A Weekend out of Eyemouth - June 06
Why is it that so often parents expect you to find the excrement of their offspring as inoffensive as they do!
Drying my hair in the shower block of the campsite where I was staying I was trying to ignore the pungent smell of s**t emanating from the nappy that had been dumped underneath the hairdryer. Stretching the cord as far as possible I turned round and realised I was in danger of pulling the whole thing of the wall! Fortunately at that moment the mother returned scooping up the stinky mess and whisking it out of the way. I was staying at a campsite in Berwick-on-Tweed having been a little tardy in organising myself to stay at the campsite nearer to Eyemouth for the weekends diving; however as it was only 7 miles down the road it was not a real problem.
A late start to the weekends diving at lunchtime on Saturday meant that I could go and explore what was a new area for me. Having had a stroll round the small but pleasant town I walked down to the beach and proceeded to have a look around the rock pools as the tide was out and had revealed some lovely coloured rocks along the shoreline. They seemed to be quite a lot of life lurking in them and I even spotted a small goby about 3inches long, which I thought that was definitely a good omen for the days diving.
With the time getting on I went to meet the others at Marine Quest just by the harbour and with whom we were diving. All went well as we sorted kit out which was then loaded and taken round by van to the ramp on the other side of the harbour, we then walked round to join it. Here the fun and games started as the tide was out. The ramp that you used to access the pontoon and the boats at water level rose and fell with the tide, unfortunately for us the tide was out! This meant a steep walk down with our kit in order to load up. Being metal it was quite slippery and caused quite a lot of what can only be termed as negative comments from people myself included! However soon loaded we were off and out of the harbour passing the begging seals at the harbour mouth on the way. Fish is often sold and thrown down to them so they see it as an easy meal and often sit at the bottom of the harbour wall in the same way a dog will sit and watch you eat at the dinner table.
First dive was South Carr a rocky environment with the rocks covered in small urchins and common sea stars and dozens of small jellyfish and comb jellys. The second dive was The President; a small ship that founded on the rocks and is quite broken up. Despite the good visibility we missed the boilers, which is the only bit of any size that is left of this wreck. However, there are numerous pieces of wreckage strewn over the seabed making shelter and homes for a variety of marine life. Trying hard to find the tiny things that grow on the rocks I did eventually find some cup corals. Unfortunately I had stupidly changed some settings on my camera and the days pics including the cup corals were pretty awful, which I had to delete…..thank goodness for digital! The second days diving was an earlish start at 9. The weather was not so bright but the surface of the sea was like a millpond and despite the lack of sunshine the conditions were wonderful, which provided excellent viz again.
Going up the coast towards St Abbs we dived Brander Point and then returning back towards Eyemouth, Conger Reef. Both were excellent dives with plenty of snake pipefish, urchins, sea stars, butterfish, little gobys and a very courageous lobster walking around in the open waving his claws in the air. He may well have been after the lovely stone fish that I, once again, messed up photographing. On all the dives I saw evidence of nudibranch; rosettes of their eggs were in several places but I was unable to spot one.
Heading back the tide was once again out and we had to lug our kit up the steep ramp. We had been spared this the night before as we were able to leave all the kit on the boat and the tide was in therefore the ramp was only a gently incline.
Generally a good weekends diving, lugging kit up and down the ramp was probably the only negative point.
more pics
Eyemouth!
