Seal Soup, Part the Second (Dive at the Farne Islands)

Eventually the site was settled upon, and myself plus buddy (J) fell backwards off the boat and into the water. I spent the next ten minutes trying to equalise my right ear, which was really playing up – always fun when you’re trying to keep track of everyone else. Eventually, at the point where I was thinking of giving up, after much jiggling and swallowing, it slowly cleared with a squeak and I dropped down to my buddies’ level to play with seals. 

They were everywhere. It was the first time I’d had seals come up to me and play, or let me stroke their heads. J was in his element, since his definition of the perfect dive is probably something like “Interesting stuff to photograph + seals to play with”. I took a few photos too, one of which was sufficiently good that I later entered it into the Stoney Cove photo competition and won a new torch.  (Not the one above, although I quite liked that one too!)

We paddled merrily along following our dive leader, who was towing an inflatable surface buoy at the request of the skipper, who was concerned about us getting caught in the current. So concerned that he dispatched another diver to inform us that we were getting a bit too close to the edge of the island, where the currents can sweep you round the side if you’re not careful. 

We turned around, J and I bringing up the rear with cameras at the ready, and seals nibbling our fins. All apart from one seal, which thought the inflatable surface buoy was the best toy it had ever seen, and decided to hang upside down from it and be towed along. J and I did a quick exchange of hand signals and expressions, which would translate roughly into English as:

Me: “Shall we tell him about the seal?”
J: “No, let’s watch, point and laugh.” 

We did, waiting for the inevitable moment when the dive leader would realise why he wasn’t making much progress. I wasn’t close enough to hear his response (and I was too busy laughing into the regulator anyway), but I’m guessing from his expression it was “Fucking seal”.

As we reached the end of the island, we ascended gently and rejoined the boat for some tea and buns. The buns were provided by me – they usually are. 

The second dive was also fun, and cold. It was around this point I decided that it was time I started to think about getting a drysuit. (Though I did not in fact get one until half a year later, after my trip to Oban. More about that later.) Diving along a reef covered in soft corals with a seal nibbling your fins and a couple of ballan wrasse dancing in front of you should be a pleasure, not an exercise in how long you can endure the cold before you tap your buddy’s shoulder and signal to end the dive. It’s also not fair on the drysuit-wearing buddy, who has to terminate their dives earlier than they actually need to, since they’re not getting cold. 

Even so, it was a fun dive. We surfaced and scrambled back into the boat. I needed to be yoicked on by two of the other divers; dignity is not a big part of diving. Once all were safely back aboard, we made as fast a run as possible to get back land. I remember thinking “That was great, and I am now done for the season”. Great dives, but tough and tiring. (It took two days for my back to recover from the pounding we all took as the Moby hammered through the waves back to Beadnell.) 

Sill, I got a torch out of it.

Seal Soup (Dive at the Farne Islands Last Year)

Here's an account of a dive I did last year - one of my favourites to date. In other news, I've recently purchased a drysuit, and will be taking it out for a spin tomorrow. Updates as and when...
When the skipper of the boat begins the safety briefing with “Right, grab something in the middle and hold on tight, ‘cos Alton Towers has got nothing on this!”, you know it’ll be an interesting day’s diving.

It started with a demonstration of Murphy’s Law. I’d got up early especially to get to the Farnes by 8am, as I always seem to start my dives up there with rushing frantically to be on time. I was the second one there, just in time to find out that the boat would be leaving later than usual because the tide wasn’t in far enough to be able to launch the boat without getting stuck on the rocks. Such be life.

Eventually, we got the nod from the skipper, kitted up and loaded the boat, and escorted the Moby down to the water. Diving from a RIB from Beadnell is always an interesting experience, as the tractor drags the boat into the water, then everyone makes an undignified scramble over the side and into the boat. We perched on the sides, and hung on for grim life as the skipper turned the boat to face the waves. 

He was right. I have dived from the Moby on several occasions, but this was by far the bumpiest ride I’ve ever had out there. At one point I looked at the prow of the boat as it headed into a wave at a perilious angle (think of that publicity shot for “The Perfect Storm”, and you’re getting there), realised that I could see only walls of grey North Sea water on either side, and thought “Oh shit". At times like this, as the boat tips up one side of the wave and then suddenly drops down the other, I find it helps to have blind faith in the person driving the boat. Rationality isn’t really high on the agenda. 

Eventually, we bumped and surfed our way out of Beadnell harbour, and headed to the Farne Islands, where we spent a fair amount of time pootling around trying to find a site that was actually going to be safe to jump over the side into. The waves were not making this easy. Naturally, it was at this moment that I remembered I’d forgotten to bring my SMB and reel, and spent five minutes mentally kicking myself for being a crap Rescue Diver.

We debated the merits of a dive in what was soon dubbed Seal Lagoon, behind the lighthouse, and decided that whilst playing with seals would be fun, 4m was a little too shallow. On the plus side, we did get to watch the seals from close up, many of whom wriggled into the waters and swam over to peer curiously at us. (Apart from Dad Seal, who lay regally on a rock, regarding us with a baleful eye.)

To be continued...

Boat of Puking Divers, Part the Fourth

The other best cure for seasickness is to jump in the sea. Since it’s caused by confusion between the signals for the eye and the inner ear balance mechanism, being in the sea, and thus moving with it, cures this. Hence the oft-recommended cure for seasick divers – “Just go on the next dive” – is not born entirely of heartlessness. (Although there may be an element of that among the more gung-ho instructors.) And yes, you can throw up through a scuba regulator mouthpiece underwater, though I imagine it’s not much fun.

The first batch of divers kitted up for the second dive, and jumped in. Two of them promptly jumped back out again; a diver from Edinburgh whose drysuit was leaking badly, and A, who threw up at the bottom and promptly decided he didn’t fancy half an hour’s swimming around and puking through a reg (since the cause in this case was an OD on brandy, jumping into the sea didn’t cure him).

L decided that he would take A’s place on the dive, and jumped in, leaving me with J as my dive buddy. As I kitted up, I wondered balefully if this was L’s idea of revenge over the failure-to-stop-vanishing-banana incident.

We submerged as fast as was safe. In answer to a frequently asked question, yes, you can (and we do) dive when it’s raining, but it’s not ideal for two reasons, even though we are planning to submerge ourselves entirely in water: a) rain and wind stir up the sea and lower the visibility, and the lack of light means photos don’t come out so well, b) it’s one thing to be entirely surrounded by water, and another to be bobbing about on the surface getting cold water repeatedly blown into your face. Think of the difference between swimming in the pool and getting caught in a winter downpour without an umbrella. It’s like that.

This dive immediately looked more promising. The vis was not brilliant as we were relatively near the shore, so the surge (waves going back and forth overhead) was pushing a bit of sand around, but the light was a bit better and there was immediately more to see. More plants, more fish, more rocks, and less depth, so more light to see them. Also, a welcome absence of the slightly sick feeling I’d had in the pit of my stomach. It was so mild I hadn’t realised I had it, until I submerged and it went away. (It may not surprise anyone that it was whilst diving off Eyemouth that I developed my habit of singing “I Feel Better” by Hot Chip to cheer myself up during surface intervals.)

We happily paddled about hunting for lumpsuckers. It was an interesting experience, which I’m tempting to say was a bit like diving in a washing machine, albeit the sea didn’t actually spin us around! I don’t particularly mind diving in a bit of surge or current, as it’s quite fun playing with the sea. (Albeit a wise diver never ever forgets that the sea is bigger than you are, stronger than you are, doesn’t get tired, and has no affection for you whatsoever.)

Suddenly, J spotted it. There, beneath a rock, was a flash of pink in the sandy water. I promptly swam on over, and was rewarded with a sight I’d never seen before: a lumpsucker guarding its eggs. As you can see from the photo, the “lump” part of the name is apt. They must be one of the least hydrodynamic creatures in the sea.

As for the “sucker” part, the lumpsucker has an interesting reproductive cycle. They normally inhabit deeper waters than most divers venture into, but during spring, the lumpsuckers migrate into the shallower and warmer waters near the shore to lay and fertilise their eggs.

The female lumpsucker then thinks to herself “bugger this child-rearing lark, I’m off”, and swims back into the deeper waters, leaving the male lumpsucker to guard the eggs, which are attached to rocks near the shoreline. The male then attachs himself to a rock near the eggs to defend them and keep them oxygenated by finning water over them. Since the eggs are on rocks near the shore, the swell of the tide going in and out would dislodge the male, were it not for the part that his ventral fins (the fins just below the head) form a sucker, which he uses to firmly anchor himself.

I was extremely excited by this sighting. I enjoy the sensation of diving in itself, but for me an extra-good dive is when I see something I haven’t seen before. The photo I took can be seen above. We paddled around the rocks some more, then headed on back to the boat for the journey home and a hot chocolate. Several toasted sarnies in the harbour café afterwards, and we were on our way home from the Boat of Puking Divers.

Boat of Puking Divers, Part the First

I’ve been diving a lot recently, hence the absence of blogging activity. I’m now a Rescue Diver following a recent trip to Bute, of which more shortly. I’m also doing my Emergency First Response course, basically a First Aid course run through the my local diving centre. Always good for laugh when you have divers pretending to be casualties and two of our senior instructors, J and T, taking the class. T actually works in the health profession and has had cause to do CPR for real on three occasions.

None of them worked out in the way anyone hoped, but apparently this is not uncommon with CPR. (Should this sort of thing happen to you, try to keel over as near to a defibrillator as possible. Apparently the odds of being successfully revived if your heart stops plummet drastically after about six minutes regardless of the quality of the CPR being performed. This little First Aid bulletin brought to you care of CyclingDiver.)

As well as Fun with EFR videos (if you have a macabre sense of humour, the EFR Training Video is not unlike an episode of Casualty with voiceovers), I’ve been jumping off a boat into the North Sea on a regular basis. Specifically, the Scimitar out of Eyemouth harbour. I rather like boat dives as they involve slightly less scrabbling up and down over rocks in full diving kit. My full kit weighs around 25 kilos, and whilst I’m reasonably fit this is still quite a lot of weight to be carrying around.

Instead, you simply stride off the boat, go for the dive, then surface, scrabble onto the boat’s trail line (the rope along the side), haul yourself along the side and stand on the boat lift, which lifts you and deposits you back on the deck just in time for a nice cup of tea and a biscuit.

At least, this is the theory. My most recent dive was slightly less harmonious than this might suggest. Not, I must add, due to any fault of the excellent captain of the Scimitar, but due to the marvellousness (or lack thereof) of the British weather. Cold and rainy. It rained when we set off from Newcastle, it rained whilst we were driving up there, it rained whilst we were unloading our dive gear from the car to the boat, it rained whilst we were getting changed, and it rained whilst we were on the boat. This did not promise good visibility (see the photo for what the view was like under the water).

Whilst it is true that our hobby involves getting wet, it is a mistake to assume that this means divers are impervious to rain (although it must be said that a wetsuit, semidry suit or dry suit is an excellent choice for standing around in the rain). When you’re in the water, you’re no more aware of the water around you than you are of the air around you in the air world. Having cold rain blowing in your face is an entirely different experience.

Anyway, we bumped out into the chilly waters of Eyemouth, and jumped off the boat to begin our first drift dive. (A drift dive is where you drift along with the current.) Always fun, especially when, on the way up, you looked out of the window at the grey fog rolling over the sea, thought “It’ll be fun for the captain trying to spot us in this”, and then thought “Did I put my surface marker buoy* and reel back onto my buoyancy jacket after I took the jacket in to be serviced? No, I did not.” My strobe** had also packed in after it flooded on a recent shore dive, although I did have a smaller automatic strobe stuck on my jacket shoulder.

This did not bode well.

To be continued...


* Surface marker buoy, or SMB : A six-foot inflatable fluorescent orange tube which is filled with air from the diver’s tank (usually using the spare “octopus” mouthpiece, or sometimes the diver’s exhaled breath), either on the surface or whilst the diver is submerged. Regarded as essential safety kit for boat diving as it enables the boat captain to find you in poor visibility or if you surface further away from the boat than intended, due to currents or getting lost. The reel is attached to the buoy when deploying it at depth, so that you can stay linked to it!

** Strobe: Flashing light, usually worn on the diver’s shoulder, to enable other divers to find you underwater in poor visibility. Also used on the surface when night diving. Most divers I know favour the sort made by Beaver Sports, which combines a torch and strobe and comes in handy if your main torch packs in during a dive. Also regarded as pretty much essential safety kit when doing UK dives: the vis is not always, or even often, awful, but you might as well take the strobe in case you need it, since it weighs almost nothing.