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HORLEY

Horley is one of those shallow Scottish wrecks we genuinely love, especially when the light’s good. We’re talking five meters max here, so it’s a long dive even on a single tank. What you’re seeing are the scattered remains of a steel-hulled steamship, the SS Horley, which went down in 1922 carrying stone. The wreck isn't intact, but the distributed pieces are spread across a shallow gully, creating a fantastic habitat. You’ll find bits of machinery, plates, and ribs that are now completely encrusted. Visibility can be hit or miss on the East Coast, but on a good day, it’s like diving through a kelp forest that happens to have metal bits everywhere. We’ve spent hours just poking around, finding nudibranchs tucked into crevices and watching armies of crabs scuttling over the plates. It’s a photographer’s dream if you’re into macro and wide-angle shots of kelp-draped steel. Our favourite approach is to take it slow, really scour the smaller sections for life, rather than expecting a grand, upright structure. It’s not for big wreck penetration, but for exploring history and finding critters in the shallows, Horley is brilliant.