Släggö 20/11 2021 Squids squids and more squids

 Hi and ho!

This weekend the weather was atrocious, with cold rain and whipping winds, but that matters not really when you are underneath the surface of the sea after all, but on the surface it is less pleasant. So we went to Släggö, as there is roof where one can change into dive gear without getting rained on. Either way, Släggö is a good place to find squids on, which one of the goals were this time around.

Greater pipefish peeking out of some loose algae

Dive 1:

Depth: 29 m, Time: 72 min, Temp: 11 C

We descended almost immediately after jumping in and making sure that everything worked as it should in the water (well minus my leaking ring system, but i'll work on that when i have time), as we had heard that there was a lumpsucker in the shallows close to the pier, after descending we turn around a few degrees and there it was, my photographer buddy kept following it, while i stayed a bit back to wait for it to settle down, but alas, that never happened, so i had to chase it around as well, all while my buddy kept hogging the fish, frustrating me a little bit there. Either way, after we were done stressing the poor fish out (didn't get any photos of it this dive), we started swimming outwards, which took a while as the shallower part does stretch for quite a bit. after 22-ish minutes we finally got to the slope and started to get a bit of depth on our dive. As we got down to about 20 m, the visibility started getting worse and worse with increasing silty haze, the kind that one usually start encountering at 25-30 m depth on this site. In addition, we started encountering currents at these depths, which wasn't too much, but still enough to push us away, so we decided at this point that we were to turn around and get more shallow, where the visibility was much greater. When we crested 16 m, one of my buddies spotted a squid on the bottom, which of course was promptly photographed for a while, it was also around here that I spotted a Great pipefish trying to hide in a piece of loose brown algae. After some dancing around, I managed to snap a few photos of it. We continued upwards, taking it nice and slowly as we usually do, even though it was a bit colder in the water right there and then. On the way up, we spotted two more squids, which naturally got photographed as it usually goes. 

We surfaced after 72 minutes, got up and prepared for a surface interval with hot coco.

Lumpsucker that has set up shop right beneath the most active dive sites on the Swedish west coast

Dive 2: 

Depth: 16 m, Time: 62 min, Temp 10 C

After a surface interval, with some chocolate bars and hot coco, we once more headed into the water, like the first dive, we descended almost immediately after jumping in and quickly found the lumpsucker once more, this time, i managed to snap a few photos of it before I left it be and we continued the dive. On this dive the plan was to keep it more shallow, as there was really not much to see below 20 m depth on this day, instead we headed towards the right side, over the shell gravel bottom, in order to look for more squids. As the bobtail squids we usually find prefer soft mud or shell gravel bottoms. As we swam over the eelgrass beds I spot two rather well camouflaged pipefishes among the eelgrass. Unfortunately they weren't very keen on getting photographed, so that was a bust really, they kept waving back and forth, not letting my camera focus properly, so no photos there, despite my best efforts. We continued along the sloping bottoms, looking for the small shapes or glittering points which signal the presence of squids on the bottom. We managed to find three throughout the whole dive, so i guess that wasn't really so bad. As we swam along, we saw in the distance, lights from other divers, as well as the huge silty cloud that followed them, might have been partially the reason why the site was so silty this time around i suspect. Either way, after 30 something minutes, i signalled that we were to turn around, as we had been in for quite a while at this point. So we turned around and started swimming back to the starting point. At the safety stop, i got a bit bored and started doing some valve drills, which apparently made one of my buddies think i was having some problems, so they came up to me and signalled me that we were to go up. Well, we surfaced at 62 minutes, got up and made ready to go home.

All in all, despite the rain and wind (and leaking suit), it was an enjoyable dive day, with lots of squids.

So until next time! Keep on swimming!

Action shot of a Common bobtail