Guides
Farne Island Guide - Part IV
Snowdonia (Snowden)
This guide is number four in the series and concentrates on the dive
sites rather than cover the generalities covered in Guide I.
{mosmap lat='55.629144'|lon='-1.631295' }
Latest Photographs


'Who is that hiding under there?'
A pair of Wolf-fish (Anarhichas lupus) in a hole, these were a couple of large fish with 'fist' size heads, when looking for these fish look for secure holes, I tend to concentrate in cracks and fissures in the bed-rock, rather than loose rocks and boulders.
This can only be a section of keel as it is thick, wide steel that would have had no place on the upper part of the vessel
By late summer you can't see the individual pipes on the boiler and it appears as a big dulse covered 'lump' but there is a boiler under there, honest!
Why do it? Well as they are brass and mahogany they can be left on the boat and will not corrode despite the saline atmosphere.
Huge shaols of Coalfish (Pollachius virens), these were bigger boys and had chased awy the smaller baitfish. They were probably waiting to ambush any fish swept over the top of the wreck when the tide got going properly.
A Spiny Spider Crab (Maja squinado) common enough down south on on the West Coast of Scotland but not so many around the Farne Islands.
I really struggled whilst looking for handles that 'spin or rotate' whilst you turn the reel, eventually I settled on machining a bit of brass with knurling for grip and mounting on a countersunk screw that wasn't tightened all of the way in
You get two colours of Plumose Anemone (Metridium senile) white and orange, both look like cold willies when closed up but very pretty when open and feeding!
This one was probably killed by a dolphin, we get quite a few white sided dolphins in the area and despite the popular public conception about friendly dolphins they actively kill porpoises so you rarely if ever see dolphins and porpoise in close proximity
After the propellor the next 'lump' is a set of bollards
A Lions Mane Jellyfish (Cyanea capillata), when they are about deco stops are always interesting!
A Lobster (Hamarus gammarus) I extracted him to show my buddy how to do the deed!
Photo 2 and still squabblin' the pair of Lobsters (Homarus gammarus) arguing over a hidey hole and not a particularly good one, basically a rock over one of the cracks which run down the flat face of the South Side of beadnell Point.
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!
Bits of MV Yewglen wedged and jammed into the Little Rock
Usually the top of this boiler is the first thing you see when descending, you can make out the access hole for fuel and the steam pipes
And the fish cared not! Having deployed my DSMB in about 14m I thought that I'd take a shot of the line going to the surface and you can just about make out the blob, wow!
A pair of breeding Edible Crabs (Cancer pagurus) The male will carry around the female until she sheds to make sure that it's his sperm that is used to fertilise the eggs.
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!