Sub-Mission dive club has just returned from an amazing weekend away in St Abbs, full of action and adventure and some rather sunburnt faces! We were away from Friday to Monday, diving on Saturday and Sunday around the coast of St Abbs. 
On Friday afternoon we made the 5 hour drive up to Berwickshire where we had arranged for group to stay in 2 enormous self catering houses, with sea views and only 15 minutes to the diving. We arrived to find some of the group already settled into the farmhouses and Phil and Ian had started a roaring open fire. We all mucked in with the cooking with Friday night being curry night for Phil in the one house and Spaghetti Bolognese for Steve in the other. Then the night was ours to set the diving kit up ready for the next day and then just relax. Saturday morning, Darren and Katy were up early to cook breakfast for one of the houses and then we left for the boat, before anyone had time to feel ill from the badly cooked (cremated) sausages.
St Abbs is a tiny harbour populated by only a few cafes, several B&B’s, an air bar and a lifeboat station. When we arrived at 8.00am on Saturday, the two car parks were buzzing with excitement and anticipation from divers in various stages of kitting up. Due to the popularity of this trip we had booked Paul Crowe’s hard boat ‘Topline’ for the entire weekend, running two groups of divers on a shuttle service. This gave the 2nd group a chance of a lie-in to recuperate from the journey North, with a chilled out starting time of 11am.
The water temperature was 9 degrees which was a tad chilly but the sunshine warmed us up between dives. The boat skipper, Paul said that Ian W, Steve, Eddie and Chris were the first divers of the year in St Abbs to wear semi drysuits. So well done you four for making our dive club look like a group of hardcore divers! Our dives on Saturday were the first UK boat dives for many of the group but they coped brilliantly and enjoyed the scenic diving that St Abbs boasts with marine life including, large old lobsters, nudibranchs, edible crabs, velvet swimming crabs as well as walls encrusted with jewel anemones, dead mans fingers and plumrose anemones and kelp gardens to explore. Sundays diving was even better, with the infamous Cathedral Rock being the first dive. Shaun was excited to dive this site after watching this featured on an episode of Coast and it met his high expectations. Scorpion Fish, flat fish, Pollock were in abundance but for most divers the highlight of the dive was the incredibly friendly wrasse who were just as curious about us as we were about them. Phil and Shep were lucky enough to spend time with an inquisitive seal pup at the surface, which was happy enough to show off and play with their fins as they waited for the boat pick up.
During the surface interval it became apparent that someone (let’s not mention names Darren) had taken the van keys on an exciting adventure to Cathedral Rock where they remain as part of the underwater vista. The reward was set, a free PADI Search & Recovery Specialty Course for the safe return of the keys. Chris did manage to find a set of keys but unfortunately not for the van, so if anyone has lost a set of VW keys contact the Harbour Master at St Abbs.
After the days diving was over, Paul who it turned out wasn’t only a skipper but an expert at breaking into vans managed to open the door so that we could get the spare set out of the van, panic over,
Our final dive of the weekend was a short journey out of the harbour to a site with varied and interesting topography with swim throughs, caves and gullies. Darren & Katy spotted a formidably ugly wolf fish during the dive, making it a pretty spectacular dive to end the weekend on, and yes they do have photos to prove it.
Half of the group left on Sunday afternoon to be back for work on Monday, which meant that Martin was left to cook an amazing Sunday roast for the remaining group, which was very much appreciated. It was then back to the rock and roll lifestyle of a UK diver with murder mystery and giant jenga! Thank you everyone for a brilliant weekend, with a fantastic group of people and awesome diving. We can’t wait for the next trip…9th July!
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