Ormestad 16/5 2020 Rainy days and spontaneous dives

 Hi and ho!

This weekend was a rainy one, with the forecast telling of on and off raining all weekend long. So my buddies decided that we were to go out on sunday, the site was to be decided upon on the way there, as the weather was rather unpredictable at this point. We decided upon Ormestad, as it is one of the few sites in the area with a roof, even if you run the risk of getting stuck due to it being very muddy there.

Either way, we got to Ormestad, carried our gear to the area with the roofing and kitted up under the roof, after which we got ready to dive.

Henricia. sp starfish, this individual had a striking reddish purple colour.

Dive 1: 

Depth 30 m, Time 56 min, Temp 8 °C

Me and my buddy swam towards the left, aiming to dive the wall of Ormestad, the main attraction of that site. When we got close to the wall, we started descending, as we were descending, it was noted that the visibility was really bad, but as we got deeper it started to clear up much more, suggesting that the rain had caused some mixing in the uppermost layers of the water masses. As we rounded the corner and got to the main wall, there was a medium strong current going, but as we kept getting deeper, it subsided too. We swam along the wall in a relatively orderly fashion, after a while the other buddy pair came along around us a bit before we turned around. At 25 minutes, we turned around due to my buddy feeling a bit nervous, as they had changed some things on their setup. So we swam back towards the starting point, or at least tried, it is hard to navigate sometimes in Ormestad, as soon as you get on the soft bottom slopes. As we were following the slope upwards, my buddy signalled me to look at something, turned out to be a Sole resting on the bottom, so I tried to photograph it but it sure hid well, and it was a bit hard to do. 

All in all, despite the rainy weather soaking us from head to toe, it was a good dive session in Ormestad.

So until next time! Keep on swimming! 

Common sole (Solea solea), a very well hidden specimen at that.