Guides
SS James Egan Layne
Yet another deep south dive guide, this is a real wreck that is often dived in conjunction with HMS Scylla. This wreck is pretty much 'ship-shaped' and you can swim from bow to the detached stern and make out relevant shippy type bits where they should be, a great dive for the photographer with plenty of live subjects and some stunning bits of wreckage.
Latest Photographs


Towards the end of summer the kelp does get eaten away, once the critters or urchins have broken through the tough outer skin they rapidly get stuck into the softer internal flesh
An oyster clamped down on the pier. there were quite a few on the pier but I didn't spot any on rocks under the water.......
Bits of MV Yewglen wedged and jammed into the Little Rock
At the stern there is evidence of anchor chains
Still at the stern section, exterior plate with holes, any brass has long, long gone
More girders and struts, this is a good distance from the main lumps of superstructure but the shallow water and big seas does increasingly move stuff about
A Pogge (Agonus cataphractus) or is that Hook-nose or Armoured Bullhead, these are a relativeliy common critter but with their camouflage you tend to see their pearly white barbules before anything else.
Despite the apparent lack of food there are large shoals of Perch
Debris all around and most unidentifiable, in this case it's a section of hull plating.
And here is the business end, not really good as you cant get a sense of scale
A common or garden Plaice (Pleuronectes platessa), get to the gritty sand and you will se a few of these tasty fish, if you are so inclined you could bag for your tea.
A common hermit crab (Pagurus bernhardus), I just couldn't get it to stay still to get a shot of it's back end!
Wreckage from SS Loch Leven which foundered without the loss of life, not an oft dived site but very nice scenery plus rust!
Head up the slope from the boilers in a south westerly direction and you will find a jumble of winches and machinery
The lower mounting position where the pin would fit, from a little distance away
The divers favourite a Tompot Blenny (Parablennius gattorugine) this one was busy 'ripping' bits of food from a childs drop-net that you can just see in the background, so more than happy to pose for pictures as there was food about!
The 'fresh' Greenland Shark (Somniosus microcephalus) that was stranded at Embleton, this shot gives some indication of scale
Snale Locks Anemone (Anemonia viridis) another species common in Southern and Scottish west coast waters but not in the North East. I always look for the spider crab that lives with these anemones but have yet to spot one, perhaps sometime in the future?
Until we were lens to nose, so to speak!
Bear with me....its the port side hawse pipe and the two 'eyes' are where the flukles of the anchor located to sop them 'bashing about' when the ship was operating at high speed or inclement seas.
What looks like a small 'donkey boiler, it was certainly of very robust rivetted construction
Part of the wreck is covered in a large net, which hanging over the window looks quite nice.
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.