In August, I organised a week-long R-HIB diving expedition for Reading BSAC to the Farne Islands in Northumberland. The week of diving was a great success, despite varied weather, and we were able to dive every day (13 dives in total). Operating out of Seahouses harbour where the boats were moored overnight, we managed to dive pretty much every ‘classic’ site around the islands (all except the elusive SS Britannia!). It helped that the underwater visibility was a stonking 15 to 20m!
Sites dived were The Honeypot, SS Chris Christensen, Knivestone, SS Somali, Northern Hares, Gun Rocks, SS Somali (second time), The Hopper, Blue Caps, SS St Andre, a night dive in Lady Hole and the Knivestone for a second time. Poor Bruno didn’t dive on the first day as he had forgotten his drysuit! He instead did a swift tour of British motorways to arrive re-united with his beloved suits in the evening.
The culmination of the trip was on the last day, with the forecast and tides just so, we managed to dive on Whirl Rocks and the wreck of SS Jan Van Ryswyck. Incidentally, this dive turned out to be Sue’s 4000th dive (a stalwart of Reading BSAC), Andy’s 250th dive, and for me, it was the dive that featured in my winning article in SCUBA’s writing competition last year, for which I was wearing my new O’Three drysuit. A fitting end to a great trip. Emma has produced some excellent videos that highlight the diving we did. Thanks also to Colin and Emma for towing R-HIB Reading Tornado.
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James Hickman
