Duo-Divers

It was the perfect storm of North Easteries plus extreme cold, you don't tend to get much snow at Beadnell but we were cut off, even the road to Seahouses was shut with five feet deep drifts of snow

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.

Until you reach the bottom 'proper' in about 25m of water which is gravel and sand for ever....

On one particular stone there were loads of Candy striped flatworms (Prostheceraeus vittatus), not sure why as adjacent areas were devoid.

As is my wont a scenic shot of the bows.

Scenic stuff with light coming through the hull where the plates have gone and we are left with ribs and bits only

More lead bilge pipe from Mistley, how much was there?

It was a bait-ball but obviously not sandeels, on closer examination they appeared to be Sprat (Sprattus sprattus). Locally they would be called Brit which is a catch all name for immature herring, mackeral and sprat which form a pillar to the local food chain.

Maybe not totally original but having bullied the crab I pushed my torch inside the barrel of this gun..............

And more bits from the broken up boiler.............

A sounding weight, you can see that the bottom has a hole and is chewed up, the hole was filled with tallow or a dense fat and used to bring up a sample of the sea-bed for review. I have some decca charts from the 60's and there is a lot of detail regards the composition of the sea-bed.

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.

The divers favourite a Tompot Blenny (Parablennius gattorugine) it's probably the 'mad hair-cut' that makes them popular, this one was on the steps looking for scraps

Now I have been doing some research and perhaps these 'spotty' sea hare (Aplysia punctuate) are in-fact 'green' sea slugs (Elysia viridis) I have noted the word green as apparently they are coloured based on their food, pretty much like the sea hare but have characteristic small spots of iridescence. Maybe further investigation?

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.

Is it a Lesser Spotted Dogfigh.......or a Small-spotted Cat-shark? At least the scientists agree that it is Scyliorhinus canicula

A Snakelocks Anemone (Anemonia viridian), most at Oban are quite small when compared with the monsters you see at Babbacombe and other South Coast sites.

This is the remains of the wooden salvage dock that sank during operations, it's even less photogenic than the ship and connected via a length of blue poly-prop rope so that divers can go from one to the other in a single dive

A Long Clawed Squat Lobster (Munida rugosa) this one had set up shop in an old broken bottle which I guess forms a good and secure home.

The reel/rod feet were a bit of a chew, I tried to machine the brass to take a couple of M3 cheesehead screws but that wasn't 'right' so ended up brazing on the feet and then 'back filling' the machined holes for that little bit extra strength

I was stuck three days in this because I decided to stay overnight after picking up the piece of ancient wood that was the winter project 2018/19, was it worth it? Probably.

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!