Dive trip to Koster marine national park 15/8-16/8 2020

Hi and ho!  

This weekend it was time for the first official dive trip of the year, after having put off doing such a thing due to the current happenings in the world. So we went up to a dive operator called Bröderna Klemmings Dykhjälp, a operator that goes to Sweden's first and largest marine national park, the Koster sea national park. The park is also known to house a very rich marine life, among the most abundant in all of Sweden.

So, without further ado, let's get the stories rolling :)

Orange-clubbed nudibranches

Dive 1: Morö (the ravine)

Depth: 22 m, Time: 56 min, Temp: 18 °C

Our first dive was done at Morö, in a area known as "The Ravine", this area consists of a set of ravines that slopes down to various depths, in these ravines, many fish like to hide, and skates have been spotted on occasion in the deeper parts. 

So, me and my buddy descended into the water, which was vibrantly blue and very clear for being Sweden. Unfortunately, there was also a veritable minefield of Lion's Mane jellyfish, which made the first moments of the dive a bit nervous. But as soon as we got a bit deeper, it cleared up with the jellies. We swam through a few ravines slowly, as one does when one photographs. 

As we were swimming in the kelp forests between two ravines, I spotted something small sitting on a leaf of kelp, when I took a closer look, I saw that it was two Orange-clubbed nudibranches, so as my buddy was a bit further away filming something else, I spent some time photographing the nudibranches.

After about 30 minutes, it became time to turn around and go back towards the surface, as we had said to the dive leader that we would be down for a maximum of 60 minutes. So we turned around and swam back, photographing and filming as we went. When we neared the surface, there was still quite the number of jellyfish around, which made surfacing a interesting exercise. We surfaced in a orderly fashion, got into the boat once more and went back to dry land for lunch and gas filling.

Very vividly red and beautiful dahlia anemone

Dive 2: Stora Hjälmen.

Depth: 26 m, Time: 52 min, Temp: 16 °C

After lunch and some resting in the sun, we set out for the second dive of the day. This time, we went to a spot called Stora Hjälmen, which was a bit further north from our starting point, inside the Koster national park. When we arrived at the site, we found that it was quite not as calm as we expected, nonetheless, we jumped into the water, descended and began following the wall downwards. After a while, my buddy spotted something in a crevice, when I got closer, I saw that it was a very vividly red dahlia anemone, which I of course spent a few minutes photographing. As we continued, we got down quite deep, which meant we had not as much time until we would hit decompression time limit. So, we had to ascend to shallower depth rather quickly, during this ascent, I spotted a red sun starfish on the cliff, which I quickly snapped a few photos of. When we neared the end of the dive we got into a crevice where we really felt the waves shoving us back and forth as we lay in the water, which was rather fun, if a bit disorienting. So when we started nearing the said end time, we ascended to the surface. At the surface, we had to swim for quite a bit as we got up a bit too close to the cliff.

Cuckoo wrasse male, the photo is less than ideal, but wrasses are skittish and hard to photograph

Dive 3: Bergylteskär.

Depth: 30 m, Time: 63 min, Temp: 16 °C

After a good nights sleep, we got up and got ready to head out to a new dive day. So we loaded into the boat and headed to a site known as Bergylteskär, which is right smack in the Koster national park. When we arrived at the site, the captain of our boat spotted something in the distance, it took me a while to see what it was, but it turned out to be three porpoises, which began swimming around us as we got a bit closer. When they then grew tired of us and left, we went to the dive site and prepared to get into the water. We anchored in a sheltered bay and jumped into the waters, swam out through a narrow gap between the cliffs, and started descending into the dive. On this site, there was a lot of rock formations in the beginning, making for a nice place to look for larger crustaceans like lobsters and crabs. One lobster I spotted, a smaller individual was quite scared of me, and kept backing into it's little burrow, so after I got some quick photos, I left it alone again. As me and my buddy kept swimming, we found ourselves at a wall, which descended to approximately 40 m depth, as one could see the bottom from our position, which was quite far from the bottom itself. We kept following this wall, photographing and filming as we went. After a while, we once again got closer to no-deco time limit. So we went up to shallower depth quickly once more. After a while, we decided to end the dive and ascend to the surface, as there was not much more to photograph or film due to swell.

We surfaced and got back into the boat and  got back to land for rest and lunch.

A very photo-shy European lobster.

Dive 4: Sadeln.

Depth: 26 m, Time: 52 min, Temp: 16 °C

For the last dive of the trip, we went to a site closer to the starting point, called Sadeln, We had heard that this was a good spot for nudibranches, as well as various kinds of fish and crustaceans. So me and my buddy rolled into the water and prepared to dive. We descended and started following the wall, swimming slowly, as we always do when photograph. On this dive there was a lot of different kinds of wrasses among the rocks and crevices, large cuckoo wrasses and ballan wrasses, smaller goldsinny wrasse and corkwing wrasse. At one point, my buddy seemed to have challenged a sizable European lobster to a duel, which was rather amusing to watch (my buddy won btw). Then, when we were starting to go more shallow, I spot something laying in the kelp, when I got closer, I see that it is an Angler-fish, so i quickly signalled to my buddy and we spent quite a while around the angler-fish photographing and filming it. After a while, we decided that it was enough loafing about and time to get moving again, following the cliff we got up to a shallow plateau with a lot of kelp and other brown algae. Here we decided to stay a bit, unfortunately my camera was out of batteries at this point, so no photos from there. When our time was up, we ascended to the surface and ended the dive.

All in all it was super nice dive trip, something we have to do more if there is time and money to do so, jellyfish blooms notwithstanding.

So until next time! Keep on Swimming!

Anglerfish, look at this mug 😆