North
Berwick is based about 20 miles west of Edinburgh. Call me a fair weather
diver, but I have only attempted to dive it in the summer (I'm not even
sure if the diving is year round).A lot of the local dive centers run
set trips charting local dive boats out of here, so I have allways found
it easier to go with them. If you don't fancy that you can contact the
boats directly, and if they have room you are on. I dived off the Thistle
B. The skipper was excellent, two weeks previously he had cancelled a
trip, making what I felt was a good decision. Half of the trip wanted
to dive, but a gale force 4-5 was going to make the dive no fun at all.
The skippers knowledge of the local area was second to none, and his dive
briefing was spot on. I had been attempting to dive North Berwick for
a long time. Several attempts have been curtailed due to poor weather,
and a north east gale will curtail the best diving around here. The condtions
were just about reasonable for my trip here, but were still restricting
us from diving the famous 'Bass rock', which is meant to be the best diving
in this area. So the dive was on the south side of 'Craigleith', one of
the four ilsands just off shore from North Berwick. The boat journey out
was a joy in itself. Just before going in we saw a grey seal on the surface,
and they have been known to follow divers around. Craigleith also has
hundreds of breeding puffins. They were constantly flying around on the
trip out, really nice. With good vis there would allways be the chance
of seeing them fishing. If you get to Bass rock, it has thousands of breeding
gannets.
We
had a back role entry from the boat, into a choppy surface. The water
was around 8 degrees, with the water never hitting more than 10 degrees
at the height of summer. Some on the boat were diving in semi-dry wetsuits,
but I would allways recommend a drysuit no matter what time of the year.
Due to the wind, the visability had been reduced. In shallow water is
was around 1-2M, deeper it was slightly clearer. The south side of the
island is a very rocky slope from the surface, down to a flat sandy bottom
at around 18M. The skipper said that this stays sandy until you hit the
harbour entrance, than it just gets shallow and sandy! So the best dive
is from 5-18M, looking for whats in the rocks. I saw numerous crabs, some
quite large, in the rocks. The rocks were covered in yellow soft corals,
and you could find the crabs scrabbling around them. We also saw some
lobsters, hiding out. On the odd sandy patch on the slope, we saw blennies,
but these were the only fish I saw. There may have been stuff out there,
but the vis didn't allow us to see it. On a calm day with good vis this
would be quite an interesting dive, with the possibilty of seals and puffins
around. I will have to try to find such a day.
North
Berwick is based about 20 miles west of Edinburgh. Call me a fair weather
diver, but I have only attempted to dive it in the summer (I'm not even
sure if the diving is year round).A lot of the local dive centers run
set trips charting local dive boats out of here, so I have allways found
it easier to go with them. If you don't fancy that you can contact the
boats directly, and if they have room you are on. I dived off the Thistle
B. The skipper was excellent, two weeks previously he had cancelled a
trip, making what I felt was a good decision. Half of the trip wanted
to dive, but a gale force 4-5 was going to make the dive no fun at all.
The skippers knowledge of the local area was second to none, and his dive
briefing was spot on. I had been attempting to dive North Berwick for
a long time. Several attempts have been curtailed due to poor weather,
and a north east gale will curtail the best diving around here. The condtions
were just about reasonable for my trip here, but were still restricting
us from diving the famous 'Bass rock', which is meant to be the best diving
in this area. So the dive was on the south side of 'Craigleith', one of
the four ilsands just off shore from North Berwick. The boat journey out
was a joy in itself. Just before going in we saw a grey seal on the surface,
and they have been known to follow divers around. Craigleith also has
hundreds of breeding puffins. They were constantly flying around on the
trip out, really nice. With good vis there would allways be the chance
of seeing them fishing. If you get to Bass rock, it has thousands of breeding
gannets. 
We
had a back role entry from the boat, into a choppy surface. The water
was around 8 degrees, with the water never hitting more than 10 degrees
at the height of summer. Some on the boat were diving in semi-dry wetsuits,
but I would allways recommend a drysuit no matter what time of the year.
Due to the wind, the visability had been reduced. In shallow water is
was around 1-2M, deeper it was slightly clearer. The south side of the
island is a very rocky slope from the surface, down to a flat sandy bottom
at around 18M. The skipper said that this stays sandy until you hit the
harbour entrance, than it just gets shallow and sandy! So the best dive
is from 5-18M, looking for whats in the rocks. I saw numerous crabs, some
quite large, in the rocks. The rocks were covered in yellow soft corals,
and you could find the crabs scrabbling around them. We also saw some
lobsters, hiding out. On the odd sandy patch on the slope, we saw blennies,
but these were the only fish I saw. There may have been stuff out there,
but the vis didn't allow us to see it. On a calm day with good vis this
would be quite an interesting dive, with the possibilty of seals and puffins
around. I will have to try to find such a day.