. Got the boyancy control much better, was more willing to put extra air in the jacket. Also spent 1 minute on the surface before trying to go down and that worked much better because a lot of the bubbles had a chance to escape and I had an oppurtunity to adjust my breathing. Didn't do any filming in the end.

Had 90bar and swam for about 5 mins more then came up from 10m with DSMB. Seemed to use a lot of air going up. Did a saftey stop as usual but surfaced with 20bar a long way from the boat but kept the regulator in due to the swell. Didn't have much air left on the boat and got a slap on the wrist from Aiden!

Dive 13 - Hopper

Two strong currents at the surface one going North West and the other South West (have I got that right?). We stayed between the two. Lots of seals again. Dropped a bit deep to 21.7m onto a sand bed where the seals were lying. That set off my 20m depth alarm. Trevor did a bit of filming and was then very worried that he'd lost me. I sam him look around and swim off to find me so swam down and patted him on the sholder. Went to go down a narrow passage but Trevor didn't fancy it (poor visibility and too may seals). Tried to stay about 15 meters but moved around a bit, particularly when the seals turned up. Swam back around to the left and trevor showed me how to swim through the current by staying close to the rock where it wasn't as strong. Began surfacing with 60 bar from a flat bit of rock we found. I took the DSMB up but it was quite tricky because Trevor had quite a small real.

Took three videos this time including one on the boat, a star fish, a crab and one of trevor (which didn't appear on the disk). Trevor felt quite sick by the end and was fed up with the seals, one came to say hello when he was trying to maintian boyancy during the saftey stop.