Nathan aND kIRSTY's Wick Exped 2011

We are recently back from a week away shore diving in North Scotland. It seems that Scarpa, Mull and St Abbs always seem to get the write ups in the dive magazines, but we will happily recommend the diving we had around Thurso and Wick.

We pitched our tent in the Thurso Bay Caravan and Camping Park. This worked out to be a great location - 5 mins from the Caithness Diving Club where we were getting airfills from, and within 30mins of every dive site we went to. We were fortunate enough to have great weather every day, but with the dive site choices available it should be possible to get into a site no matter what direction and strength the wind is blowing.

Port Skerra

Our first dive site was at Port Skerra. A small bay created by jutting fingers of rock, which create a well protected harbour. The reef wall is beside you as you walk down the slipway. No getting lost on this site. 30m along the wall from the slip and the wall juts in to reveal a large archway. Wider and higher than Cathedral Arch at St Abbs, the lower section is more sparsely colonised than the upper which has an abundance of life – elegant anenomes, dead man fingers, hydroids and sponges, scorpion fish, lemon sole, a variety of starfish and nudibranch. The Arch alone is worth a dive or two. Having a pebbly bottom the vis was outstanding for our dives. We had two dives here exploring the arch, around the headland to the left and the adjacent gully to the right of the arch. Really was exceptional diving, but the big surprise was the number of dogfish. We would have seen between 20 or 30 of them on our first dive alone. Unlike the usual sedate sitting on the bottom, a lot of these dogfish were extremely active swimming by, not seeming to be worried by divers.

Skarfskerry

The second site was Skarfskerry. In Kirsty’s words this was a “playground”. Again a gentle entry off the slip and a short fin out you start spotting pieces of wreckage. There is a lot of wreckage to rummage thru and poke your head in to with the bay having two wrecks in it, the SS Linkmoor a steamship, and the Victoria a steam trawler. Just as you think there could be nothing else to see, you spot another piece. It is a shallow dive, and as expected well broken up, but it is more than just flattened plates on the seabed, with a lot of structure still raised up of the seabed (at one point the wreckage almost breaks the surface at low tide). The wreckage is covered in kelp and seaweed, with schools of pollack and wrasse swimming by. Another excellent dive site, both of us would recommend to anyone.

 
SS Linksmoor

Next site was Dwarwick pier just outside Dunnet. A nice enough site but, with what other dive sites are available up around the area it is one you can afford to skip. Swim out over a kelp covered boulder strewn shore onto a sandy bottom. The most interesting area is the junction of boulders onto sandy bottom. Again there were schools of pollack, lemon sole, velvet swimming and edible crabs, starfish and yellow and white polycera nudibranch.

Staxigeo Harbour

The next days diving saw us moving over to Wick. Two dives were had at Staxigeo harbour checking out both the left and right side of the harbour. It was another nice easy site for entry - down another slipway. It was a short snorkel out to rocks just off the slip and we descended following walls covered on top with kelp. A sandy bottom and great vis made for an excellent dive. Dropping down between the kelp into the gullies we meandered our way around. Life was everywhere in the cracks and caves. The squat lobsters and shrimp were clinging out in the open, more braver than their west coast sea loch cousins who normally dart away at the first sign of diver movement. A site also prolific in edible crabs, lobsters and nudis. It also had some of the largest leopard spotted gobies I have ever seen. A lot like the upper ends of nestends and greenends gullies at Eyemouth. We really did not get much of a chance to check out the left hand side of the harbour. As we headed out, we dropped into more gullies. Schools of pollack swam overhead, and there were a number of scorpion fish seen. What cut our dive short was a large amount of floating rope that was slightly weighted down at one end. After moving away from it for a bit, we turned around and bundled it up and swam it back into shore. This is an excellent site, with plenty of possibilities for exploring.

Broadhaven Window

Just down the road from Staxigeo is a site called Broadhaven window. A lovely gully for diving, it is a bit of a pity about the effort to get to the entry/exit point. This involves following a narrow path along the top of a cliff and then a descent down a bit of a rock face. The entry is then a large stride out into the gully. This is a steep sided gully that has multistorey sized boulders in it, creating a bit of a maze of swim throughs. The walls are covered at various points with kelp, sponges and sea squirts with plenty of life to be seen. This site in particular had a large number of spider crabs carefully camouflaged on the walls and kelp. An excellent site, but at low tide it was a little tricky getting out.

Scrabster Lighthouse

The last site we dived was just off Scrabster harbour underneath the lighthouse at the far end. This took us three days to organise the dive, having tried to pin down the harbour master to get permission as we had to go thru the harbour, but it was worth it. This is a great site. Having finally got permission, we drove up to the far end and dropped off our kit, before parking just outside the security gates. Overhanging walls covered with dead mans fingers and featherstars. Brown sea cucumbers poking out of cracks in the wall, pollack, cod, ballan wrasse, rock cod, dogfish. Not a single minute of our two dives here were boring. During our first dive the Orkney ferry came past pulling into harbour. The water and rocks literally vibrate due to the ship. If anyone was wanting to dive this site in the future, it may be easier to organise with the local diving club. They sort of have an arrangement with the harbour master, who was reluctant to let a couple of unknown divers in.

We picked our dive sites using the book
“Top 100 British shore dives” and Finstrokes web site.
We must mention a big thanks to Karen
from Caithness Diving Club, who came down and filled
our tins each evening and also gave some local advice
about dive sites.

Not only that, she was prepared to come down and talk to
the Harbour master on our behalf to get us access to
Scrabster if needed.

All sites talked about are less than 20m, so suitable for
all qualified divers. There is some really excellent sites
up the top end of Scotland.
 
Well worth the travel to get to shore dive such interesting
sites that arent often dived
 

  Deadmans Fingers and Soft Corals

Nathan and Kirsty Jeffrey
SQSAC
July 2011