Farne Islands

The Farne Islands consists of around 30 small islands and rock outcrops, lying 4 miles of shore from Seahouses on the Northumberland coast. The islands are spilt into two areas by a stretch of water called Staples Sound, the outer islands being the more popular dive sites with sheer rock faces above and below the surface, giving way to kelp forests and boulder slopes from 5 mtrs to +30 mtrs. The best diving is done around the 15 - 25 mtr mark with the ever present and inquisitive Grey Seals of which there is a colony of some 4 thousand living on around the islands, the younger seals are the more playful and will come up and nip at your fins, and swim circles round you reminding you of how cumbersome you are in the water in comparison to them (we get our own back on dry land though).
The seals are not the only attraction to the area, the topography of the seabed is fantastic by itself, with narrow gully's, sandy seabeds, sheer walls covered in deadmans fingers, anemones, kelp, boulder slopes and caves, pretty much all you could want in a dive, not to mention the great array of sealife, with wolf fish, conger eels, wrasse, shoaling fish, octopus and the usual crustaceans in sometimes up to 20 mtrs visibility (weather & seastate permitting).

Due to the position of the Islands they have claimed many a ship in their time some of these include The Abyssinia that lies on the westside of Knifestone reef in 17-25mtrs, The Britannia, westside of The Callers in 9-23mtrs,The Chris Christianson southside of Longstone Island in 30-34mtrs
The most dived wreck has to be the Somali a 7000 ton (approx) passenger - cargo vessel that was sunk by a German Heinkel bomber whilst heading to Hong Kong from the Firth of Forth in March 1941, she sits upright on much of her intact hull in 30 mtrs of water about a mile east of Beadnell, some bottles and other bits and pieces are still being found in the rummage area.

With all this great diving only 1 & 1/2 hours drive down the road, our club makes an annual pilgrimage down here in September, and this year (2005) was no exception, all though it turned out to be an actual pilgrimage to the Holy Isle this year due to not being able to dive on the Saturday because of high seas.
When we arrived on Friday night at Farne Dive Services run by Stan Hall and his eldest son Lee, we heard rumours that divers were unable to get out today and this was to be the forecast for the Saturday as well, so it was of to the pub for a bite to eat and a couple of drinks (only a couple!!!) as we weren't sure if we would be diving or not, so with that it wasn't to late a night either.
Next morning up nice and early for one of Stans hearty breakfasts, whilst walking to the breakfast room, you could hear the waves crashing on the shore, things weren't looking good, but we packed our gear and headed of to the harbour ever optimistic only to be met by alot of unhappy looking divers hanging about the harbour walls looking out to rough seas, the diving had been cancelled by all the Skippers from all the dive operations in the area, also the Harbour Master wasn't letting any other boats launch.

This was a blow for Crawford Ritchie and Ian Baillie who had driven down in the morning to join us,but also agreed that bouncing around on a boat in these conditions wasn't to appealing, so with the prospects of Sundays diving not being any better Russell McMorran, Colin Forbes, Crawford and Ian headed back up the road, that left Sandy, Ann-Marie, Gordon (Gogs), Iain Shaw and myself to fill in the rest of the day,having done Bamburgh Castle on a previous trip we opted to go to The Holy Island for a look around and purchase of some Lindisfarne Mead, so we all piled into Ann-Marie's people carrier and headed of across the causeway to Lindisfarne to take in some culture.
In the monastery grounds there was some choir singers, as well as some wind harps, the harps were set up to vibrate with the slightest breeze blowing across the string and pickup, then the signal was sent to large shell shape amplifiers for the notes to come out (very spirtual), Sandy in his infinite wisdom on not hearing anything decided to give the strings an almighty twang, thus bursting the eardrums of those standing close to the amplifiers and rocking the foundations of the monastery, with this it was a hasty retreat to the pub for lunch and onto the shop for Mead and other goodies.

Later that night back at the digs, Dougie & Rhona met up with us and it was of to the pub for food and drinks again, later on in the evening, after a few drinks the conversation turned to the events of the day at Lindisfarne, with this Rhona went into fits of laughter wondering what was so special about Linda's Farm (it wouldn't be so bad but she's not even blonde or maybe it was the bottle of wine that was consumed) so the evening ended, and it was of to bed with eager anticipation for diving tomorrow.

Next morning we awoke to blue skies and no sound of waves crashing on the shore, yippee, so it was of for a hearty breakfast, pack the gear and down to the harbour to meet our skipper on the dive boat The Hope of Life, a chain was formed and the dive gear was quickly stowed onboard, there was a bit of urgency to leave the harbour and catch slack water on the first dive, which was to be the Blue Caps at the outer Islands, (see maps above) the trip out took about 40 mins, divers buddy up and dove into the site in waves as despite the wheel house being cut back from last year there isn't enough deck space for 10 divers to get kitted up together.

First Dive:- The Blue Caps, a series of islets whose exposed tops are dark blue hue (hence the name). This has become a usually dive for us,the site being sheltered on three sides, it is often dived when conditions elsewhere are unfavourable. The underwater terrain, consists of almost sheer walls and gullies with small overhangs and large crevices where seals have been seen on previous trips interacting with divers, and this year was no exception, especially for Sandy's group. Iain, Dougie and myself were buzzed by three seals on the dive but the other two didn't see them, (well they will make me lead the dives). Wrasse,octopus,shoaling fish and the usual crustaceans were also seen on the dive, the vis wasn't great at around 8 mtrs but still an enjoyable 50 min dive.

Second Dive:- Gun Rock, this site gets its name from a cannon and cannon balls from the wreck of the Circa that sank in the 1700's, they lie in shallow water approx 4 mtrs amongst the dense kelp forest, there is nothing else left of the wreck due to the strong tidal currents that run through the Staple Sound on the west side of the rock, from here the kelp gives way to a steep drop down to 15 mtrs then on to a boulder slope.
This was the first time the Club has dived this site, as we dropped onto the ledge of kelp at 4 mtrs we had a quick look round for the cannon to no avail, then headed on down onto the boulder slope, lots of nooks and crannies to explore but not a huge amount of life around at this time, the only reasonable life was a good sized octopus that ended up with a lot of photographers round it snapping away, unfortunately we had disturbed its lunch as it got fed up with the harassment it shot of in a cloud of ink spitting out a half eaten crab, we hung about a while on the hope of a seal, but none came to play, another goodish 50 min dive in +10 mtrs vis.