I start my report writing duties with our fantastic haggis (both meat and vegetarian) and root vegetables prepared by Ian and Rachel, rounding out the end of the second day. We were all impressed by the sophisticated, multi-textured, beautifully coloured and lovingly prepared meal.

Day Three

Fifteen minutes before stated leaving time, I had some lingering concerns about the ability of our caravan to wash up, pack up, clean up and get out the door on schedule, but the following activity was a amazing; time slowed down and everything fell into place.

Dive One

I don’t know what everyone else did, but Ian, Grainne and I took a mini detour to visit the wreck of a post-apocalyptic bathtub. Refreshingly different, as I was getting bored by all the beautifully appointed rocks and abundant sealife in St. Abbs. We did see a nice sparkly jellyfish at the start of the dive though.

Dive Two

We found the appointed swimthru on the second pass. Visibility was absolutely fantastic and I found what I described as a mini-octopus thing, was told was probably a cuttlefish but now after 15 minutes on Google am absolutely going back to saying octopus. I kept agitating the water to make it swim away a pace, and eventually it just drew up its tentacles and watched me and Grainne, plotting how it could pay back those that had intruded into its personal space (based on my limited experience of cephalopods emotion).

Day Four

The Farnes

Sadly few members of the club made it to The Farnes and we ended up outnumbered by the Dutch, on our final day’s escapades. We stayed the evening in a fantastic little farm bunkhouse, ate great spicy vegetable soup prepared by Dutch Anne, took a sunset walk along the sand dunes and beach, and paid a visit to the spectacularly decorated pub in Seahouses “town.”

Before our morning dives, we took a little seal tour before going to visit a “wreck.” Well as far as I saw, it was a big boiler and ground littered with debris, but maybe we missed the Holy Grail in the cloud of silt I created trying to practice line laying, solution thus conveniently preceding the problem which it was designed to solve. Tom found a lumpfish taking a siesta in the boiler and he poked it and poked it and poked it until it woke up and looked at us angrily (based on my limited experience of fish emotion).

Second dive, we visited the S E A L S. We entered the water and hung around on the surface and the seals flopped off their rocks and gathered round to take a look (while maintaining a safe distance), watching us from the top of the water or swimming around underneath us; I hyperventilate with excited laughter at their cuteness. We descended and swam through a beautiful gully between the two seal hotels, full of plants and twists and sea life. Tom caught and played with a lobster, before taking it on a trip back to Oxford, where I assume it was placed in somewhat warmer water than that to which it was previously accustomed.

All in all, it was fantastique!

Please have a look at our photo Gallery on Flickr.