Random Jottings
A series of random thoughts and ramblings of a deranged mind which is puddled due to excessive diving a a rather serious neurological bend......read on at your peril!
A video of the wreckage of MV Yewglen
The Yewglen is a bit of a scrap-yard dive but still very enjoyable!
Shore diving at Beadnell - a trial video
Over the years I have taken a few videos and now lets try and insert them!
I suppose that some may be offended.....
But why, these lumps have always been an 'Asset'....
Tosheroons........they are not just under-water you know!
I have picked up the term 'tosheroon' to describe a particular feature where tide, wave and current conspire to drop things of a certain size and density. I think I learned the term from a book about 'sewer pickers' who would know exactly where coins and other valuables would end up in the London sewer system, and no I haven't been diving in sewers!
Antalya, the new graveyard of ancient ships?
Regular readers will know that I have long posted updates on the Antikythera mechanism, well another wreck has been found just off the coat in Turkey which may be just as interesting!
A lost Dutch Trader refound!
The bottom of the North Sea is covered with lost vehicles, some interesting, others not so....
It's just a hole but what a difference!
I promised to share with you a simple modification which has made the fitting and removal of my fins soooo much easier, so here we go
- Another incomer to cope with?
- More side scan around Oban and Sound of Mull
- Noise and its impact on wildlife
- You try and sometimes you try and then fail.....
- Well it was forecast!
- Winter Project 2019.....part two
- Apex predator.....part two!
- Apex predator or second in the food chain?
- Winter Project 2019.....part one
- More 'bits' found of the Antikythera mechanism
- Better nick than the wreck on 'Gun-rock'
- It's about bloody time!
- The diving press and qualifications......
- It's your chance to make a difference!
- You rarely think of the 'mess'.......
- WW1 Channel wreck Database
- That's some job for a newly qualified midwife
- We don't get 'em like this in my neck of the woods!
- Terrible outcome but where does 'blame' lie?
- Only the needy or the greedy........
- Cylinders, lead weight belts and stability...........
- The Ancient Diver comes good
- Old news...new news or just a quiet news day?
- Does the Ancient Diver need to change his title?
- Disgraceful Double Standards!
- Forget 'Timeteam' type surveys on land, for a real time capsule look to the sea
- It's silly season.....again!
- PADI up for sale again?
- It's a small swim from the Med' to Cornwall
- The sun is out and it's silly season....again!
- Send for Captain Ahab!
- More 'wash-ups'......
- I was only joking........honest!
- Another enlightening day at DDRC (Plymouth)
- It's not my cup of tea but what an achievement!
- I post regular updates on 'lobbie laws' you have been warned!
- The never ending squabbling over commercial scallop dredging
- Once you have one of the blue fiends there is a new dilemma....
- Low oxygen levels, now that is a real issue
- Sloppy journalism, one of my pet hates!
- Rule changes for the North East
- More side-scan 'discoveries' and images
- Old sites, new location methods
- Zen again.......or more lobster whispering!
- Fully certified in four days?
- Changes to the shellfish quotas in Northumbrian Area
- Worth risking your life for?
- Tangle nets, as bad as drift nets but not as publicised
- Do I change my business card?
- Masking diver panic or should that be diver panic and masks?
- More bits in the jigsaw.....
- Diving and litigation.......
- Vandalism, what's your definition?
- Fundamental dive 'laws', real or compromise?
- As if you don't have enough to think about with gas loading
- Global warming or one of those things?
- RIP Rob Stewart
- Not all Submarines were lost in deep water!
- It must have been some salvage job!
- More news from Orkney
- Bubble shunting without a PFO
- Rock, Reef and Pinnacles around Beadnell
- Weight and Lead
- You rebreather divers best be careful!
- Out and around at Beadnell
- Even I'm not that daft!
- The water is cold so your biggest risk is from regulator free-flow!
- Shore based winter project for 2015/2016
- Time for some winter research
- Another basking shark!
- The courses go on......and on.......and on.......
- Apex Predators....
- The last 'big' job on my RIB?
- Even more legends and myths about SS Somali
- Never mind London Bridge, Seahouses Pier is falling down!
- More legends and myths about SS Somali
- It's strange what you find on the beach...
- Waiting for the weather.....
- When do 'recommendations' become 'rules'?
- 'Strange things' on your dry-suit!
- Oban and Easedale, only dry though!
- Northumberland in the Sun
- It's getting close.......
- When will it calm down?
- More research means more questions!
- More interesting research on wrecks
- I was half right about the Farnes 'Apex Predator'
- PFO Closure surgery.....at last!
- Dorset seemed such a good idea, oh and MV Danio update!
- Current navigation standards must be declining....
- They still shoot seals you know BUT they have lost their right to anonymity!
- End of June and initial Somali thoughts
- Zen and the art of lobstering - part 4
- Zen and the art of lobstering - part 3
- Zen and the art of lobstering - part 2
- Zen and the art of lobstering - part 1
- Oxygen Partial Pressures
- Random thoughts about kit and the like
- A final diary post for 2011
Latest Photographs


Some sort of dead-eye or similar, this just sits in the middle of one of the gullies
Sometimes you will find 'odd' weights as you work along the site
These Spiny Starfish (Marthasterias glacialis) are very common and again in common with most starfish a good subject for macro work as you can get close and take very good textural and close up shots.
Start heading west and you get to hard ground, in this case a paving of doleritc limestone cracked into almost cobble shapes.....no it isn't a Roman Road!
C - Getting it cut was a chew but I knew that it was dried after a year in the shed
An atmospheric (arty-farty) shot showing one of the large overhangs on the North side of this site.
Not sure if this is hull or bent deck, it is on the Point side of you in the main gully at the shore end, always a blue fiend or two in residence but careful as there are always fishing weights and lines in this vicinity.
Despite the apparent lack of food there are large shoals of Perch
Plates and spars towards the stern of the wreck
When you get out of the kelp zone you will reach a small cliff, varying in height between 2 and 3m
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.......
Sponges tend to have colonised kelp by late in the season, I think that this particular sponge is Stelletta lactea but I could be wrong.
An odd-ball pretty with an optimistic hermit crab (Pagurus bernhardus) living half-way down a shell. The chances of it moving the shell are low to non-existant!
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!
Scrapyard, if you look carefully you will be able to see Albert Steptoe, he's a dirty old man!
You can see the sweep of the bow on this shot and a few of the ribs sticking out of the sand
Trying to give some sort of sense of scale how large the rock formations stand off the bottom, in this case the goody and lift bag stand about 7ft tall
All of the time keep an eye open for Lions Mane Jellyfish (Cyanea capillata) they sting and the tentacles are a few meters long, always approach from up-tide!
Same guy and those orange dry-gloves didn't half reflect the light!
Until we were lens to nose, so to speak!
The tosheroon!