The Wild Bank

Another great day out yesterday ... flattish conditions and lots of sunshine saw us heading for The Wild Bank, a series of pinnacles way out off Slea Head. The top is around 9m but it drops away sharply to 40m.

The best stuff is on the western side at around 15-25m and it's easy to get carried away if you have a camera in your hand. Neal, as usual, put us right on the spot and after the usual plankton layer, once we got below 12m, the visibility cleared right up - and not a bit of current either - perfect! The jewel anemones cover the rocks in big swathes of colour, interspersed with plumose anemones and some of the biggest boring sponges I've ever seen.

The rocks themselves have canyons running through them where we saw dozens of all types of wrasse and hundreds of pollack. Making our way back up we swam through a huge school of cod which had somehow avoided all the fishing boats in the area. Neal managed to get a good photo of a squat lobster, not an easy task as they are notoriously shy and hide themselves away in little crevices.