Guides
St Abbs Harbour Shore Dives
Some dive guides break this particular site into several dives including the ‘famous’ Cathedral Arch, Big Green Carr, Little Green Carr, Broad Craig, Scotts Rock among others. Rather than split up the guide, I have decided to lump the dives together and let the reader decide what he or she wants to do when they dive.
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Latest Photographs
Back quarter shot all done and pre-mounting.
The boiler..... usually the only thing visible!
A view inside a deck gun, this one has a more intact breech assembly and you can make out the various gubbins
My 'northern most' lobbie, she was a good size and provided food for all of us along with rice and a delightful lemon and butter sauce.
Wreckage from SS Loch Leven which foundered without the loss of life, not an oft dived site but very nice scenery plus rust!
An immature cod (Gadus) this particularly colourful and lonesome specimen is obviously going to be a 'kelp cod' that's to say one of the sub-species(?) which stay inshore all year around and turn red as they age.
The top of the Point is battered with wave and tide which makes it attractive for filter feeders such as barnacles which are securely anchored but weeds, well it is difficult but there are plenty of the 'bootlace' weeds which I guess are ideally shaped to apply minimal forces to the roots.
Part of the wreck is covered in a large net, which hanging over the window looks quite nice.
Lucy from 'Natural England' she was doing a recce and spent most of the dives picking up samples of weed.
I had to add one shot of wreckage that could be identified, so you have the stern of SS Rondo which of course you recognised despite the dirty water!
Typical geology, the surfaces are covered in Dead mans fingers (Alcyonium digitatum), the bottom being small vertical faces, rocks and large boulders....all very scenic and pretty in good vis!
E - And based on the black colouration it was quite old, it was confirmed by experts that the timber was circa 17th century so very, very old!
B - At first I thought it was a fence post but then I saw the tree nails and the penny dropped it was part of an old wooden ship!
A Painted Goby (Pomatoschistus pictus) a very common small fish that follows divers around hoping that some small creatures, its next meal, are dislodged.
A small Common Hermit Crab (Pagurus bernhardus) in a discarded winkle shell, the bottom of the site is crawling with these critters, searching for food, squabbling with their brethern over shells and generally going about their daily business!
Wreckage is strewn all over the site, generally if it is 'big things' then it will have been from SS Abessinia a german ship sunk en-route back from it's internment in WWI
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!
Another of my regular buddies, Donzo coming out at the bottom, to be greeted with a flash!
An arty fary half and half shot
This is the lair and just visible part of the Common octopus (Octopus vulgaris) that lives there, if you look in some of the 'squattie burrows' quite a few contain octopus that have eaten the original owner and set up shop!
Holes in the front of the fin, makes things much easy to put on and take off as the water isn't hydraulic'd and can squirt out when you put the fun in and enter when you are taking them off.
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