Many of the better shore dives, whilst good shore dives, are just that - good shore dives. They are good for training, good when the weather may be too rough to get out in a boat, good if you want something easy and shallow, good if you want something convenient and you don't want the hassle of organising anything more complicated. But I would never claim they are as good as the offshore dives available in the same areas.
St Abbs, on the other hand, is a magnificent dive. My praise doesn't have to be qualified with the term “shore dive”. Shore diving at St Abbs compares favourably with many of our best offshore dives, but without the need for a boat.
The most obvious and closest rock to the harbour wall is Big Green Car, only a few metres swim to the north-east. There is a well sheltered wall with slight overhangs on the inside edge of this rock, covered in large clumps of white and yellow dead men's fingers and grazed by countless sea urchins.
At the base of the wall, one of the many wolf fish that inhabit the area lives in a triangular hole. Close to shore at a popular dive site, this could be the most photographed wolf fish in Britain, almost a celebrity.
Although looking eel like, wolf fish are actually big blennies. If you see one out of its hole there is a noticeable similarity in overall shape to a tompot blenny, but without the antlers and the smile. For food they like to scrunch their way through the hard shells of crabs, squat lobsters and sea urchins. Debris from such meals often provides a visual clue to the hole a wolf fish is living in.
The south side of Big Green Car is an overhanging wall, again carpeted in dead men's fingers. The gully this forms between Big Green Car and the rocky ledges that lead across to Broad Craig seems to be a favourite haunt for ballan wrasse.
To the outside of Big Green Car is a semi-circular bowl with steep rocky edges known as “The Amphitheater”. It seems crass to describe it as “more of the same” when it is actually quite spectacular.
Further south along the outside of the harbour wall, the big rock close in to the middle is Broad Craig and outside this is Little Green Car. The famous Cathedral Rock is further south still, towards the end of a reef that runs almost in line with the south wall of the harbour.
The rock above the actual double archway of the cathedral is submerged at all states of the tide, though with the typical good visibility of the area a shadow of kelp can just about be seen from the harbour wall at low water.
Even with the flattest sea there is a constant movement of water through the main archway, feeding the tapestry of small plumose anemones that adorn its walls and attracting multitudes of fish from pollack to wrasse. There are even reports of the occasional cod being seen here, though I have yet to meet one.