Hi and ho!
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| Burrowing polychaetae of some kind, likely a Chone. sp |
This weekend, me and my buddies made plans to dive in the Gullmar fjord, more exactly, the Jordfall marina, one of our regular haunts. The weather forecast was less than ideal, with strong winds and rain on the forecast for the whole area, however, when we arrived at the site, we discovered that the weather, while somewhat grey, was quite nice. So said and done, me and my buddy kitted up and prepared to get into the water to start the first dive.
Dive 1:
Depth: 30 m, Time: 45 min, Temp: 10 °C
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| No idea why this Fireworks anemone is all curled up like this. |
This dive we had decided to go straight out, to the deep mud slopes that dominate the Gullmar fjord. So we swam out following the pier until we reached the outermost, where we decided to start descending. When we began, we discovered that the visibility was rather bad, no surprise though due to the rains that had fallen in the days previous. Nonetheless, we descended in a orderly fashion, until we had visual contact with the seafloor, after which we started to follow the slopes downwards. At 15 m, we encountered a very clear thermo and halocline, where we also found many jellyfishes hanging around, probably due to the gradient differences in the waters around forcing them to stay on that specific depth. It was at this point that the waters also went from around 20 °C to about 10 °C, but as we wore drysuits, it was nothing to really make a fuss about.
As we followed the bottom, me and my buddy swam around and photographed as we went. At about 28 m depth, we encountered the Fireworks anemone we had set out to find, a dear old friend that one sees very often when one dives straight outwards in Jordfall. After a while, it became time to get to more shallow depths as both the air and the non-deco time were starting to run lower. So we swam back towards our starting point in a relaxed fashion, stopping every now and then to photograph things.
Dive 2:
Depth: 20 m, Time: 50 min, Temp: 10 °C
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Once again, the second most colourful fish in Swedish waters,
the Common dragonet (male) |
On the second dive, me and my buddy decided to follow the cliff wall to the left of Jordfall marina, as it is both easier to navigate there, as well as a lot of different kinds of creatures that won't show up on the mud slopes. Said and done, we swam out until we were close to the cliff, where we decided to start descending. The vis was about the same as before, with somewhat bad range. When we penetrated the thermocline we started following the wall outwards, doing the same as before, stopping and photographing every now and then. As we were swimming, I saw a very colourful male Common dragonet laying on the bottom, so I proceeded to slowly sneak up to it and shoot some photos. As I was doing this, my buddy was swimming away at a steady pace, so I had to leave the dragonet be after a few shots and start swimming towards my buddy once more in order to not loose them in the bad vis. So, we continued following the wall outwards, photographing, fish, sea urchins and other things. at around 20 minutes we decided it was time to go back, so we went through the thermocline again and kept it somewhat more shallow on the way back.
All in all, it was a lucrative and nice dive day, the weather was, as stated earlier, much better than expected, and very suited for drysuit diving.
So until next time! Keep on swimming!
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| Orange brown Aeolids (Aeolidiella glauca) in a rather large gathering |
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