Hi and ho!
This weekend, we decided to dive on a site we haven't been to in a while due to the small bit of hassle it is to get there compared to our other sites (we are lazy if anything), either way, the site of Ormestad is known for "the great wall" a almost vertical cliff wall that extends from the surface and down to 90 m depth. This makes the site very popular among technical divers, as you can get any depth you want within most types of technical diving. When we got to the site, it was almost filled to the brim with technical divers (which was sort of expected, with the super fine weather and whatnot), but we managed to find some spots where we could start to set up our gear.
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| Henricia.sp starfish, as hard to ID as ever. |
Dive 1:
Depth: 27 m, Time: 50 min, Temp: 7 C
Me and my buddy swam to the left side of the Ormestad bay, to the point where the wall sort of starts before we started our descent. This day the surface temperatures were quite high, but as soon as we got down to about 4-5 m, we hit the thermocline, which felt like getting smacked in the face, almost immediately it went from 18-ish C to 7 Celsius, with the halocline sort of right there as well. After getting our bearings and sort of acclimatizing to the temperature drop, we started to head towards the drop-off of the wall. It really is a special feeling to dive on the wall of Ormestad, you really stare into the abyss when you look down, as there is no visual contact with the bottom here, so you got to have good check on your buoyancy here. Anyways, we followed the wall, photographing as we made our way. After a while, I made signal to turn around, and so we made our way back towards the starting point. We surfaced at 50 minutes and made our way back to shore, making ready for a surface interval in the sun.
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| Sea loch anemone, the wall of Ormestad is full of them. |
Dive 2:
Depth 26 m, Time 40 min, Temp: 7 C
After a surface interval in the sun, with some light snacks, we once again made for the waters. This time we decided to dive on the right side instead of the left, over the sandy slopes instead of the vertical wall. After descending through the thermo-halocline, I soon discovered that I had apparently left my camera in the sun, resulting in fogging of the lens which would hold the rest of the dive (it happens). Either way, we continued onwards, following the slope downwards. After a while, we came across a rocky outcropping that jutted out of the soft bottom , so we started to make our way over it. Here was indeed quite a lot of life on and around, sea urchins, sea anemones, hydroids, and even a rugose squat lobster, but as my lens was fogged up, i couldn't snap any photos of them. Soon after, i signalled for us to turn back towards the starting point, and a little bit later, as we were swimming, something suddenly darted out from the bottom in front of me, I turned my head and saw that it was a squid, which is quite rare to see when it is light outside (and i could naturally not snap photos because of fogged lens). After posing a bit in front of it for my buddy (to show how small the bobtails are), we left it alone again and continued on our way back. We surfaced at 40 minutes, got up and started making ready to head home again.
All in all, despite the heat on the surface and the cold in the water, it was a nice dive day, and we did get the nice surprise in the form of a squid too :)
So until next time! Keep on swimming!
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| White sea slug (but yellow) Cadlina laevis |
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