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Boreray
This was another great site for critters . We dived here twice and my favourite subjects were the ghost or skeleton shrimps . They were quite prolific , my favourites living on some encrusting orange sponge where there were two large individuals and hundreds of small ones . Having read up about these caprellids since , it seems unlikely these would have been two adults and their offspring as I had thought , because the female often kills the male after mating by injecting venom from a claw within her feeding arms . Aside from the ghost shrimp communities , I also saw octopus , nudibranchs , carpets of basket stars decorating the sponges , a number of sea hares and an assortment of starfish .
Sadly , the time had come to leave St Kilda , however the next morning we had a surprise in store as we stopped off 70 nautical miles away at the Shiant Islands , in the Minch between Skye and Lewis . This is one of the great bird-stations of the northern hemisphere , with some 250,000 seabirds , including puffins , guillemots , razorbills , shags and great skuas , arriving in the summer to breed . For us it was perfect timing to see hundreds and hundreds of puffins . It was an awesome sight to see so many birds , but when there are so many feathered friends overhead you really should wear a hat !
The next couple of days saw us passing back through Loch Eriboll and onto the west coast of Orkney . Our last dive at Nipple Rock , close to the Old Man of Hoy was on particularly beautiful walls stacked with anemones . Unfortunately , occasionally I forget to tuck in my neck seal on a dive and this beautiful dive was a tad chilly .
So , did St Kilda live up to expectations and was it worth the journey ? You bet ; I can ’ t wait to go back .
UK DIVING
RTop : Spiny Squat Lobster ( Galathea strigosa ) hiding in the wall of a cave
SUBelow left and right : Sea hare ( Aplysia fasciata ) crawling across the reef ; Brittle stars ( Ophiure protoreaster ) on a boring sponge at Cape Wrath
Thanks to Bob Anderson and Halton Charters ( 01856 851 532 , www . mvhalton . co . uk ). The MV Halton is based in Scapa Flow , but travels around the Hebrides , Shetland and Norway .
W Above : Diver outside the cave
on Stac Lee
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