Hällebäck 30/8 2020. Same old same old.

Hi and ho! 

This week, me and my buddies was planning to go and dive in Jordfall marina, however, when we got there we saw that there was a lot of cars and divers at the site, as the weather was really really nice, so we assumed that the vis would be quite low due to the seafloor in this area being easily disturbed fine particle sediments. So we decided to go to another site a bit further away called Hällebäck. Similar to Jordfall, this is a steep slope towards the depth. So, we got to the site, got our gear out of the car and got ready to get into the water.

Sea pen, this photo got a bit weird, it was a flat surface 😝

Dive 1:

Depth: 28 m, Time: 45 min, Temp: 15 °C

We got into the water and swam for a bit in the surface until we reached the end of the boating area in Hällebäck, when we reached that point, we decided that it was far enough and that we could start descending and so we did. During the descent, we saw that the visibility was quite bad, but not the worst I've ever seen. We followed the slope towards the depth until we found what we was looking for, the rocky walls that start at about 20 m depth. When we reached this point, we started following the walls downwards instead. Here one can see lot's of Deep sea king crabs during the spring season, as well as hydroids of different kinds, now during the late summer, there was a lot of cod, wrasse and other fish instead. During this dive I also saw a Norway lobster, a species i do not associate with this particular site, hiding in it's burrow, as well as two European lobsters out in the free, which is rather rare to see during the times of daylight. After a while it became time to go upwards as we were starting to run low on no decompression time as well as hitting the turning pressure we had decided upon. When we reached about 10 m depth, it became clear that there was a current facing us, a current that was in all honesty on the border of being unable to fight against. So we expended quite a lot of energy just staying in one place while on the safety stop. As the safety stop ended, we decided to immediately ascend to the surface as there was no fighting that current and it would probably be easier to swim back on the surface than under it this time.

When we got up, we took off our gear and prepared for a surface intervall with bbq.

Great pipefish, sitting still and posing for my photo

Dive 2:

Depth: 28 m, Time 40 min Temp: 15 °C

After a somewhat long surface intervall, with bbq and relaxing in the nice weather, It was time to get into the water once more, This time we were planning to go towards the soft bottom, and follow it to a suitable depth, so we went into the water and started descending almost immediately towards the right, we followed the bottom downwards, but then one of my buddies decided to go towards the left instead, so, lazy as me and my other buddy was, we just followed suit and turned left. After a while we once again found the cliff walls from the dive before, so we spent some time there until it was time to turn around and swim back. During this dive, not much interesting were seen honestly.

All in all, it was a nice dive day with good company :)

So until next time! Keep on swimming!

European lobster out in the open, not something you usually see during the day.