Diary
Askham in the winter
I do an annual dip at Askham, its not really a dive and could be done with a snorkel, but I do kit up
Sometimes......just sometimes
That's right its the end of January and it was time to get all salty again, but was it worth it?
A timely break in conditions, but my it was a short window of opportunity!
With one thing and another I haven't really had a chance to get salty for a while, the reason being that the vis for shore diving on North East Coast gets very hit and miss come end of October
Freshwater diving starts, well it has to there was a 7m swell at the weekend!
After a great summer diving at all of my usual haunts it’s time to get back to diving the local waterpark to help clear out rubbish discarded and also help get the site ready for netting in January, this means all large ‘things’ that can snag the bottom of the net to be lifted and taken out.
Well thats yer whack for 2022 I reckon
It was a bit of a damp squib to end 2022 but its been a memorable old year, but first nuts and bolts from todays dive
Busy day on Calypso - part two
The second session before lifting Calypso out for the winter was always going to be on a ‘proper’ wreck that you can visualise and is rarely dived, due to boat volume there was no way that I would dive one of my secret squirrel sites so it was up past the Goldstone towards Holy Island to dive on another of my favourites, PS Pegasus, or to give her a Sunday name Paddle Steamer Pegasus!
Busy day on Calypso - part one
Whilst it wasn’t to clement on the surface what were conditions like in the briny? Well it depended exactly where you were diving!
- Looking a bit battered in Knacker Hole
- A nice boat ride, fruitful dive in shocking vis!
- A dive or two at Knacker and Lady Holes
- September 2022 has been a bloody dry month
- Another Tale of Two Points
- Its like the Med only fish and better!
- Howick and bloody plastics
- Two different dives at the same site
- What a difference a few miles make!
- All around Howick and Beadnell for a weekend diving
- Babbacombe.....end of break round up!
- Its Spring Bank Holiday and that means one thing.....Babbacombe!
- What a day for the 'scrap', or what a bloody toxic mess, you choose!
- The poor mans Ernest Cox, or something like that!
- All around the 'Little Rock' at Beadnell
- The North Side of Beadnell Point, the gift that keeps giving!
- What a lovely dip on the North Side of Beadnell Point
- Ohhhhhhh its a long old drag back from the 'North Side'
- I think (hope) that the salt water dive season has started
- A gap in the weather means get in quick
- Is the shore dive season for 2022 back on?
- I still reckon that West Coast Sea Lochs offer the best muck diving
- The joys of a local water park!
- Beadnell shore dives in January, you sick and twisted boy!
- Howtown pier was busy as a summers day
- England's lake-district again, still at Ullswater
- I reckon thats about it.......
- Ullswater and our yesterdays
- It's that time of year........
- Something you seldom see
- What excellent conditions!
- An afternoon on Beadnell Point
- Back on the beach after a while on the boat
- It's always 'different' at Howick
- A series of dives at Seahouses Powder House
- First side on the North Side in 2021
- The sea giveth and over the winter the sea hath taken away!
- Rather variable vis this weekend!
- Gone to shite.....again!
- Third time lucky? Well guess!
- Second time in and the viz is not really any better
- First salty dip of 2021
- It nearly was it, I reckon that is it now...
- Surely that must be it.....
- Chilly, chilly, chilly
- 2020 Target Achieved at Lady Hole!
- Bit of a cheeky one!
- You can tell winter is coming.........
- Howick and Sinatra!
- What a tosheroon and indeed what is a tosheroon?
Latest Photographs


These are the outer cases built by a Sand Mason (Lanice conchilega) which filter 'bits' from the water. On occasion you can see them high and dry when there is an exceptionally low spring tide.
The lower mounting position where the pin would fit with a wrist mounted compass to give some sort of scale
Sea Hare (aplysia punctata) you get loads and loads of them on the south side of the point feeding and breeding!
Starboard side and the wreck is slowly disappearing on a flooding tide...
As you look along the bottom of the gullies you will see that the hull-plate has moulded onto the bedrock whilst the vertical sections are rapidly being eaten away by the sea
Heading down the boulder slope for the starting point, good vis but don't go straight to the bottom, you will go round and round in a pit!
There is still some ordanance at the stern end so don't go banging things!!!
Not all rust, here is a Dragonet (Callionymus lyra)
A part view of the plans of SS Somali! Showing the 'special cargo' area which is relevant on a few fronts.
A lebgth of conveyor belt, maybe used originally for lifting crushed stone from the quarry?
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!
The divers favourite a Tompot Blenny (Parablennius gattorugine) it's probably the 'mad hair-cut' that makes them popular, this one was on the steps looking for scraps
A close up of the winching arrangement showing the spoked section which is at the northern end of the 'lump'
Always nice to see lots of Dhalia Anemone (Urticina felina) of various colours on any dive!
A 'fresh' Greenland Shark (Somniosus microcephalus) that was washed up at Embleton. Great was my joy at being able to tell the guys at St Andrews University that this specimen had washed up and it was sweetened by adding that we had already toild Newcastle University of the stranding
An Atlantic Cod (Gaulus mortua) this one was not hiding in a hole or crevice
Ahhhhh a danforth anchor, all alone and loitering, probably just under a metric tonne here!
A Crawfish or should that be Spiny Lobster, doesn't matter as it's the same thing (Palinurus elephas) I did half heartedly attempt and extraction but it was 'so-so' size and without implements I wouldn't have been able to extract a lobster and crab, hey-ho!