Two blonde Swedish women wearing rubber suits?  It could only be...

UKRS Trip #111 - St Abbs and Eyemouth

[My Photos] [Ben's Photos] [Daniel's Photos] [Anders' Photos 1] [Anders' Photos 2]

Background

I moved back to Scotland and to get a start I figured that a little trip of easy-peasy shore diving was a good place to start.  This trip was the second part of my "return to Scotland" trips, the first being a visit to the newly sunk HMS Scylla.

Friday 2nd July 2004

Finishing work and looking out over the Firth of Forth and not being able to see the far shore, or indeed any of the tankers moored offshore, was not a good start.  But the kit and the tent went into the car and I started the drive south with windscreen wipers flat-out.

Realising that it only takes just about an hour and a half to get to Scoutscroft in Coldingham from my house was very pleasant and the sunshine that had broken through made me crack a bit of a smile.  The tent went up dry for an extra bonus and I made my way to meet Anders and Linda at the bar.  I was brought back to the stark bingo-playing reality of the Great British Holiday Park as soon as I entered the bar but found that the "Hatch" bar provided a little bit of sanity (and a very nice pint of the locally brewed Belhaven Best).

A text message, much wandering, and a phone call later and Anders and Linda were found and rescued from the bingo-frenzied masses and more pints of Best ensued.

Daniel and Maria were still doing battle with the M1/A1 but made it in well before closing time.  We got their tent up and went for the SCUBA Cylinder air-mattress inflation technique - a standard mattress foot pump's hose seals reasonably well to the outer face of a DIN valve...  The additional little plug on the double mattress was installed in its hole and the hose connected.  We started to get a bit suspicious when the mattress refused to get firm, and got even more suspicious as the frost started to thicken on my pillar valve.  A note to double mattress users - there is an extra, very large plug at the feet end...

...with this inserted the inflation was completed in seconds.

This air of forgetfulness was to set the tone for the weekend as Dan's torch failed to light and they realised that the backups were on their livingroom floor...

Saturday 3rd July 2004

Up reasonably early for air fills (120 Bar to fill a mattress?) and breakfast (excellent).  And just as we were settling up the text message arrived from Ben to inform us that he had arrived at the first dive site.  We all set off in convoy to Green Ends Gully just south of Eyemouth for the first dives.  We arrived exactly at low water...

...which gave us a great opportunity to see the dive site, or rather take a walk through most of the dive site!

We passed a couple of convivial hours by sending Dan and Maria back to the campsite to pickup their cylinders which didn't get filled over breakfast and fiddling with dive gear and cameras and things until the sea started to fill up.  It soon became apparent that this was to be one of the best photographed UKRS trips with a camera to diver ratio of nearly 2:1!

The amount of stuff in the rock pools and and the clarity of the water in the gullies set high expectations for the dive and we started to kit up.  Which is when forgetfulness struck again - the look on Ben's face when he came down from his car to admit to managing to forget his backplate and harness was pretty classic!

So it was agreed that we would dive in two waves with Ben and myself in first with Anders and Linda and Dan and Maria waiting patiently for a backplate.  

Dive 1 - Green Ends Gully

The first dive was the one where you walk in down the old concrete sewerage outfall casing which, fortunately, has been out of service for a long time.

Ben and I dropped in and swam down through the kelp forest, and Ben's all consuming obsession for nudibrach's became almost instantly apparent as he went daft over the myriad babies living on the kelp fronds.  Following the gully out we found all kinds of things including a good covering of dead men's fingers, plumose and dahlia anemones, hermit crab, edible crab, those big blueish crabs, squat lobster, normal lobster, whelks, limpets you name it and it was there.  Fish-wise there were gobies aplenty, something a bit bigger and pollack related, scorpionfish, butterfish and others.

The real highlights for me were the walls outside the gully to the right which were so full of dead men's fingers that you couldn't see the rock at all.  I thought there were a lot on the bows of the James Eagan Layne but that is nothing by comparison.  There was one tiny gully with a bit of an overhang that we went up but backed out of as it was getting a little tight which was just crammed full of them and anemones.  A truly awesome sight.

The real highlight for Ben was the sea lemon he found early in the dive.  I didn't get the significance until we surfaced and he explained that you don't see them very often at all, probably once every couple of months.

I was also very impressed by the little purple comb jellies floating around, they put on quite a light show with their cillia, Anders got a great photograph of one on the second dive.

We made our way back the way we came past the entrance to the gully and explored a bit to the left, constantly amused by the crustaceans and generally awed by the sedentary life it was soon time to get out and we made for the exit.  We were greeted by a lion's mane jelly a foot and a bit across and gave it a wide berth as we got out.

Anders and Linda came out shortly after and had followed a similar but shorter route from us and had been equally impressed by the site.

We got the backplate swapped over and Dan and Maria went in.  Meanwhile, breaking the "No flying after diving" rule, Ben and I wandered to the top of the bank and put up my kite for a few minutes fun.  (Kite flying makes an excellent complementary hobby to diving, you nearly always get nice steady winds at the shore so if you are shore diving it makes for a fun surface interval.  Equally, if you are blown out for boat diving you have an alternative waste of time!)

Dive 2 - Green Ends Gully

The "real" Green Ends Gully dive.  We waited and chatted and got air fills at Aquastars at Eyemouth harbour and while we were in the shop Ben picked up what could only be described as “sort of fin-like things”. The owner came past and explained that they were Gills fins from South Africa and would I like to try them out? Well it would have been rude not to and they were just so whacky (photos will follow!) that I couldn’t say no.

Linda decided, on account of a splitter of a headache, that she would sit this one out so Anders joined Ben and I for the dive.

So with air and see-through fins we set off down green ends gully for another fantastic dive. With the exception of that gully on the first dive, I would say that this one was better.  There were loads of little nudibranch's (so Ben was chuffed), plenty of crustaceans, fish (including a couple of butterfish which were a bit too elusive in the kelp debris) and sedentary stuff.

At about 5m on the descent (and I say "about" because I can't be sure) I look to my Vyper and realise that it is in the back of the car - forgetfulness event two!  With shallow dives and a long surface interval I'm happy to revert to the tables given that they are showing more No Deco time than I can possibly squeeze from a 12l single.

The look on Ben's face when I found the second sea lemon of the day was a picture, he was gutted that his camera was fogged on the first dive, so he and Anders snapped away for a few minutes.

There were some lovely jelly fish on this dive, loads of the purple comb jellies, a few lions manes and some others.  I tried to get some photos so we'll see...

The tide was nearly full height by the time we got back to the exit, so we spent a few minutes wasting film in the shallows before making our way out.

And the fins?  Well, they were really good in a straight line with a fast flutter-kick and the way they fit on the feet make them feel fantastically secure.  They were hopeless, however for turning, frog kicking, sculling or anything else but they do look really cool!

A quick backplate swap and Dan and Maria were off and finning.  They found the elusive octopus on the big rock at the entrance to the gully, and nearly drowned laughing as it did it's "squirting away" stuff a couple of times then, on the third, landed on a Scorpion Fish causing both to vanish rapidly in opposite directions...

It was getting pretty late by the time they were out of the water and so we all headed off back to Coldingham for food and refreshments.

Ben and I went to investigate the local pubs for dinner options and landed (happily) in the Anchor (the blue pub to the right if coming from Scoutscroft) who had a nice looking menu and were very obliging as we all turned up at different times and most of us after the kitchen was supposed to shut.  The food was excellent and the beer just as excellent and the whisky sampling session was probably beyond the call of duty...

...fed, watered and happy we returned to the campsite/B&B and crashed out with great plans of being up and about and at the water early to maybe get one in before low water....

Sunday 4th July 2004

I was woken about 7am by the rain battering on the tent.  It was relentless.  And typical - it had been dry up until now and just when you need to pack everything away it rains.  I suppose I should know better by now.

So a bit more dozing and we all got up to find that the clouds were starting to break but the tent had to be taken down regardless.  A nice leisurely breakfast and air fills, met with Anders and Linda and then set off for Weasel Loch.

Weasel Loch is a strange coastal feature, being a sort of canyon eroded by the sea into the headland.  It is only 20 or 30m wide and cut back into the rock for 50 or 60m.  This makes the entry somewhat awkward given that it is a long way down!  Stairs have been erected to make life a lot easier but I really did feel for Dan and Maria who only brought their twinsets...

Their are two ways to dive Weasel Loch.  One way is to pay the nice people at the caravan park £3 to drive right to the edge and make use of their toilet block.  The other way will suit the 4am Stoney Cove brigade which involves a half-mile hike round the edge of the caravan park. 

We wandered down to look at the site but there was very little water in the gully, we decided just to hang around for a few hours and have one good dive.  We passed the time playing with photo gear and chatting to a member of Musselburgh BSAC about the local diving.

Eventually we decided that there was probably enough water to get us wet and we all started to get ready to go in.  Forgetfulness hit number three - Maria's computer and bottom timer were (hopefully) still hanging on the shower curtain rail in the campsite from last night...

...calls to directory enquiries and Scoutscroft revealed that their are still a lot of honest people in the world and that they were safely ensconced behind the bar.

Ben's blister (something to do with attempting the near suicidal feat of the Three Peaks Yacht Race) was really giving him trouble after the diving yesterday so he decided to make tracks back to Edinburgh.  Secretly we knew it was more to do with the trouble he was going to be in if the flat wasn't tidy...

Linda was still suffering with her migraine and decided on a bit of Scottish snorkelling.  So we were down to two pairs for the last dive.

Dive 3 - Weasel Loch

The entry at Weasel Loch is a bit, well, interesting.  The way in is down the wooden steps, a scramble across some rocks and a sort of bum-slide down into the water.  The water is at the top end of a narrow gully leading off the main "canyon" and so the surge is pretty impressive.  It made life very tricky for the photographers!

We got Dan and Maria in the water first and Anders and I followed after 5 minutes or so.

In the water and out of the side-gully things became a lot more serene, just a gentle surge under water which was lovely, time your frog-kicks right and you just glide effortlessly - great fun.  We followed the left wall out to sea and round under the cliff through some spectacular topography and past more impressive walls of dead men's fingers and anemones.  There were bigger fish here, which would explain the anglers lurking on the rocks.

The current started to pick up a bit outside the loch itself so we didn't go too far round the headland and made our way back inside, before long we were back at the head of the loch in some pretty heavy swell.  Neither of us actually signalled our intention to get out but we both sort of knew and made our way back up the little gully.

Getting out was just as much "fun" as getting in but we made it out safely and helped Dan and Maria out as they followed us in a few minutes later.

Standing at the bottom of the steps in a drysuit, with all our gear, in the rain and looking up I wondered if it was worth it...

...for about half a second.  Weasel Loch is one dive I could do over and over without getting bored - there are so many little nooks and crannies to explore and the topography outside the gully on the wall is just superb.  They say that wolf fish and congers and various other beasts make a regular appearance here - I'll need to go back and find them!

Anyway, while we were all mumbling about having to get back up the stairs, local solo diver walked out of the water and straight up the stairs and round the campsite to the free parking without stopping...

We thought about calling the services, the chap was obviously deranged and after a few trips all the gear was at the top and we set off on the hunt for food.  Eyemouth had nothing to offer until 6pm so, having the advantage of not being children and having to stick to the rules we had pudding first from the cafe/chippy/ice cream shop on the harbour (superb ice cream & the chip shop food looked very good too) then set off back to Scoutscroft to pick up the computers and see what we could find to eat there.

We met again at the Anchor who didn't start doing food until 6pm (so your only bet on a Sunday before 6pm is the chippy in Eyemouth or the chippy (or the burger bar) at Scoutscroft) so we just sat and enjoyed a last pint of Belhaven while signing logbooks.  Anders and Linda made the rest of us very jealous being as they were on holiday and were discussing all the places they were going to be visiting and diving, Campbeltown, Oban, Fort William...

We set off vowing to get UKRS Sweden off the ground and do UKRS St Abbs and Eyemouth again.

Me?  I'll be back there on a regular basis, I realised that it is the same drive time to Eyemouth as it used to take me to get to Stoney Cove...  Spoiled?  Me?

Thanks must be extended to...

...Ben Panter for knowing the area so well and providing excellent dive and local knowledge.

...Aquastars for fills and weird fins.

...Scoutscroft for their tent field, for keeping their beer well, for good breakfasts and for air fills.

...The Anchor for excellent food and beer.

...Dan and Maria for doing the M1!

...Anders and Linda for doing the North Sea!