St Abbs Trip (part 2)
10 TSAC members convened at St Abbs on Thursday evening 1st June to fill the Rock House bunkhouse in the harbour with 2 others using their campervans to add additional accommodation. Our contingent comprised mainly of experienced club members (Advanced Divers or Dive Leaders) but also had two novices as part of the group.
The weather was fine for our first (checkout) dive on Friday morning at Harden Carrs just North of the harbour in the lee of the headland to protect against the prevailing wind and unexpectedly large ocean swell. There was some faffing about sorting out dive weights with all but the dive organiser enjoyed a dive in 12-15m for 26 to 45 mins. After our surface interval the wind strength and swell had both increased such that we couldn’t do a second dive that day. Many took the opportunity to take a walk whilst others indulged in horizontal recovery. Our evening meal took us to Eyemouth Holiday Park in their brand new bar/restaurant.
Weather and sea conditions were much better on Saturday and the first dive was at Hurkars where everyone in the group dived to between 12 and 22m for 35 to 44 mins. After a 2 hour surface interval our second dive was at Black Carrs where again all 12 dived to between 13 and 23m for 26 to 40 mins. The early finish meant that we were back in time for those who wanted to watch the FA cup final to do so (fans of both teams were present!). After that we all convened for our evening meal at the New Inn in Coldingham, which was excellent!
On the last day (Sunday) the weather was again fine and it saw us head south out of St Abbs to Weasle Loch where 11 of us dived to between 12 and 14m for 38 to 48 mins. We then returned to St Abbs harbour for air refills and wait on a suitable surface interval before our last dive at the Wuddy swim-through, where 9 of us dived to between 16 and 17m for 28 to 43 mins. That gave us a total of 55 dives for the trip!
Everyone enjoyed their trip to St Abbs diving off Shore Diver with Paul Crowe (skipper), the weather (fine for a lot of the time) and their diving. We congratulate Greta and Rich (our novices) who both completed their open water dives for their Ocean Diver during the trip with Nick and Debbie’s help, with the DO delighted to be able to sign them off.
