Kårevik 10/5 2020 Pipefish, goobies and jellyfish oh my

Hi and ho!

This weekend i went to a site that is not as far away as the usual sites in Gullmar fjord. The site was Kårevik on the southern end of the island of Tjörn, one hour north of Gothenburg. The original plan was to go to another site, but we decided against it as it can be a bit hard to get in and out of the water at that other place, especially after raining.

This time we were quite many as many people wanted to dive, which is good, the more the merrier. When we arrived in Kårevik, we took a look and decided to enter from the beach instead of the cliffs due to currents and wind that day.

After doing some dive planning, pairing up and kitting up, it was time to go into the water.

Greater pipefish looking a bit offended by my photographing

Dive 1:

Depth: 9 m. Time: 58 min. Temp: 11 °C

Brown crab being a bit threatening if you ask me

Me and my buddy swam out a bit until we decided it was deep enough to descend, we signaled to the dive masters on the surface, got an OK, and started descending. We descended to about 3 m before we found the bottom and started swimming slowly but surely following the depth curve and the cliff walls, photographing as we went. At one point, the other dive pair that was with us started shining on something while i was close to the bottom photographing a Greater pipefish, it turned out to be a Brown crab of a significant size walking towards me, so after i finished bothering the poor pipefish, i took the opportunity to shoot a photo or two of the crab. After a while, me and my buddy turned around as to be able to take it slow and easy on the way back to the entry point so we would be back by the time limit of 60 min we had decided upon with the dive masters at the surface. As we swam back, i noticed that there was many a moon jellyfish in the shallower waters. When it was 2 minutes left of the hour, we decided to just go up and end the dive. 

When we got up on land again, we decided to take a late lunch with some bbq on the shore as a surface interval.

  

European flounder, floundering about

Dive 2:

Depth: 10 m. Time 48 min. Temp: 11 °C

After a 2 h surface interval, we decided to get into the water once more, so, after changing scuba tanks and some re-organizing of dive pairs, as one in the second pair choose to remain on land, we went into the water for a second dive.

We followed the same procedure as the previous dive and signaled ok to the surface people before we started descending.

This time we swam a bit faster and got a bit further compared to the first dive. Due to this, i did not photograph as much, instead looking around at the different animals. However i did manage to get some pictures of a larger flatfish, as well as some other creatures. As we turned around due to the dive time starting to tick away, i noticed that there was a bit of current towards land, which suggested that the tide was coming in, not that it really is anything to worry about in Sweden, we don't get that great difference in tides. This current also brought in many a Lion's mane jellyfish closer to shore, so we ducked and weaved between the jellyfish as we swam back for a bit. When we neared the end, the sun began shining, and the resulting light was really pretty over the eelgrass beds in the shallower parts.

All in all this was a very nice dive day, even if the weather in the beginning did not make it seem like that.

So until next time, Keep on Swimming!

Eelgrass bed in the sunlight