Duo-Divers

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.

A 'bow shot', I try to get one of these on every wreck

A Velvet Swimming Crab (Necora puber) hiding under a Dead Mans Finger (Alcyonium digitatum), there can be quite a few creepy crawlies hidden away you simply have to take the time and look!

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 close up inside the mantle of a Lions Mane Jellyfish (Cyanea capillata) in this case it was obviously on the way out with no stingers and a large hole where something had tried to eat it. This allowed me to get quite close and get some nice shots of the structure around the mantle. By the start of October the beaches up here are covered in dead jellies, sad and potentially dangerous for children.

As well as lobsters there are also crabs hiding among the rocks and stuff

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!

This is the keel I reckon, only 'obvious' as the weeds have dropped away.

This smaller donkey boiler is standing on one of the flate ends and large sections of the outer case have, over the years, come adrift meaning that you can look in on the various tubes and pipes. To find it when you get out from the cut through Knifestone follow the wall right.

Starboard side and the wreck is slowly disappearing on a flooding tide...

Looking up inside the conning tower to one of the range finder 'holes', the brass gearing is still in place.

Looking out of the 'sea-side' of the hull, scenic but the shoals of fish are arriving before the tide turns

Typical farne site, a 'wall' down to a slowly sloping rock and boulder bottom.

A large edible crab (Cancer pagurus) in among the dead-mans fingers.

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!

And this is said 'brass section' telling the gunner how to 'offnen', although I'm sure that they would have been pretty sure of what to do.....

After the 'engine bits' there is an area where it's like a giant meccano kit, protruding maybe 4ft out of the sand.

Arty-farty alert!

A shot looking up the wall of the Point in about 9m of water, the kelp which lives on the vertical face is obvious, the barnacle band not so.

A Hermit Crab (Pagurus bernhardus) these are always good subjects and whilst they may 'nip' inside their shells when you approach it isn't long before the peep out again!

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.

Kelp (Family laminariales) does tend to be quite a long lived plant with the stem above say the first twenty centimeters quite a safe place for a plant to grow without the risk of sea-urchins 'browsing' you away. In this case dulse and other sea-weed encases the stem, making an eco-system up in the water column!

A small Common Hermit Crab (Pagurus bernhardus) in a discarded winkle shell, the bottom of the site is crawling with these critters, searching for food, squabbling with their brethern over shells and generally going about their daily business!

Ahhhh, bollards! Well at least this is an identifiable lump in the middle of the wreckage