Hi and ho!
Now that our dear neighbour to the west, Norway, has opened their border after a year of plague and uncertainty, my club decided that now was a good time to take up the tradition of doing a longer dive trip to Norway, as the diving there is in a completely different class compared to Sweden. Said and done, the destination of the trip was decided to be Flekkefjord on the south western coast of Norway, reasonably far away from home. There is also a historical wreck there, the wreck of Gudrun, a WW2 ship that is located just outside of Flekkefjord.
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| Urticina eques, a beautiful anemone closely related to the Dahlia anemone (and hard to differentiate) |
Dive 1: Gudrun 1
Depth: 35 m, Time: 46 min, Temp 17 C
We anchored the boat onto the float that marks the position of the wreck of Gudrun. Decided upon dive pairs and headed off into the waters. All divers descended following the rope in quite the quick fashion as a group, almost too quick really as i got some problems with equalizing at 18 m and had to stop for a little bit to clear it, but as soon as that was done we kept going. Gudrun herself came into view at about 20 m, meaning that there was about 7 m visibility straight down on this day. We came down on the rear of the wreck and all swam up to the big steering wheel in order to get the obligatory photos while posing with it. After photos were snapped, we split up into the decided buddy pairs and me and my buddy began swimming around the wreck, looking at the rudder, propeller and all the other things she had to offer. As Gudrun lies quite deep, me and my buddy didn't have that much time on her, even with the best gas mix for the depth we were on. So after a little while, we started to run low on time before deco, so we started swimming back to the rope in the rear and started ascending along it. In order to stretch out the dive as much as possible, I decided to ascend as slowly as humanly possible (and so i could try and photograph the critters on the rope too) As we were slowly making our way up, we started to see the second dive pair further down underneath us, but soon they also were at about the same depth as us at the safety stop. We surfaced at 46 minutes, got up in the boat and got ready for surface interval.
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| Star ascidian (Botryllus schlosseri), a colonial sea squirt |
Dive 2: Torsøy
Depth: 10 m, Time: 65 min, Temp 17 C
The second dive of the day was decided to be closer to the Flekkefjord dive club house, as we had gotten out pretty late, nonetheless, we found a small bay relatively close to the starting point, parked the boat and got into the water. Here the bottom was quite similar to the type i am used to, muddy, with lots of smaller fish and decaying algae. Honestly this was quite a boring dive site, but nonetheless, me and my buddy kept swimming around. We surfaced at 65 minutes, got back into the boat about at the same time as the others, and drove home to the diving club house.
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| European painted top shell (Calliostoma zizyphinum) |
Dive 3: Saueholmene
Depth: 28 m, Time: 62 min, Temp 17 C
We headed out to the outer parts of the archipelago, the weather was perfect, almost too perfect, with almost no waves out in the open and the sun shining brightly. We rolled into the water from the boat close to a cliff wall, swam closer by and started descending as soon as everyone was ready. When we descended, we discovered that this area was an area with plateau's on different levels and waving kelp forests. Though honestly i didn't get to enjoy it quite as much as my dive buddies kept swimming on like they were on some kind of schedule, or torpedoes trying to sink a boat or something. Either way, i was pretty ticked off by the time we ended the dive. Well, there was some pretty large fishes, mainly saithe swimming around in the kelp forest, which my buddies tried to hunt, but to no avail. We swam around for a while before we ascended to the surface, looking at the vibrant kelp forests and marine life.
We surfaced at 62 minutes, got into the boat and got ready to have a surface interval. while the other group did their dive.
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| Polymastia boletiformis A type of sponge. |
Dive 4: Hunden
Depth: 23 m, Time: 39 min, Temp 17 C
After a surface interval we went to a place the other group had dived the day before, a small rock called Hunden (meaning "the dog") that jutted up right outside a bigger island. From the day before we knew this was an area where you could find and pick scallops. So we did some shifting around in the dive pairs and headed off into the water as the first dive pair. We swam on the surface until we got close enough to the small island that is Hunden. before we started to descend. The visibility on this dive was pretty ok still, though there was some particles in the water here. As we swam along, one of my buddies signal me to look at something, after looking a little bit, i realize it is a small Monkfish that is hiding in the sand. So i of course went up to it and started snapping photos for a bit. After i was done, we continued along the cliff and started to head a bit downwards. As we swam along the cliff wall, i was photographing some sponges when i spot a very pretty sea anemone a bit further away, when i get closer, i see that it is a Horseman anemone, and a beautiful one at that. So i excitedly began photographing it before letting the others close to it (as it usually is with me and photographing)
It was around here one of my buddies started to signal that they were running low on gas, so we began ascending shortly afterwards. At the safety stop, the first buddy tried to shoot their SMB, but the line had somehow gotten tangled, so i got to do it instead, this time it went pretty well :)
We surfaced at 39 minutes and swam back to the boat
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| European monkfish (Lophius piscatorius), though a very small specimen |
Dive 5: Gudrun
Depth: 34 m, Time: 31 min, Temp 17 C
Once again we decided to do a dive on Gudrun, this time however, me and my buddy knew we had much less time on the wreck due to not being able to fill nitrox. We rolled into the water and quickly descended along the rope. down to the rear of the wreck. This time both me and my buddy got photographed with the big steering wheel, even though the photo of me did end up blurrier than the rest, oh well. After getting our photos snapped, one in the other buddy pair spotted a sizeable Lumpsucker in a crevide on the wreck, so i spent some time photographing that one before we split off from the other pair for our own dive. Me and my buddy swam around the rear of the wreck for a bit, even dipping down to the propeller before it was time to swim back along the surface line as we were running low on no deco time. We ascended slowly along the line and surfaced at 31 minutes. Got back into the boat and doffed our gear, getting ready for a surface interval with lunch.
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| Lumpsucker (Cyclopterus lumpus) trying to hide away from the camera (and the camera man) |
Dive 6: Kålesundet
Depth: 30 m, Time: 28 min, Temp 17 C
The last dive of the trip was to a "unknown" 1700s wreck where there were some really large cannons spread out in the area. But as the exact position was unknown to us, we looked through the sea maps and position data on the internet and buoyed a spot where we thought was "appropriate" for this dive. Me and my buddy were the first pair in the water, we followed the buoy line downwards, but sort of lost it at 15 m depht due to various stuff, we did find it quite soon afterwards either way when we got a bit deeper. When we found the line again, we started seeing weird shapes a bit further way, when we swam closer, we realized that "holy guacamole! these be the cannons!" So we had managed to buoy the spot almost perfectly, we thus swam along the bottom looking at the cannons of the wreck, where they lay on the bottom, some being stuck in a upright position, others laying flat on the bottom among the rocks. At one, my buddy waved at me to come and look at something, that something turned out to be a medium sized lobster hiding underneath the cannon. I of course spent some time photographing it as i usually do. When i was done we continued on, albeit in the opposite direction, and soon afterwards, my buddy signalled that they were running low on gas. As we started to ascend, i realized there was quite the current going at about 10 m depth, so we were swept along for a bit. We surfaced at 28 minutes and got back into the boat in a orderly fashion, doffed our gear and got ready to be on boat watch as the other divers went diving (this was an area where we couldn't anchor).
All in all, it was a super nice dive trip, with almost perfect conditions.
So until next time! Keep on swimming!
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| Opening to one of the 1700s cannons on the bottom, this was the first of many. |
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