Friday 13th October to Sunday 15th October
Unlike the date suggests, the long 5 hour trip to Seahouses was uneventful and even the build up of traffic in Newcastle didn't hinder us too much. Nikki and I arrived in good time and before most of the others so took full advantage of the relaxed and enjoyable scenery in the Ship Inn. This is a lovely local with hoards of marine memorabilia covering every inch of wall and ceiling. The Guinness was inviting and enjoyed by some of the other divers from our group who had already made themselves comfortable, Pete and Karen are renowned for expertly balancing the rigors of diving with food/drink.
Early evening and all 18 divers met in The Lodge where we had reserved our
accommodation in rooms behind the pub (An ideal location) and the plan was
eventually agreed with our skipper Andy for the next day's diving on Sovereign
IV, after much lubrication to assist with the discussions.
Saturday 14th October. After a healthy fry-up, we
all met at 8am ish on the quayside, ready to leave at 9ish. The Somalia was
the first dive, although the club had made the annual pilgrimage to the Farnes
for at least the last 3 years, we all enjoyed the nice wreck dive. A balmy
11 degrees C and good vis, although not quite good enough to see a fine fishing
line near the boilers until the last minute, although I dumped my air quickly
to sink below the line, the top of my cylinder got caught and it was surprising
how quickly I got tangled. Fortunately Nikki had her knife handy to cut me
out.
Lunch consisted of a roll and crisps we purchased from the bakers on the way
to the quayside earlier. With a warm flask of tea we enjoyed the short trip
across to the lighthouse where we would be diving with the seals. The boat
was ideal for diving, most of the deck area was covered and a lift at the back
was sheer luxury for us RIB divers. Fortunately this year, the dog’s
appetite for diver’s ankles had diminished, for some reason last year
he was reluctant to let us jump in the water, or perhaps he didn’t want
to be left out (He was nearly encouraged overboard at one point!).
The afternoon's dive was enjoyable but not as seal friendly as we had expected
after the previous years' experiences. Perhaps they were bored of divers as
only a few appeared to take mild curiosity in us. Anyway, we at least felt
we had earned a drink or two, (We always do, even if the diving is blown out!)
so that evening after a hearty meal of very generous portions we enjoyed entertaining
ourselves in the bar. A new type of drink was introduced to us by Steve (As
there are several Steves in the club I won’t incriminate the guilty as
he is normally well behaved, honest!), called a “Tweenie”. Don’t
be misled in thinking of references to the children’s TV programme, it
is in fact the art of having an extra round between a normal round of drinks,
hence an in between rounds round, or tweenie for short. Steve seemed to manage
quite a few of these, perhaps we were just slow drinkers, but the annoying
thing was that he felt no ill effects in the morning.
Sunday 15th October. Today we would just be seal
diving and we agreed on an early start to allow for traveling home time. Nikki
and I were first at breakfast and enjoyed a lovely fry up, this proved to be
fortuitous because as the others arrived, the gas in the kitchen ran out. Even
with our very own (hungry) British Gas man with us, breakfast could only be
salvaged without further fry-ups.
The first dive was very enjoyable and some good underwater pictures were taken,
although there weren’t very many seals willing to play, perhaps too early
in the day for them. We were all treated to some on-board entertainment at
Steve Neasham’s misfortune. He was answering a call of nature in the
Heads, rather small and a bit whiffy (The Heads, not Steve!), when another
local dive boat decided to create a large wash in its wake, this suddenly rocked
our boat quite vigorously and of course Steve was unaware and unprepared, we
enjoyed a laugh for some time as he reappeared, I think he saw the funny side!
The second dive was perhaps the best dive for many of us for some time, and
all in less than 3 meters of water. It was like seal soup, Andy had dropped
us close into the rocks where the seals were lazily observing the dive boat
activity. As soon as we dived, the seals became very inquisitive and played
with all of us, we were grateful for our cameras, although at times taking
pictures and videos proved a challenge to our buoyancy in the shallow water.
It was a shame to end the dive and even the seals seemed reluctant to let us
get out of the water, they had mastered the trick of pulling at our fins to
keep us in the water.
Back on dry land and sorting the kit out back into the cars was soon done, the last pleasure before the trip home was to enjoy some fresh fish and chips in the town square, this seems to have become a bit of a ritual, and a very good one at that, just like the diving.
Jon Coleman
