The SS Nar was on route from Sunderland for Burghead on the shores of the Moray Firth carrying a cargo of coal when it foundered off Garmouth on the 13th December 1904. It is well broken up now, lying in 12 metres of water on a sandy bottom where its boiler, various plates, capstans, winches and other rusting remains have become home to a large variety of marine life. This was my first opportunity to dive the Nar during a weekend of wreck diving out of Lossiemouth with North East Dive. We also dived the San Tiburcio and the Unity, both of which I hadn’t dived in 6 or 7 years at least.
Continue reading “The Wreck of the Nar, Moray Firth – June 2014”
Farne Islands – August 2013
The last time I dived the Farne Islands must have been about 7 or 8 years ago, probably the year that I started diving. The islands make frequent appearances on television programs due to their bird colonies and also due to the seal population. It is the opportunity to dive with the seals that is the draw for divers visiting the Farnes and I didn’t have to think twice when an invitation to do so came from a friend.
It was an overcast day when we arrived at Seahouses to meet up with the others and board one of Billy Shiel’s boats the Glad Tidings VII. Continue reading “Farne Islands – August 2013”
Skelly Hole, St. Abbs – July 2013
The St. Abbs VMR is a dependable spot for some nice, easy scenic diving and since Summer seemed to finally arrive at the start of July, seven of us decided to make the most of the great weather and booked spaces for the weekend on Paul Crowe’s boat the Tiger Lilly.
We dived West Hurker and Tye’s Tunnel (which I haven’t dived in years) on the Saturday and then started Sunday’s diving with a dive at Skelly Hole.
This isn’t a dive to be attempted on a day where there is any swell as the boat has to be maneuvered into a fairly tight spot to drop you off. It’s reasonably shallow too so any wave action would turn it into a fairly good approximation of a dive in a washing machine. Fortunately we had two warm days with reasonably light offshore winds and conditions were ideally suited to attempt this site.
Conservation Bay, Loch Carron – June 2013
When you read rave reviews about dive sites you always take them with a pinch of salt. One reason is that there are as many different opinions of what constitutes a good dive as there are divers. With this in mind and having done a fair amount of research it was time to dive Conservation Bay and form my own opinion!
Conservation Bay is situated along the north shore of the Strome Narrows near the mouth of Loch Carron. It is just to the west of the very picturesque North Strome, itself the site of a couple of shore dives which I have yet to explore. Continue reading “Conservation Bay, Loch Carron – June 2013”