In a brief weather window, Clidive initiated Mission Out Stack.
Rory issued a stern and comprehensive safety brief, but buoyed our spirits with the observation that a rib like Yellow could be bailed in minutes with a bucket.
On the dive we found a couple of gullies carpetted with multiple varieties of anemones in every shade possible – daisy, dahlia, jewel. Here are a couple of our photographer-in-residence’s finest dahlias:
The nudibranch ranged from very tiny to hand sized, dogfish cruised alongside us, and a safety stop was spent in the company of a shoal of saithe.
This was an amazing dive, even by Shetland standards.
At lunchtime we took refuge in the Hermaness Visitor Centre, and were given a warm welcome by the Warden and a gritty photographer who was spending his time neck deep in the water to get pictures of the gannets plunging after their prey.
In the afternoon Rory and flic explored Da Uda Cave, a mark very kindly shared with us by Bob Anderson the skipper of the liveaboard Halton. Rory describes the dive as “exciting, well worth further exploration”.
And we may be back to the cave on Thursday.
