Farne Islands and St Abbs (Sep 2014)

by John.

6th – 14th September, 2014 : A mixed group (both gender and diver/non-diver) of 17 people had a dive/tourism holiday in the lovely area of Northumberland with diving at St Abbs (two days) and boat diving around the Farne Islands (5 days).

As this report is so late, please forgive the inaccuracies within. (Better late than never, and I have tried to correct where necessary. Ed)

Thirteen stayed in properties near each other which proved to be excellent accommodation for us and 4 others stayed in caravan/B&B.

We had a big house (where we gathered in the evening to discuss the dives) and also where many of our meals were prepared by members of the group.

The diving involved quite a bit of seal playing but also some excellent beastie dives.

Our skipper (Lee Hall) was brilliant and knew the waters totally, worked on his own and handled the boat without any help and was able to cope with helping an old git (me) while positioning the boat.

Besides the seals, we had mega numbers of lobsters and hermit crabs, not a lot of fish but beautiful Sunstars.

We were really glad to have Mike & Jenny with their friends, John and Carol, who joined us and had land trips to various sights nearby such as Lindisfarne, Cragside, Alnwick, Bamburgh Castle and the beautiful Northumberland coastline.

Mike particularly enjoyed being in the company of dive members and the others did not seem to mind being with a bunch of relatively ‘unsmelly’ divers.