It is easy to follow the line of the wreck forward to the lower part of the bow standing upright from the seabed. The upper parts of the bow and focsle can be found spread to starboard and forward from this.The Danish steamship Chris Christensen was typical of many merchant ships through the first half of the last century, with two boilers and triple expansion steam engine beneath an amidships superstructure and wheelhouse, two holds forward and two holds aft.
It ran aground at the southern end of the Longstone in 1915. After that it must have pulled at least partly free of the rocks before sinking, because the bows point away from the reef and the debris from the stern is higher on the slope towards the reef.
It is easy to follow the line of the wreck forward to the lower part of the bow standing upright from the seabed. The upper parts of the bow and focsle can be found spread to starboard and forward from this.
Just to starboard, a cargo winch rests upright on its mounting plate. Immediately in front of this the anchor winch is upside down and hidden partly beneath its mounting plate. These two winches would have been separated by the length of the forward hold. I suspect that the damage to the bows and movement of the cargo winch is a result of commercial salvage work when the wreck was in a more intact state.
A little further forward, one of the anchor hawse pipes rests almost against the upside down remains of the upper part of the bow. This is the deepest point on the wreck at about 33 metres. Exposed to the current, the wreckage is covered with white and yellow dead men's fingers, with an army of sea urchins munching their way around.
A large anchor is tight in against the starboard side of the bow, or strictly speaking the port side of the bow as this section is upside down. Just behind this section of bow rests a tightly wound drum of cable, followed by a much smaller anchor.
This begs the obvious question, which anchor actually belonged to the Chris Christensen? The large anchor is certainly or the right type and plenty large enough for a ship of this size, but the smaller anchor is much too small and looks more like the type of anchor that would have been carried by a trawler. Maybe it was carried by the Chris Christensen, or maybe it was lost at a later date.
About halfway back to the boilers is an area of black and white tiled floor. It always amazes me that features like this have survived where nothing remains of the rest of the superstructure.
The port boiler rests upright and slightly forward of the starboard boiler. A hole towards the top provides a view in amongst the boiler tubes. Conger eels seem to enjoy hiding in this kind of hole, so have a good look and you may be lucky.
The starboard boiler has rolled 90 degrees towards the centre of the wreck, with the two fire holes at the front of the boiler now one above another. Forward of the boiler, many of the rocks on the seabed are actually coal.
Behind the starboard boiler the 3 cylinder steam engine has collapsed to starboard. Other than that it is remarkably intact and it is easy to pick out details of the inner workings of the engine
The last piece of wreckage before ascending the slope is the remains of the emergency steering wheel. It is now well decayed, but in a more intact state featured in one of my favourite underwater photographs, one of those photographs I look at time and again and think "I wish I had taken that". It can be seen on the cover of "Dive Northeast" with a diver dressed in a seaman's jacket and not much else holding the wheel and braving the weather. The photographer was Mike Brett.
A few metres up-slope the propeller and rudder can be found at about 27 metres, with the propeller wedged upright amongst small rocks and gravel.
At 20 metres the slope ends with a vertical wall most of the way to the surface, an ideal location to fizz off decompression in the shallows and make the most of any remaining gas while admiring the soft corals. As with any dive in the Farne Islands, it is well worth keeping a lookout for seals.