Jamie and I were the last to arrive at the Lodge, Seahouses, at about 10.15pm Friday evening. The rest of the diving party were in a ‘party’ mood already, all looking forward to an excellent weekend of socialising and easy diving. The members of the party were: Mike, our Dive Marshall; Ed, an experienced instructor who worked with Mike on our dive profiles; Tony, the weekend organiser, and his wife Kathy; another husband and wife team, June and Graham; plus Louise, Amanda, Nicky, me (Mick) and my son, Jamie.

We were all up, breakfasted and at the Seahouses harbour wall by 9.00am. We were soon in our diving suits with the diving kit safely stowed into Wavedancer I, and we were ready to go diving. Nicky was on the boat but would not dive that day. Last night she’d pulled something in her back lifting her dive bag out of the car and was still in some discomfort, so she sensibly decided to rest her back and, all being well, would be able to dive the next day.

The weekend had been organised for easy, shallow and sheltered dives. All dives were relatively close to the mainland so it was not long before we were at the first dive – the "Hopper".

This was Jamie’s very first sea dive. He qualified as an Ocean Diver in 1999 and, at 14 years old, was by far the youngest and most nervous member of the diving party. On Mike’s advice we were almost last into the water. In the water Jamie’s nervousness got the better of him for a while and we spent some time on the surface whilst we got him sorted. We eventually went down and, below the slight swell, he was much happier. During the dive, he was sufficiently composed to stop, demand my slate and question my navigation! It was a very nice dive along the wall of the island. The time we’d spent on the surface meant that he soon got cold in his semi-dry and we deployed the delayed SMB and, obeying Mike’s ultra-safe dive profile, we had a three-minute safety stop at six metres before surfacing.

Back on the boat Jamie got plenty of attention from the other divers as he recounted his first sea dive. He’d got so cold that he chose not to go down on the second dive of the day and instead got dressed. At the "Pinnacles", I buddied-up with Tony. With Jamie not diving we now had an odd number of divers so Ed was elected as the third member of our party.

We strode off the boat and were soon sinking along the wall of the island. Tony’s ears were true to form and we went down slowly to a maximum of 18 metres. This was the best dive of my weekend. We saw numerous wrasse, crouched lobsters, a wonderfully aggressive crab, and I lost count of the seals. The best moment was a seal ‘standing’ in the water tantalisingly close to us, looking at each of us in turn before departing. We then ascended, again stopping at 6 metres for three minutes of decompression.

Back on the boat, we set off for Seahouses. The weather became rather rough and we all got a good drenching as we returned to the harbour. Jamie did a grand job of distributing hot tea to us all.

Back at the Lodge, the weather couldn’t have been more different and we had a gentle afternoon watching the hot sun dry our washed gear. The evening was equally relaxed and enjoyable with the party taking it in turns beating Jamie at pool and we were soon in bed for an earlier start in the morning.

I awoke to the sound of rain. However by the time we were at the harbour wall the sun was out and the sea was like a millpond. We were soon ready and left the harbour at 8.00am. Shortly after 9.00am, Jamie and I were again in the water at the "Hopper", this time for a 35 minute dive. Jamie saw a number of creatures in the water for the first time including the ubiquitous wrasse, lobster, and a jellyfish about 1 metre diameter. He also saw plenty of seals for the first time including one that lay and watched us from its seal-shaped bed between some rocks. Finning out of the inlet, I could see the ebbing movement of the water but progress didn’t seem to require much effort. Jamie was easily keeping up with me and didn’t seem to be having any difficulty. I checked our air gauges and confirmed that we both had plenty of air to see us out of the inlet and up to the surface. To my amazement, by the time we got to a good place to deploy the delayed SMB.

Back on the boat a number of the party commented how difficult it was to swim out of the inlet. Jamie and I are both regular swimmers so were able to make progress against the movement of the water, but it may explain Jamie’s sudden rapid air consumption.

Our skipper soon moved to the site of our last dive: the "Pinnacles" again. On arrival, we were treated to the Wavedancer I’s mate catching numerous mackerel and a cod. Another, less enjoyable sight, was a helicopter removing divers from another dive boat. Our skipper was soon able to tell us of the unfortunate scenario that had caused four divers to get decompression sickness and an atmosphere of quiet reflection came over our boat.

After the surface interval, we got ready for our last dive. As usual Mike gave us our dive profile and none of us were in any frame of mind to argue with his ultra-conservative dive profile of 20 minutes at 12 metres maximum with the usual 3 minute safety stop at 6 metres. In any event, I briefed Jamie that we would spend a maximum of 10 minutes at 10 metres and the remainder of the dive at 7 metres maximum. There was not much in the way of seals but we had some interesting interaction with friendly wrasse and we saw a pollack on the sea bed. We were first back on the boat and so took our turn to log in surfacing divers and to assist divers aboard, in particular Nicky who protected her back by taking off her weight belt and stab jacket in the water.

All too soon we were on our way back to Seahouses to pack and head south to home with thoughts of the next trip........

Written by Mick Barratt 2000