I am so glad that Tiago and I managed to take time off work to go and to Whirl Rocks with the Dive Centre, onboard Glad Tidings. The weather was perfect, the craic was good and the diving, well that was just superb. If Whirl Rocks wasn’t such a tidal lump of rock, I am sure that we would have stayed down even longer, being on our rebreathers, we can, but sometimes, we just can’t, if you get what I mean?
Anyway, we headed on out to the most easterly part of the Farne Islands. Michael put down the shot line, not for us to ascend, but to act as a marker for where to drop us off. We were then to descend straight down, and follow the rock wall round to find the wreck…. sounds easy doesn’t it?
We jumped in, descended on to the top of the rock, found a gully and headed down. What I did notice was that there is a lot more sand in the gullies than last time. Loads of broken shell sand, very white against the dark rock.
The amount of life and the clarity of the water was amazing. We could see at least 20 metres, if not more. Everyone followed the rock round towards the wreckage of the SS Jan van Ryswck, which lies at about 20 metres or so, scattered over a large shelf of rock. First you find an anchor, then a propeller shaft, following this up you arrive at the engine block standing proud of the seabed, as well as a couple of boilers and other bits. Everything is covered with life, soft coral, hydroids, bryzoans, and my favourite jewel anemones.
Tiago photographed here is following a line of wreckage up towards the plateau with the boilers on it. The metal struts and plates are all covered in concretion, and on top of this abundant marine life is also growing, such as antenna hydroids, dead man’s fingers and the bryzoan known as horn wrack.
The Jan van Ryswck was a Belgian steamship which was constructed and launched in Stockton in 1907 but was lost on the 21/05/1927 whilst on passage from Antwerp to Grangemouth. I was carrying a cargo that included pig iron and steel ingots. These can be seen scattered all over the seabed.
There are still some large sections of engine remaining on the rock plateau. The engine pistons stand proud of the seabed by some 5 meters I think. Huge great pistons which would have been powered by the boilers, transferring all of the kinetic energy in to the propeller shaft. Though sadly on this occasion, not power enough to avoid Whirl Rocks.
The boilers of the SS Jan van Ryswck are slowly decaying. The outer casing has fallen away revealing the inner pipe work. Every surface is covered with marine life, especially dead man’s fingers in orange and white. Finning aroud the boilers, really makes you appreciate the size that this boat once was.
Finally as we were heading towards 60 minutes, the limit for our dive, we swam up to about 10 metres along one of the small cliffs giving us shelter from the ever strengthening current. Here we found an abundance of life, proving that this is a high energy site. My favourite jewel anemones were in abundance, so too were nudibrances of every colour. If we could have, Tiago and I would have stayed a lot longer! Such a fabulous dive. 🙂 Oh and yes, a Seasearch form was completed, almost had to attach a second page for the list of species!
