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
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!
A shot of the sea-bed in about twenty five meters off the Harcarrs, its all flat rock, small gravel beds and short drop offs.
A shaggy mouse slug, or sea mouse or more accurately Aeolidia papillosa, this one was spotted quite early in the season.
Bizarre clowns at depth......great with a touch of narcosis!
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!
Fore-deck equipment, in this case a single anchor chain winding unit, usually powered the holes at the top allow it to be used 'mandraulically' if required.
Pretty sure that this is a Shanny (Lipophrys phalis) that had set up shop in the cut off end of the pier hand rail. This 'dries out' at low water so either the hole has water inside or the fish darts out and waits until the tide comes up again!
The find of brass keel pins would tend to date a vessel before this date, unless of course the wreck was a small fishing type vessel.
A bit of a clincher regarding the dating of a wreck.
I think it was 1858 when sailing ships were compelled to carry a red port lamp and 1837 for steam ships.
If you find any glass from lights then you can date the sinking from after these dates.
The stern section of Mistley has been really scoured with an extra meter of depth now available, with all of the solid stuff exposed there has been a significant amount of non-ferrous scrap shifted this year
A Painted goby (Pomatoschistus pictus) these are really common and will follow you around looking for any morsels that may be disturbed, but try and get one to stay still long enough to get a photograph.......
A bit of an 'arty-farty' in this case looking up at Black Rock from near the bottom in about 6m of water!
A large lobster (Homarus gammarus) in between two plates, these only come out at night!
In the centre of the top deck as you swim back towards the funnels there are only the occasional uprights left, not sure how long before everything starts buckling.
The first anchor, of an early Danforth pattern!
A common Hermit crab (Pagurus bernhardus), this one seemed to have a load of eggs around the outer edge of the shell
C - Getting it cut was a chew but I knew that it was dried after a year in the shed
This smaller donkey boiler is standing on one of the flate ends and large sections of the outer case have, over the years, come adrift meaning that you can look in on the various tubes and pipes. To find it when you get out from the cut through Knifestone follow the wall right.
And in colour, not as much 'Scream' like but you get the idea!
A pretty little light, one of the guys thought 'deck light' but with a solid back and close to another two broken lights I would think a bulkhead light of some description, date late victorian to pre WWI
A Sea Toad (Hyas araneus) hiding in among the Dead- mans fingers
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.
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