The village of Seahouses is as quaint an English fishing village as you could wish to visit. With steep narrow roads meandering down to the small harbour front and a local pub facing out onto the water. This was to be my first time diving with seals but not my first dive in UK waters, so I was ready for anything - storms, rain, choppy seas but was greeted by sunny skies and flat calm in the bay.
I had arrived early at 7 am and as I strolled along the sharp salt smell of seaweed mixed with the caw of sleepy gulls, lulling me into tranquillity. I stared at the water, the gentle breath of the tide caressing the moss covered rocks soothed my pre-dive nerves, I remember intuitively feeling that it would be a successful safe day’s diving.
I meandered slowly back up the harbour wall, having noticed a car parking up with two figures donning dry suits and preparing dive gear near to where the boat was moored. The captain had arrived and as I introduced myself to him and the couple who were preparing their gear another car pulled up with three more people to complete our group of six.
After prepping our dive gear we were off. We motored slowly out of the harbour before picking up a head of steam. I chatted with the others, swapping dive stories and gauging expectations for the trip, the chances of encountering seals. Three of the five had taken the trip before and were pretty confident of our chances. There were two couples and one guy who had come along with another couple so after a quick discussion to check that we were happy with each other’s level of experience we decided to team up as a buddy pair.
Buddying up with another diver is an essential safety procedure and often a pairing will happen where one person has the greater experience and tends to act as a leader in the pairing. The buddy dynamic is important as you literally have each other’s lives in your hands if there is a major problem with equipment failure or any other emergency. We had pretty much the same level of experience so I suggested we just play it by ear on who would lead, which he quickly agreed upon.
The sea-scape slipped by, a surreal carpet of aquamarine with only a murmur of a ripple. I had never experienced British waters so calm until I realised that we were still in the lee of the bay and soon the boat was bobbing and swaying in a light swell as we motored on into the nature reserve proper.
The Farnes Isles nature reserve is managed by the National Trust who count, monitor and tags seals at the reserve. It is also famous for the island of Lindisfarne which housed a monastery, (managed by English Heritage) which was famously one of the first places in England to be raided by Vikings when the church of St Cuthbert was attacked in 793 AD.
As we reached the dive spot I noticed seals in the water and the din of their cacophonous barking from the island set my heart to fluttering in excitement. Puffins skimmed the emerald waters, scooping up small fish on the wing while the calls of Fulmar, Cormorant and Turn added to the din. Flasks of tea were produced as we had a short wait for slack water in-between the changing of the tides as the captain dropped anchor on the southerly side of Big Harcar island where we would be diving that day. Tea was drunk, then everyone double checked their equipment before donning BCD’s, tanks and fins ready for the plunge.
I took a giant stride (diving terminology for basically stepping forwards off the boat) entrance into the briny green deeps. As I dumped my air from my BCD and descended I was reminded how different UK diving is to that of the crystal clear waters of a tropical coral reef. The first 10 metres are a green murk, like floating through a sediment sigh whipped up by the breath of off-shore currents. As it was summer the water was relatively clear and as I passed 15 metres it cleared up even more. UK waters are a memory of the grass on the hills, a shaded pastel pallet mixing from turquois skies to the endless stretching vastness of aquamarine.
I signalled my buddy the OK sign 👌 and he calmly signed back that all was fine. So the search for seals was on. I checked my compass for a northwesterly bearing as we moved stealthily along through the gullies of large boulders spotted with molluscs and yellow sponges. As we snaked our way through these miniature canyons my buddy tapped my tank to signal me something, my heart quickened and I looked all around for the sleek profile of a seal in motion. His eyes grinned at me through the mask, indicating two claws snapping with his hands (the signal for a lobster) and we moved in to investigate.
I must admit I was a little disappointed with our crustacean friend but I moved in with my camera and filmed for a while. We moved on, the sway of the tide slackening as we emerged from the mini-canyons to a sheer sea wall at around ten metres.
The wall was alive with marine-flora! Urchins clung to the wall and a multitude of orange-eyed bumps of Calcareous worm tubes speckled the surface. Hundreds of ghostly white fronds of Dead men’s fingers tickled the current; the aptly named Dead men’s fingers (italics) are a type of soft coral which thrive in cold waters where there are strong tides. As I stared at their mesmerising dance I drifted away into a quiet place which I often find when diving. The gentle swaying tide at slack water lulled me into a soporific bliss nestled in the arms of the currents, echoing the call of the abyss. I snapped myself out of this blissful abandon after several minutes. Diving is a serious business and can go terribly wrong if you’re away with the fairies for too long.
I turned away from the wall and followed my buddy into the patches of seaweed. We were at about 8 metres now and close to the shore so the light was less diffuse and the visibility was better. I stared out into the emerald distances looking for seals as my buddy hunted through the seaweed looking for little shrimp and (very rare to find) possibly seahorses. I was becoming despondent as the dive time was ticking down and my tank was about 70% full and we still had yet to meet a seal (you should always finish your dive with 30% air in the tank for safety reasons).
As I scanned the emptiness I felt a gentle tug on my fins, as I turned my head I was surprised to see my buddy still head down in the seaweed, so heart pounding I rolled slowly over to face the surface and see what was behind me. I caught a glimpse of the seal rolling away from me and up towards the surface. I tapped on my buddy’s tank with my metal stick and pointed, he saw the seal just in time before it disappeared into the murky distance. He smiled at me again nodding that he had seen it, undoubtedly amused at my over excitement (he had done this dive before).
I swam through the seaweed this way and that looking all around to see where the elusive seal had gone when he popped his head right up in front of me from the seaweed where he had calmly been eating a snack(check out the video at the end of the post). This was a relatively large adolescent grey seal with black speckles spit spotting his coat, as he swam passed me he blew bubbles out of his nose mimicking my regulator (breathing apparatus) and I swear I saw a cheeky smile in his eyes. This game of cat and mouse continued through the seaweed groves, every now and then he would pop up from the side or behind and at one point he bumped into me brushing up against my mask.
Seals on land are ungainly but underwater they are master of their environment, graceful as a ballerina they pirouette in the current, before darting off, sleek flashing grey into the hazy distance. At one point our silken friend swooped up out of the seaweed and did a barrel roll past me, easily swimming upside down as if showing off.
Underwater seals remind me very much of a playful dog but if they don’t want to play they are away in the blink of an eye. This chap was very inquisitive and continued to tease both me and my buddy for about 15 minutes, I had this idea in my mind that he knew I was trying to get footage of him with my camera and was showing me how fruitless my attempts were (check out the video I made on that trip at the end of this post and you will see how shaky the footage is). I have to admit to being completely overwhelmed with the excitement of it all and consequently got very little good footage to edit together into a video part. This inquisitive young chap disappeared as quickly as he had emerged, bored, I’m sure, with our sluggish attempts to play chase with him.
We turned to work our way back along the seawall in a westerly direction. The skipper of the boat had instructed us that we would be safe from the mounting tide for pick up in that direction. I was grinning ear to ear, my first seal sighting had been more than I could have hoped. Although he hadn’t let me pet him or tickle his belly, as I have seen in other seal videos, I was content as we hovered at 8 metres languidly sculling along the wall.
The fun wasn’t over however, as I once again felt a pull on my fin just as my buddy pointed below me. A larger sleek torpedo grey speckled seal was nibbling on my fins. At this point, I was in an upright position in the water with her below me chasing my fins. I thought let’s play a game of merry-go-round, and I spun in the water with her chasing my fins, pulling them just out of reach as we danced in the viridescent shallows. She twisted her head and outwitted me grabbing one of my fins and after a mouth full of rubber decided it wasn’t worth the dance.
She shot up and round me too quickly for me to follow and as I spun around I lost sight only to find her inspecting my buddy as I spun back to my original position. It is ironic that, comparatively, scuba divers are as graceless and cumbersome in the water as seals are on land. This really came home to me as I watched my buddy flailing around trying to get into a position on his front, to try and interact with his hands. Seals will bite on your glove if you offer your hands but I have been told by other divers that they are always gentle bites. They test new things with their mouths, hence the fin nibbling. However, it was not to be this time, in the blink of an eye she curved up towards the surface and was gone.
We were now at the end of the dive and slowly ascended to around 5 metres as we swam away from the seawall to allow enough depth for the boat to pick us up. As we hung in the current, waiting out the 3-minute safety stop I noticed a ghostly jellyfish trailing a long shadow of stinging white tentacles in the diffuse summer sun. Its peaceful drift settled me after all the excitement and I manoeuvred myself to the front and slightly below to avoid the tentacles and filmed the luminescent fades of the sunlight penetrate its body. This moved me in a way I can’t explain well with words, something about the idea of light passing through its body and the way it pulsated like it was breathing the sunlight.
I ascended out of the green beneath and into the light!
All images are either open source or my own origional material.
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