Ace dive.... few seals including a real dinky baby one. Dived with Katie and she was obviously pretty excited about the chance of seeing seals on the dive. Dropped into the middle of some weird gully and saw seals straight away. Tried to swim up and out of the gully but ended up back in open water. After a few more forays into gullies we headed down the bouldery slope towards the sandy bottom at 25m. Think a few of the seals came following us along but it was such a lovely dive working our way back up the slope looking under rocks. Saw a whole heap of butterfish, prawns, lobsters, edible crabs and urchins.... in fact, it was pretty much urchin city down there. Back up around 17m we spotted Ken and Liz.... both looked a bit fazed out but I think they'd been enjoyed swimming around the same boulder for ten minutes. We then started to spot lots of seals, including a very little one who seemed fascinated by us once he'd got past his fears. Were some really lovely moments with them dancing around us and playing with our fins. On the safety stop the little one was just twizzling around in all funky directions and just amazed by how cute and agile he was..... a very nice safety stop!!

Same again but saw the rudder and steering geer. And of course we saw an octopus too. When I was looking under the plates near the boiler we saw a ling.... was impressed after having said last night that I'd not seen one in years! Very nice dive although was a fair bit colder and darker than the morning dive. Also had to motor a bit to get to a shallow enough depth to move onto my stage. A floor of brittle stars awaited us at the deepest point.

Diving with Michelle and Katie. Totally accosted by seals for the whole dive. Was doing diver coxswain and had shotted the boiler... nice. Playing with seals all the way back up to safety stop. Never thought i'd get annoyed with seals on a dive but these guys pushed me pretty hard! At depth we were swimming around the boilers but I struggled to keep up because I had a seal biting each fin.... yes.... it does get annoying after a while! Around the boilers and the engine block. Funny bit when Michelle very sarcastically showed me the boiler after I'd asked which .....

Nice long surface interval. Katie had trouble with her ears so went back up and Michelle and I just carried on the dive. Incredible wreck. Very broken up and lots of debris on the seabed. Including loads of broken bottles, jars and movie film in big reels. Wreck was carrying 1,000 tonnes of lead toy soldiers to get around the embargo. Didn't find any today but I know where to look for next time! Shot was right by the engine block.... which was about 6m tall and you could (and we did) swim through it. Three huge boilers powered this quadruple expansion engine. In front of the boilers was a “rummage pit” which was festooned with celluloid film in rolls and masses of broken pots and bottles. We then moved back with the current towards the engine block, and beyond onto the refrigeration unit past the spare propeller and a hold full of tyres and various other paraphernalia.

Went into this dive with the tide starting to run a bit on the surface. Once we got underwater, Ken bombed off into the current before I got him to think about the direction we needed to go and then headed over the wall and down into about 20m. At this depth it was lovely, flat and covered in dead men's fingers. Whenever you looked closer it was real easy to spot flat fish all over the seabed too. Seemed to have become the de facto anchor in our three with Ken and Tom both about 10m away from me on other sides. At first I realised we were heading the wrong way to see the Jan Van Ryswick but followed Tom's plans.... eventually we found another different wreck. Full engine block, prop shaft and propellor were in place. Then a small seal appeared which I played with for a bit. Then we made our way a bit shallower (and with the current despite what the other two wanted) and then we bumbed into a load of ribs of a wreck. Then a prop shaft appeared which we followed up until we found the wreck of the Ryswick (or at least that's what we think it was). Massive engine block and a prop (possibly spare). Bit longer than we had told the boatie we would be but a good dive in nice nice viz..... and as always a seal bombing around the site.

Cool drift (circa 4 knots) from the place where Grace Darling rescued the stricken boat in TODO. With Ken and Tom again and we were dropped into shallow safer waters to get our bearings. Ended up filling up Michelle's camera with video of a lions mane jelly and Ken putting up a DSMB from 1.7m and didn't even get a video of the drift. Was a long time coming but was pretty cool drift when we got into it. As normal with drifts it picked up and dropped off in strength. And as normal with drift dives in a three..... we managed to lose each other!!! But it was pretty beautiful when you got down into the current at around 22m.... fields of dead men's fingers. Visibility was pretty nice again (could see the bottom 12m up from the dive when ascending). Managed to find a knackered reel and DSMB on the dive and Tom found a weight belt from the 60's! PS met Ken safely on the surface.

Lovely visibility on this dive in the morning. Into the water with tonnes of seals, Nessa and Michelle. Bit of surface drift so had to duck dive a bit to get under. Found bits of wreckage pretty easily.... there was tonnes about underwater. Took lots of video... was trying to get lots of the wreckage but the seals kept getting in the way :-) Had a really fun time with a little seal who loved kissing the camera, blowing raspberries at me but had an itchy foot (see video for evidence). Also Michelle and I had some fun high-fiving a massive seal which must have been twice the size of me! Also had a funny moment watching a lobster marching his way home with a fish in his grasp; looked like a decent supper for a lobster of his size. In fact there were tonnes of lobsters around on this dive. Overall a cracking dive and probably the best fun with seals so far. Am amazed at how lucky we have been at the level of interaction we have had with them and how many have been in the water at any point.

Bit more drift than other day and viz a bit worse. Plenty of seals around though so we had lots of fun mucking about with them! Found a few 2-inch flounders and a tiny little scorpion fish. Another great moment was spotting a swimming crab eating a blue lions-mane jelly.

After a few days off with bad weather, our first planned day in St Abbs got off really well. A little less regimented than Seahouses we played things by ear and looked for advice from Lenny, the harbour master and Paul from the dive shop. Some great advice as we dropped into the wall by Skelly hole and dropped down into the gullies. Was hunting around for wolffish but only came away with two octopuses.... the first buried in a little hole under the sand. Just as I thought Nushin thought I was mad for shoring her a hole in the ground we pulled away and also immediately spotted another octopus on the sea bed running for cover. Great to see them here in the UK. The floor was coated in brittle stars and Nushin managed to crush quite at few points smashing her hands into them. Also a lot of sunstars again as well as tonnes of lobsters on the dive.... lost count at 12! The other thing I enjoyed on the dive was seeing so many lovely anemones. Mainly dahlia anemones with some lovely different colours- pinks, reds, yellows. Few flat fish dotted around the plaice too ;-) as well as a load of prawn hiding away.... they always look like they are posing for photos though! Viz was okay but you could tell it's been pretty stormy over the last few days.

Bit swelly around this dive site but once you got underwater it was fine. Surprised at how easy it was to hide from any current behind the boulders and gullies. Not quite as much wildlife as this morning but still plenty to see. The real highlight of the dive was finding another octopus. It had squashed itself into the floor like some kind of plaque or figure but the eyes gave it away as an octopus. It's tentacles were all curled in so that it was pretty much flat against itself. Very very cool to see it folded up like that.... have no idea how I managed to spot it (or the two this morning for that matter!). Ended a nice first day playing it by ear in St Abbs.

Pretty relaxed dive with Katie on this wall leading to a sandy bottom. Bit of a cave in here with a few lobsters dotted around. Katie spotted a …. blenny at one point which was pretty cool to see until she kicked up the viz ;-) Was hunting around for nudibranches but clearly didn't have my eye in.

Diving with Nessa on this dive. Felt pretty dark underwater especially as my torch was clearly running out of batteries. But still saw some lovely gullies with dead men's fingers and dahlia anemones all over them. Ended up swimming through a massive shoal of herring at one point, shortly after Nessa spotted a seal. Then again on our safety stop we were coated in herring.... apparently there were birds diving in and fishing. Sadly didn't see them underwater though.

Wind blowing strong from the north east. Pretty much only place to shelter just outside the harbour. Very swelly underwater and visibility bit knackered because of it. Managed to see a couple of lobsters, edible and swimming crabs and the ubiquitous dahlia anemones. Liz was coughing a vast amount today which I felt wasn't too good given the cold weather so we cut the dive fairly short.

Missed the wreck and the slack.... so ended up being a 33m drift dive in pitch black water.......

Everyone else was too cold to go diving so I jumped on the hardboat with some chaps from Harrowgate BSAC. Really lovely dive on this reef.... visibility coming back much better below about 17m and tonnes of great topology on these gullies. One beautiful wall stands out in my memory coated (as most of the diving around here is) in dead mens fingers and soft corals. A few little flounder around the place, as well as plenty of lobsters.... must be a roaring trade for the kreel fishermen here!

So happy we decided to head back to try this wreck again. What a treat awaited us on the seabed. Was still pretty dark at depth but the visibility was good with a torch and such a wonderful array of marine life coated this wreck. Came down the shot line very slowly with Katie as her ears were playing up. Shot line came down on the engine block that was festooned with dead mens fingers and anemones. Combined with the dahlia anemones that cover much of St Abbs head, there were actually a load of plumose anemones on the wreck. Underneath plates of wreckage lots of inquisitive ling were hanging about, aggressive looking pouty pollack (of which one scared the socks off Katie), small and large cod, tonnes of lobsters, edible crabs and velvet swimmers too. Swimming along I was dead set on seeing the prop so headed off sternwards. Was a lovely propeller when we found it although Katie took an extraordinarily long period of time to understand what it was. Took a few videos which have come out okay but was still very dark. Followed the prop shaft back along the keel side of wreck until we reached the engine block again. The boiler had a massive hole in the side but I couldn't tempt Katie to look in to it. Up towards the bow and was amazed to see the deck railings exposed on the seabed. The bow was coated in life as per the rest of the wreck. Katie found a fairly new looking mug around here somewhere that I stashed in my pocket! Spotted Liz and Tom around the bow making the most of their borrowed torches. At this point we had to send up a DSMB (which I managed to get a bit tangled at first) and head up for our deco stops.

What a lovely dive this was. Bit of drift from the safe haven of Pettico Wick round the west hurker rock and down towards Skelly point. As it was so shallow and exposed a site the visibility was very nice and the amount of soft coral everywhere made it feel like a dive in somewhere abroad. Lots of crabs and lobsters under all the rocks but the stars of the show were the orange clubbed sea slugs.... couldn't believe how tiny these little chaps were but they were awesome and seemed to be present on most of the rocks we looked at. Followed the coast around to the south and ended up working our way up into Skelly hole.... felt very much like our adventuring in Malta. Broken shell flooring meant the visibility was good and swimming between two obvious walls past the kelp brought us to a large monolithic stone in the middle of the water. Very cool. On the way up towards this I found a very strange little section of rock that looked like it was covered in mould and had a few spiny squat lobsters living around it. Very bizarre. Nushin made Nessa and I laugh when she seemed to be finning back and forth in front of us on our safety stop.... bubbles emanating from her hood like from a whale's blow-hole!!