5/11 2022 Diversnight

 Hi and ho!

Once again, it has become time for Diversnight, the international yearly event for night diving, and like usual, me and my buddy went to Släggö in Lysekil to join up with the dive centre there at their event. This year was much fewer divers compared to earlier years, but i guess the somewhat dire weather forecast was to blame for that, with strong winds and rain being the prevailing forecast on the day. 

Goldsinny wrasse (Ctenolabrus rupestris)

Depth: 30 m, Time 58 min, Temp: 12 C

We descended early as the wind and waves were battering straight into the bay of Släggö, making a longer surface swim undesirable this day, well under the surface, it was much calmer, though one could still feel the waves in the shallow areas. We swam along in good pace and quickly found the line that leads downwards and out on the soft bottom, so we started following it ever so slightly. Well out on the soft bottom we saw that the squat lobsters were out and about, as they usually are after sundown, and unlike daytime, they are less timid, which is nice for photography :)

As we swam along the line, we soon came to the part of Släggö at 25 m where there seem to be a perpetual haze since about early 2020 (no really, before 2020, there was no such haze down there). Either way, in this haze there wasn't really much to see, some swimming crabs and squat lobsters scurrying about, but nothing of particular interest. As we started to near our no deco time-limit, we started to make our way upwards, and also back towards the starting point, as I wanted at least 1 h long surface interval before doing the second dive, the official diversnight-dive.

We surfaced at 58 minutes, got up and doffed our gear quickly before heading up to the dive centre to partake in the diversnight cake (this is a very important part of the event).

Spiny squat lobster (Galathea strigosa), one of many

Dive 2: Diversnight official dive.

Depth 16 m, Time 55 min, Temp: 12 C

We were a bit behind schedule, but alas, it wasn't more than like 2 minutes delay for us, so it wasn't the whole world really. Either way, we decided to dive towards the right side of Släggö, keeping it shallow as we hadn't really had a 1 h surface interval, while also looking for squids, as now is the season for them. But to no avail, the squids did not show up on this dive, even though we were in the area they frequent during this time of the year. Instead, we saw quite a few Harbour swimming crabs and smaller codfish, in addition to this, we also saw at least one reticulated dragonet, a species that officially only has been seen once in Sweden (to be honest, i suspect that this is a very easily overlooked species and might be more common than one think, it just looks very much alike the other two known species in the area).

Not much interesting of note on this dive, which we ended at 55 minutes.

All in all, it was some nice night dives, though the absence of squids was a bit disappointing.

So until next time! Keep on swimming!

Reticulated dragonet (Callionymus reticulatus)