Dive Guides
SS Thesis re-visited
Although the original guide for this wreck is contained in the general overview guide it has really changed beyond belief and as such I have produced a new guide which is much more relevant.
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Latest Photographs
This is the 'type' of bottom which I was talking about, formed from loads of worm tubes, it's quite soft and sandy so can feel crunchy if your buoyancy control is poor.
The boilers again
Bits of MV Yewglen wedged and jammed into the Little Rock
It's easy to see that these are not machine made as the top of the shaft is round whilst the 'point' is square section and the head is simply a piece of shaft 'peened' over.
Again in dating terms nails were machine made from the start of the nineteenth centrury so a useful dating aid providing that you find 'lots'. If you only locate one or two it may be that teh ships carpenter made them for a specific job.
Oh, lots of nails also implies that the ship was copper sheathed, again useful in dating terms.
A Sea-Hare (Aplysia punctata) these large nudibranch come in a variety of colours, depending I think on what they have been eating.
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!
Head 'straight down' from the propellor and you will land on two large boilers, just follow the debris!
That's me that is!
Deco stops can eb made less boring trying to get a photo of yourself in gas bubbles coming from guys who have just got onto the shot-line, sad but true!
It's been part polished now but this nameplate for the Boatswains Cabin was taken from SS Abessinia on Knifestone at the Farne Islands. There must be hundreds or perhaps thousands of dives per year and you can still, on occasion, pick up something 'nice'.
I know the location of a porthole which is currently covered, when the next storm removes the cover I will be there with my tools and implements!
Sitting and waiting........
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 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.
On the southern side the edge is under-cut close to the deep gutter, with various critters living in the space under the rock
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.
The joint 'tween twelve inch gun and turret at one of the rear guns, these are some size!
By late summer the once bare stems of the kelp are little microcosms of weeds and small animals, the winter storms smashes everything up but twelve months later it's all back.
The geology of the site comprises of small steep sided gullies, fissured into the reef
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.......
The rock face on 'The Hopper', its a straight drop into about 18m of water, with little or no weed, only a little kelp near the top of the face and then some filter feeders lower down. A lovely little site!
The anchor chain, you can see a link here, is wrapped around the vessel and with the shot-line tied at one side it really is 'difficult to loose the line and have to do a blue water ascent.
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