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I am somewhat adept at finding taps which are then cleaned and nailed onto the shed-wall! This one was on Yewglen and all that was showing was a small bit of the handle and outlet, it came out of the iron crud really easily.
A very large, well the largest that I have ever seen Common Octopus (Octopus vulgaris), side on you can see how she has 'dimpled up' to look like the short weed on the rock. She was unwilling to move and I didn't want to 'provoke' her but her arms were massive and curled under her and down the other side of the stone. A very impressive site and it made the week!
Some sort of winching arrangement, this is a large section of wreckage within a short distance of the boilers
You can see that the 'wall' is more a stepped solid stone reef, smothered in life.
More bits in the jumble of machinery
One of the observation slits on the conning tower, like 'Knights visors' these were designed to minimise the chance of shrapnel and metal splinters being blasted into the tower
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!
The site is very,very tidal and as such smothered with Dead Mans Fingers and other species, some of which are not common on any other farnes site!
Large lengths of plastic service pipe are ideal for training in an overhead environment
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
A very large, well the largest that I have ever seen Common Octopus (Octopus vulgaris), she was probably a tad larger than the size mentioned as a maximum on the species, with her mantle certianly bigger than 30cm
A sea lemon (Archidoris pseudoargus) you see quite a few of these and the trick is to approach slowly so they are unawre of your presence and leave their flowery gills out and in the water. Once again I was unsucessful!
Even more bits from the broken up boiler.......
A Long Legged Spider Crab (Macropodia rostrata) there are loads on all or most sites, this is the most common 'camouflage'.
A very scenic dip with dead mans fingers (Alcyonium digitatum) covering hard rock with boulders in some of the larger gullies.
A Common Starfish (Asterias rubens) this one was digging deep for I guess a cockle or similar that he had 'sensed'.
Bloody plastic waste, arrrrrrgh!
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 rock formations are formed so that the 'vertical cliff' faces the shore and the slopes lead away to the east. You can see that the faces are quite fractured and home to loads of different life, some edible some not so
Wreckage from SS Mistley, in this case from near the stern. This structure was only eally 'thrown up' after storms a couple of winters ago!
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!
The concreted in anchor, this is located on its own 'up' the gully on the seaward side of the Hopper rock
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