When an East Wind blows

by Tony Gilbert

A trip to St Abbs
18/10/2008

When an East Wind blows By Tony Gilbert

The North Sea can sometimes blow up and this particular September weekend found strong easterly winds for the New Horizons St. Abbs trip.

At 8am Saturday big ground swell waves rolled into the harbour rocks foaming everything in their path. The boat operators looked at each other and deciding it wasn’t safe to go out and several groups of divers were affected including New Horizons, but light was at the end of the tunnel – or in this case at the end of the headland off St. Abbs Head! Four adventurous souls took it upon themselves to shore dive Pettico Wick, whilst the remainder of the group watched on the nearby headland.

Pettico Wick is quite sheltered from the wind, having flat calm conditions, although access is challenging. (Note to self: ensure self & buddy have everything before clambering down the 40m of headland). Once in the water and the mud had rinsed away, the intrepid divers cruised out to Wick Gaut rock, which by chance had an inquisitive seal that liked fins. After this a stroll back was rewarded by hundreds of pipefish some free swimming.

During the evening we ate in smaller groups, meeting up once again in the mid-evening to see if diving was on for Sunday and to enjoy a chat and a laugh.

The following morning at the harbour, the wind had dropped and the sea mist, with a piercing sun, presented a strangely surreal scene, straight out of Dali’s mind!

New cranes are now in place, which enables 4 sets of gear at a time to be lowered the 4m down the dock at low water. Just as well, cos there were many divers keen to get in the water. Quite by chance both Macclesfield diving clubs were in St. Abbs that weekend, and both had charter boats! The best diving was off Pettico Wick, and we dived the Ringholm wreckage, known locally as the peanut boat. In the nearby undergrowth hundreds of shrimps lay, and the wreckage is quite broken aside from an upright boiler.

All too soon it was the last dive, at a SE running reef, 15m deep, north of Pettico Wick, now known as Tony’s Reef. A mixture of loose boulders, piles of dark volcanic stones shallower large hefty rocks, some with long vertical flanks. Several nudibranchs were spotted as were some interesting gobies. Much fish life was found with shoals of juveniles, quite large solitary pollack, and numerous inquisitive wrasse varieties.

These dives have all been different to the normal dives conducted along the main drag, and it’s a credit to New Horizons that given the borderline conditions the Delayed SMB speciality was skilfully conducted, with bubbling sausages agog!