Duo-Divers

Aa bit salty round the eyes so a tad dehydrated

Dead Mans Fingers (Alcyonium digitatum)

This Pink (or Northern) Prawn (Pandalus montagui) was being actively stalked by a Common Lobster (Homarus Gammarus), you can see the lobbies claws!

Scenic stuff with light coming through the hull where the plates have gone and we are left with ribs and bits only, this is looking towards the stern

A Sea-Hare (Aplysia punctata) these large nudibranch come in a variety of colours, depending I think on what they have been eating.

A very large, well the largest that I have ever seen Common Octopus (Octopus vulgaris), eyes down!

Along part of the site there is a definite step of maybe a meter, a very good spot for picking up lost weights but note the general lack of life here in 10m of water!

H - The finish had to be an oil as there is no way that a wood of this age would take a varnish

Arty-farty shot of a pinnacle

A general topographical shot, there are several large stone pinnacles on the site, the largest rising maybe 4m from the seabed and with a circumference of 50m. They do degrade over time as they are formed from a softish rock and do receive a battering every year from Southerly and Easterly storms.

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!

A common hermit crab (Pagurus bernhardus), this one was a tad larger and seemed to have eggs around the rim of the shell.

Wreckage from SS Mistley, in this case from near the stern. This structure was only eally 'thrown up' after storms a couple of winters ago!

The velvet swimming crab (necora puber), there are always some about and 'prod' one and it will swim away.....honest!

Ahhhhh yes lobsters (Hommarus gammarus) what I wanted to show here was the pile of 'scrattings' left outside holes by lobsters. At the start of the season you start seeing loads of scrattings as lobsters wake up and take back ownership of their holes.

A hatch with the actual cut-out still 'envisionable', is there such a word? There should be!

Eat my camera set-up!!

Football sea squirts (Diazona violacea), again lots of these very simple animals inhabit the outside of the hull of SS Rondo.

In some areas the broken bottom comprises of large stones covered in life, strange that there is a centre section almost devoid of filters feeders.....