Diary
First salty dip of 2021
The weather up here has been ghastly so with the weather 'settled' I had a look at the conditions and took the plunge!
It nearly was it, I reckon that is it now...
After the weekend where we had some bad 'wishy-washy' conditions and rough stuff forecast I said that would be it, well the rough stuff didn't happen and everything settled down, so what is a guy to do?
Surely that must be it.....
A last dip from the South Side of Beadnell Point in late November, well I have been saying that for weeks now.......
Chilly, chilly, chilly
Oh and did I say it was a tad cold today at Beadnell?
2020 Target Achieved at Lady Hole!
I always set myself a target of picking up scrap from the sea-bed and it is 500kg, always has been and always will be but with the Covid 19.....
Bit of a cheeky one!
North Sea diving after September is always a 'hit and miss' affair but it just seems that we have a gap in the weather which means, just maybe a week of hit?
You can tell winter is coming.........
Because I am reduced to diving in fresh water, but not your usual 'holes in the ground'.......
- Howick and Sinatra!
- What a tosheroon and indeed what is a tosheroon?
- Have I found where the Lions Mane Jellies go to die?
- It's all topsy-turvy!
- It's clearing.....slowly
- A busy day diving
- Club Med on the North Side of Beadnell Point
- Long may it continue!
- An anomaly that I didn't know about!
- What a day, what a dive!
- I'm ahead of the game...........again!!
- This local site is moving up in my list of favourites
- The calm after the storm.......
- It only looked like a bit of bilge pipe.....continued
- North Side of Beadnell Point and was the vis as good?
- Knacker Hole, the gift that keeps giving!
- It only looked like a little bit of bilge pipe
- Back in....again....and the vis!!!
- That's a first for Knacker Hole!
- Knacker Hole and the first weight-belt of 2020!
- 2020 and North Side of Beadnell Point
- The season starts here....... !
- Cheeky one at Lady Hole
- Always sad when lumpsuckers are washed up
- Coronavirus and diving
- Another 'tosheroon' at Beadnell
- Another winter dive job!
- Last Dip of 2019
- Another seal pup that took the wrong turn.....
- Still revisiting old dive sites.....
- It's due to go the hell but it's still ok!
- Late season UK shore diving is always hit 'n' miss
- Cheeky, late shore dip at Beadnell!
- Strange thing the mind............
- Back on Snowdonia for a recce
- 4,000 dives with some 'facts', figures and opinions!
- SS Loch Leven and Northern Hares
- The knack is to find where the Anglers cast
- A mixed bag on the Islands
- A clean sweep of local dives!
- Choppy and grotty on the South Side
- Beadnell Haven, I dive it every five or six years.......
- As I swam out one midsummer morning
- The Hopper but diving the wrong way
- Autumn is here now and SS Somali was great!
- More than a Pleasant Surprise!
- Quite a pleasant surprise really!
- You should have been here last week!
- Crumstone on a big spring tide.......
- The day after....with a camera!
Latest Photographs


A view of the business end of an Angler-fish (Lophius piscatorious) there are loads about the sites and once you've spotted one they become easier to see.
Sea Hare (aplysia punctata) you get loads and loads of them on the south side of the point feeding and breeding!
Nudibranch alert! This particular species appears to have electric blue tips when viewed in the water.
A - It started with a bit of wood on the beach to the North of Bamburgh
Only one in this shot but I ended up making two reels....
Believe it or not a Gravel Sea Cucumber (Neopentadadactyla mixta) under the tentacles there is a creature living in a hole!
The size of the scrap-field gives some indication of how large the vessel was but every year more of it is bashed, pulverised and washed away in winter storms....
working down the wreck it's pretty intact so you do get to see the ship even though it's at ninety degrees to the norm
The picked bones of a dead creature, probably a fish, most probably a wrasse caught and returned by anglers.
The geology of the site is all crevices and fissures so it's very pretty even without the wreckage
The site is very,very tidal and as such smothered with Dead Mans Fingers and other species, some of which are not common on any other farnes site!
Go out, south, and the bottom turns to big rocks surrounded by grit. Unfortunately it's all very mobile as you will see from the wave form of the sand, this means no scallops!
An Atlantic Cod (Gaulus mortua) this one was not hiding in a hole or crevice
A very large, well the largest that I have ever seen Common Octopus (Octopus vulgaris), she was probably a tad larger than the size mentioned as a maximum on the species, with her mantle certianly bigger than 30cm
Arty-farty shot of a pinnacle
A typical north east wreck dive, plates, boilers n bits. In this case probably Jan Van Ryswyck although a few vessels have foundered so the bits are somehwhat mixed!
By late summer the once bare stems of the kelp are little microcosms of weeds and small animals, the winter storms smashes everything up but twelve months later it's all back.
A close up of some 100 year old teak decking, in the shelter this decking has lasted remarkably well and is still 'tough' and not at all spongey and falling apart.
Bits of MV Yewglen wedged and jammed into the Little Rock
Debris all around and most unidentifiable, in this case it's a section of hull plating.
Arty-farty alert....again!