At the bottom of the reef there were a startling number of dahlia anemones jostling for space . We saw an octopus squeezed into a crevice , large numbers of nudibranchs with eggs and a family of around six scorpion fish all hanging out in one spot . I ascended feeling most cheerful until I got off the lift to hear the skipper waxing lyrical about the minke whale he had just seen .
Kebock Head
After spending the night at Stornoway , we headed 12 miles south to Kebock Head – a steep , rocky headland on the east coast of Lewis overlooking the Minch . This was another superb dive site with a wealth of nudibranchs on the rocks and hydroids at around 30m . We also saw pincushion urchins , light-bulb tunicates ,
Sagartia anemones and moon jellies , but the highlight of the dive was at our safety stop where we saw a huge crawfish , or spiny lobster , hiding in the kelp .
The Stassa
That afternoon found us back on a wreck , this time the Stassa , an 82m long steamship that ran ashore in Loch Rodel on the Isle of Harris in 1966 . It lies on a very silty bottom , so the visibility wasn ’ t quite what we were used to , but there were plenty of interesting critters on the seabed including strange anemone carrier crabs , and there was also an enormous conger eel peering out of a large pipe on the wreck itself . We spent that night in Leverburgh on Harris before finally setting off early the next morning across the seas to St Kilda . g 61