18 March 2012
by Richard Booth
Dropping into the churned up waters off the Black Carrs it was evident that the recent bad weather had taken its toll on the underwater visibility.
We headed down through the gloom locating the southern edge of the reef before following it down into deeper water. At 25 m our torch beams lit up the old anchor. Moving around the point we began our gentle ascent back up the rocky reef, searching in the numerous nooks and crannies in the hope of finding an elusive wolf fish, but sadly with no success on this occasion.
Back on the boat MV Tiger Lilly we enjoyed our hot coffee; would we brave a second dive given the somewhat challenging conditions? Some of the boat party clearly thought not as they unloaded their kit on our return to the harbour leaving only the Tyneside members willing to try a second dive.
After lunch we headed back out of St Abbs harbour but this time further up the coastline in the search of a better dive!
Dropping back into the water under the shadow of the imposing cliffs we headed out into deeper water in search of anemone gully. The underwater visibility proved to be a little better than that experienced on our earlier dive. On reaching the gully however we were greeted by a colourful sight, the plumose anemones in full bloom making the most of the gentle current sweeping across the seabed.
Our gamble had paid off. As we experienced a colourful dive exploring along anemone gully and more than made up for the slightly disappointing dive that we had experienced earlier that morning.
