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> travel > travel features > 2004 spring special | appeared in DIVER April 2004 | ||||||||
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2004 Spring Special Intro | The Ore stone | Hodge Close | Johnstone's Hole | Crab City | Bracklesham Bay Johnstone's Hole Dunbar, Lothian by Mike Clark |
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Twenty miles south of Edinburgh stands one of the most important castles in Scotland. Much of Dunbar Castle's red sandstone has now tumbled into the sea, but enough remains to satisfy those with vivid imaginations. Contemplating those remains as you walk around the harbourside will help keep the weight of your kit off your mind. Another distraction, if you're lucky, may be the six or seven grey seals that appear to live in the harbour. But the walk is not that strenuous - it's 300m or so to the entry point from the better-preserved cavalry fort where you can park your car. Dunbar is often employed as a safe training site to get divers back into shape after the winter, but there is a lot more to the site than that. Past the entrance channel of the harbour, you come to a curved walkway. On your right is the Gripes, an islet 50m offshore and better known by divers as Johnstone's Hole. This is an excellent shore-diving site, easily located and not too arduous if you judge the tides well. Dive it at high tide, eliminating the need to cross the 10m of large, slippery boulders that form the beach here. If you get it right, there will be a few big rocks on which to sit as you fit your fins. Then it's a short snorkel out to the rock. As you approach it, the bottom drops off to around 6m. In average conditions you will be able to see this and in summer the viz can hit 15m, but early in the season, unless there is a period of calm weather, it hovers around the 4m mark. The wall drops onto a clean sand seabed. A canopy of kelp grows above and behind you on the shallower reef. Fin seawards from here in a clockwise fashion, keeping the wall on your right. You will note lots of recesses and contours in the wall as the depth increases. Colonisation becomes apparent in the form of patches of orange and white dead men's fingers. This coverage increases as you fin around the north-eastern tip of the island, and if there is any sea running you will start to feel it, though only really big spring tides will challenge a fit diver. At this point a feature on the seabed resembling a doorway invites you through to the dive proper, and from here on depth increases to a maximum 13m. On the seaward side of the rock, cracks run up the wall opening into little caves and recesses. After the gateway, there are two such openings where the wall hits the sand. In the first a lobster stands guard, flexing its claws. On the other side of a small spur of rock, a slightly bigger opening reveals some surprising residents, including a large cod. The wall is now densely populated with dead men's fingers. Small butterfish scurry about trying to avoid the many scorpionfish. The wall curves and a gully seems to be forming, but it turns into a cave full of squat lobsters and edible crabs. Above you codling lie at strange angles in the crack as it runs up the wall. At the back of the cave - only around 4m in - is a hole, usually with a lobby or two sitting inside, but mind you don't stir up the silty seabed. This is Johnstone's Hole itself, but a more exciting part of the dive lies further on. Exit the cave and fin around a spur of rock. The sea floor drops a metre or so and a steep-sided gully is formed, its walls covered in life and rising right to the surface. It's impressive to fin through the 3m-wide gap to spy nudibranchs, hermit crabs and more scorpionfish. Beyond the gap, the sea floor rises and the gully opens out to form an amphitheatre that repays exploration. I was surprised to see a beautiful blue and gold male cuckoo wrasse here one day, as well as the more common ballan wrasse. Directly ahead as you swim in, a small crack runs up the wall and at 3m opens into a sizeable cave. I get a slight sense of apprehension as I look in, as I have been surprised by a huge cod and more recently a sizeable conger. I had not expected to see such large fish in shallow water, but I wasn't complaining. In the early season, you may be getting cold by now. Retrace your fin strokes, keeping the wall on your left. Later in the summer you may wish to explore a little further, and there is another gully to investigate. You can even circumnavigate the island, but only at high tide. Johnstone's Hole is a cracking little dive, and once you get your bearings, you will find it an excellent starting point for further exploration of the area. There is no air station nearby, however, so you will have to fill up at North Berwick 10 miles away or St Abbs 20 miles away. |
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 A squat lobster at Johnstone's Hole  a large cod out of its hole  diver on the wall  edible crab | |||||||
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Intro |
The Ore stone |
Hodge Close |
Johnstone's Hole |
Crab City |
Bracklesham Bay 
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