The 29th June dawned bright and sunny with a bit of swell coming in from the north east. The tide was on the flood too, which meant diving would be on the south side of the islands. For us it was quite a big group diving for the day, 14 people from Tyneside 114, Durham Divers and guests. Glad Tidings is a big boat so we all easily fitted on with our kit, food and energy!
Ropes off was 0830, at which we promptly left the harbour and headed out to do the first dive on the St Andre, an old French steam ship lost in 1908. It lies in about 25m depth of water, but within easy reach of one of the islands, so there is always a nice cliff against which to take your safety stops, peering into the cracks and crevices.
On jumping in we found that my DSMB reel had come open and the DSMB unclipped, so the bag dropped itself down to the seabed, with the reel still attached to me, so I had to wind up the line as I descended, a slightly odd thing to have to do, but caused Niall lots of hilarity! The visibility was quite good, so we found the first large boiler, and circled it looking for ritters in the holes. Then we found the second boiler, and repeated the process. I like looking for Yarell’s blennies and nudibranches. Niall was hunting for his lunch I think!
We then followed the lines of wreckage back up towards the cliff, so we could blow off some deco while still critter hunting. Occasionally we met some other divers, doing the polite okay sign and finning on.
Everyone seemed to have a good dive, with most people spending at least 30 minutes looking at the wreckage. Back on the boat in the warm sun, we had cups of coffee and watched the wildlife around us. A few seals and still some birds on the islands.
The second dive was on the Hopper which is a lovely reef, well known for its wildlife and for some the seal encounters. The depth you chose to stay at is up to you, it does go down to 25m if you want to. Most of the colourful marine life is above this depth though. The reef is riven with a number of gullies, one of which goes about 30m back in to the island. The walls of the gullies are covered with marine life (short turf like squidge) because of the swell and the water movement. An area that Tiago and I love searching, looking for nudibranches and this time proved very successful, a new record for the nudibranch Janolus hyalinus on our north east coast.
Catherine and Lisa saw lots of jelly fish and wondered what type they were. Quite large with what looked like a blue dome. They often had little silver fish associated with them too. What they saw were Cyanea lamarckii the blue jelly fish. Its colour varies from translucent through pale yellow, pale brown, pale grey to light blue or purple. In faintly coloured species the blue tends to outline the pattern of the internal sculpting of the bell. It can be found all around the UK and is quite closely related to the lion’s mane jelly fish, so I suspect it can pack quite a sting too. Why are beautiful creatures often so deadly?
Everyone had a nice long dive on the hopper, enjoying the scenery. The grey seals were zooming around too, but not being too bothersome!
Back on the boat, a group of happy divers, heading back in to port for fish and chips and a sunny drive home. All we missed were the dolphins to guide us back home.