jane

I had been looking forward to this weekend for some time as it was to be my first boat diving weekend of the year, unfortunately due to the fog half of the dives had to be canned!
Despite the poor forecast for the weekend we started the weekend on Friday with high hopes and a lovely dive on Blue Caps where the carpets of brittle starts lay like a mantle completely covering the seabed.

The fog then descended and despite the skipper motoring about in the hope that it would either lift or be less dense elsewhere we eventually decided to call it a day and headed back to shore. Saturday we gathered again at the harbour bright and early only to confirm what we had guessed when we had looked at the day. Thick fog lay everywhere again. Meeting up again later in the morning in the hopes that it might have dispersed we decided to ditch the days diving as it showed no signs of abating. A group of us then went off to Alnwick castle to visit the gardens. Quite strange as it was brilliant sunshine there even though it was only a short distance away. Superb gardens with very impressive fountains and a remarkable poison garden containing loads of poisonous plants. Quite informative and rather shocking to think that I, like many others, have naively grown plants that are quite poisonous in the past.

Our last day on the Sunday proved to be very good with a pleasant first dive on North Knifestone where there appeared to be the remains of several wrecks. This was then followed by the second dive on Knox Reef. For me this dive alone was probably worth the six-hour drive up to the Farnes. Whilst a few people saw no seals on their dive at all I was extremely lucky and had a playful seal not only trying to nibble my fins but also really wanting to play. He kept disappearing and then would return grabbing mouthfuls of kelp, shaking his head from side to side like a dog playing with a toy. Plummeting deep down into the forest of kelp he would then pop back up looking at me with those huge puppy dog eyes. Its experiences such as these that convince you all the sacrifices you make in order to dive are worthwhile.

more pics The Farnes

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This entry was posted on Sunday, June 10th, 2007 at 6:45 pm and is filed under Dive Trips and Reports - England. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.