Moss 28/6-30/6 2024, Dive trip across the border

Hi and ho!

This time around, I went on a longer dive trip over the weekend with my dive club, the destination was to be the area around Moss in Norway, a short distance from the Swedish border, 3 whole days of diving (was the plan).

European lobster doing european lobster things

Dive 1: Heyerdalsbukta (i think) 28/6 2024

Depth: 16.2 m, Time: 55 min, Temp: 13 C

The first dive of the trip, on the same day we arrived to the camping spot and had unloaded our things into the cabins. The divesite was close to our accommodation, and of hard bottom type, there was also a wreck of a margarine carrying boat somewhere close to shore. Either way, a team first went down into the water to check the visibility and current, they reported little current but bad visibility, so the rest of us decided to do this as well. The walking in was a bit hard due to waves and slippery rocks, but we managed to do it somehow. As me and my buddy descended, we found out that the visibility was indeed very bad, but also that further down, there was quite severe current to be had, but we kept trudging on, the current and visibility cleared up at about 9 m depth, after which, the dive was quite enjoyable. We followed the cliffs that went down in plateaus to about 15 m, where my buddy made a few signs i didn't quite understand, and that i mistook for something else, so i turned around the dive as we were also starting to near the 30 minutes mark. We swam back, not having found the wreck (due to another mistake on my side, i didn't quite get the compass heading right. Either way, we ended the dive at 55 minutes without too much hassle, though as the time was rather late, we also decided to not do a second dive on this day.

Bit unexpected to find Deep sea king crab this late in the season here

Dive 2: Kjøvangen brygge 29/6 2024 

Depth: 32 m, Time: 53 min, Temp: 9 C

On the second day, the original plan was to do boat dives, but as the weather had worsened, with strong winds from the south (a leading reason for the bad visibility), so we got one of the locals to recommend us a site for shore diving instead, turned out to be the site i went to last time i was in the neighbourhood, Kjøvangen brygge, a good spot indeed.

Me and my buddy was first in the water this time, we had the instruction to go down quickly and try to find the line leading down towards deeper parts. And we did just that, we found the line pretty quickly and started following it downwards. At about 12 m depth, we encountered the thermocline and the waters cleared up (that was a common thing along all the dives, the thermohalocline was the border between bad visibility and decent visibility). We soon got to the cliff walls present on this site and continued following them down to about 30 m. after which we made our way a bit more shallow. The highlight of this dive was for me us encountering a Deep sea king crab out of season, as they usually are not seen this time of the year in Gullmarn, but I guess Norway is different, even so close to the Swedish border as we were. Either way, after spending some time to photograph the crab, I signalled for us to turn around and head back. As we swam back, we did see quite a few lobsters out in the open. We ended the dive at 53 minutes, got up and onto the pier where we doffed our gear.

Norwegian Red Sea cucumber (Parastichopus tremulus) 

Dive 3: Hvitsten torg 29/6 2024

Depth: 22 m, Time: 45 min, Temp: 11 C

We headed to another site for the second dive of the day, another site i have dived before, this one was a few years ago though, during the "pre-covid" times. This time, i was a bit unsure of diving here, as the wind was blowing straight into the bay, giving rise to quite big swell, but nonetheless, we did our dive. And good was that! We swam out and started to descend, this time we were a group of 3, so it was a bit harder perhaps to keep up the contact between the divers, but we managed. At about 14 m depth, the waters cleared out and the visibility became much better. We followed the cliffs and slopes towards the right, we did end up a bit deeper than planned for this dive perhaps, as our max depth should have been 20m, but as seen, we got down to 22 m, so not too much of breaking the depth limit on this one. After a while we turned back, and as we swam over a rock jutting out, one of my buddies signalled for me to look at something, this something turned out to be a Striped Mullet, a fish we usually see late in the autumn on our sites, but there it was. So i did stay a bit and snapped a few photos before continuing. There was also a lot of lobsters on this site, didn't count, but at least 4 were seen as we swam along. We ended the dive at 45 minutes, got up in the swell and swam in towards land, got up and made ready to head back to our cabins.

Striped mullet, a fish you usually see late autumn in Lysekil

Dive 4: Fristranda 30/6 2024

Depth: 23 m,  Time: 51 min, Temp: 13 C

On the third day, we asked the local dive centre about some good shore diving places close by, preferably more southwards, so that we didn't have to drive for so long to get home afterwards. Said and done, we ended up on a spot called Fristranda with a nice sandy beach and a somewhat protected bay. We made our dive buddy pairs and headed out, I ended up with a newer diver, so i took it a bit more slowly and tried to keep more of an eye on them than i usual (tried being the operative wording here). Well either way, we swam out to a buoy before descending, as to have some sort of reference to make it easier for us, after getting visual contact with the bottom and finding our bearings, we began swimming to the right as we had been tipped off on regarding this site. After swimming a bit along a slope, we found a wall at about 14-15 m, which we then started following for the rest of the dive. Nothing of note was really happening on this dive, it was quite a simple and relaxing dive. After turning around and reaching the end point where we had our safety stop, I deployed my DSMB, waited out the safety stop, and then started to ascending. At the surface, my buddy had a bit of a issue as they had breathed down to about 10 bars, and thus weren't able to completely inflate their BCD, but that was easily fixed with a few breaths of oral inflation. But i guess that if i am to dive with newer people, i will have to tell them to show me when they have 50 bars left, because my buddy sure didn't show that. 

Edible sea urchin with a old tubeworm tube on top of it

Dive 5: Fristranda 30/6 2024

Depth: 26 m, Time: 51 min, Temp: 13 C

The last dive of the trip we made new pairs, as some people didn't want to do a 5th dive. So i ended up with the same buddy as i did on dive 2, and we decided to dive towards the left, to see what could be found there, said and done, we swam out to another buoy a bit further away before descending. We followed the slope downwards and to the left, and before long, we found rocks starting to jut out of the bottom, providing a nice hard substratum for things to settle on. We followed the rocky wall, looking and beholding the things, there is really not much of note happening to us either, and it was quite a nice and relaxing dive as well. We did get a bit lost, as the rocky walls did a turn towards the north in a way we didn't quite expect as we went, so we ended up surfacing a bit further out than we planned and had to do a bit of a surface swim back. We got up and doffed our gear, making ready to head home after a weekend of diving :)

All in all, it was a nice diving weekend, even if the visibility could have been better and not everything went to plan. Some new lessons were also learned :)

So until next time! Keep on swimming!

Horseman anemone (Urticina eques)

Släggö 19/6 2021 Diving with a chance of showers

 Hi and ho

This weekend we decided to meet up with a couple of friends that live close to and in Lysekil, so Släggö was once again the logical option for a dive site. The weather forecast told of thunder and rain, which made our choices of dive spots a bit smaller, we needed roof to hide from the rain after all. So not much to talk about there really, we did as we always do, get our gear ready, pair up and getting ready to dive.

Devonshire cup coral, a side view

Dive 1

Depth: 26 m, Time: 57 min. Temp: 13 °C

At first, we were going in two pairs of buddies, as one usually does, however, due to unforeseen circumstances, we had to do a quick re-arranging of the pairs, and dive in a pair of 3 instead. Also, one of my gloves broke as i was going into the water, so I had to go up and do a quick change of gloves, changing it to a wet-glove instead for this dive. Either way, we swam out into the bay and close to the cliff before we started descending. the goal of this dive was to look for dragonets of different kinds, so we tried to get towards the deeper soft bottoms, where they usually like to hang out, as quick as possible. In the surface, the visibility was somewhat bad, about 3 m of visibility, but that cleared up as soon as one got down a few meters. At 20 m, we hit the thermocline, and the visibility cleared up even further. Here, we started to encounter Common dragonets, in particular a beautiful male, which one of my buddies started to photograph while hung around for a bit, photographing some other animals, including some female common dragonets. 

Near the end of the dive, my second buddy signalled me to look at something in a crevice, turned out to be a large lobster, which did not match the description of our regular European one in my eyes, so I tried to photograph it as much as possible, but none of the photos turned out useable due to it hiding too deep in the crevice.

We surfaced at 57 minutes, got up, and got ready for a nice surface interval.

As we began doffing our gear, it started raining quite heavily for a few minutes.

Female common dragonet, not as colourful as the male

Dive 2

Depth 30m, Time 65 min, Temp: 13°C

After a surface intervall with food, talking and me changing my dryglove, it once again became time to get into the waters. This time, we went in pairs of two, as our original plan was, and right as we were donning our gear, it started to rain, again. Though, as we were in our drysuits, it didn't matter too much really.

We got into the water and me and my buddy swam to the cliff before starting to descend into the water. The goal was once again to look for dragonets on this dive. As we swam along the wall, my buddy started following something, after a closer look, it turned out to be a lobster out in the open, something you don't usually see during the day, though this specific one was pretty big, and the waters pretty dark at this point, so maybe that was the reason for the lobster to be out and about. Either way, we followed it for a little bit, before we left it be and continued to swim towards the depth. When we reached the deeper soft bottom, we started to encounter swimming crabs, as well as common dragonets once more. Not much else was of note on this part of the dive, we turned around at the half tank point and started swimming back. As we reached the shallow waters, I didn't pay attention to where I was swimming and almost got a jellyfish smack dab in the face, i managed to avoid it by getting really flat towards the bottom. As I did this, I saw a small shape sticking out of the sand, as I got closer, i realized it was a Greater weever, a species i know occurs in the area, but is one i hadn't seen yet. So i spent some time photographing it, before i signalled to my buddy to come and photograph it too. After a little while, we left the fish alone and kept swimming back. We surfaced at 65 minutes, got up and doffed our gear, satisfied with the dives of the day.

All in all, the day was a nice dive day, even if the weather did leave some things to wish for, and the chaotic beginning of it.

So until next time! Keep on swimming!

Greater weever, the Swedish equivalent to a Stonefish of warmer waters

Sandvik 27/9 2020. Muck, walls and soft bottoms

Hi and ho!

This weekend me and my buddies went to a site we don't go to as often, Sandvik, which is the dive site furthest into the fjord i know in this area. We decided on this spot due to simply wanting a bit of change.

We arrived at the site, surveyed it, divided ourselves into dive pairs, kitted up and got ready to go into the water.

Swimming crab hiding in the sediment

Dive 1:

Depth: 24m, Time: 47 min, Temp: 16 °C

We swam out to a spot we deemed appropriate for descending, when we reached this particular spot, we rested a bit on the surface before we started descending. We descended quickly and began swimming towards the north west as soon as we could see the bottom. We soon found the wall at about 20 m, which we followed for a little bit, photographing as we went. After a while, we hit turning pressure and started swimming back towards the starting point again. As we swam over the mud bottom that was the seafloor I saw that there was a lot of sea-squirts littering the bottom, both the kind that is found at bottoms, and the kind that usually grows on more solid substrates.

We surfaced at 47 minutes, almost exactly at the same spot we started the dive on, after surfacing, we swam back to the shore, got up and prepared for a surface intervall. 

A cluster of Sea vase tunicates

Dive 2:

Depth: 24 m, Time 48 min, Temp: 16 °C

After a surface intervall with coffee, it was time to get into the water once more. This time i had to join another buddy pair, as my original buddy only wanted to do one dive that day (with diving wet and all, i understand that). So, we did a quick shuffle in the dive pairs and set out for the second dive. We first swam to about the same starting point as the previous dive and started descending from there. This time, we went to the right instead following the wall there for a bit. As we were swimming there, one of my buddies signalled that they were seeing something close to a pair of rocks, I swam closer, to see, and behold! A european lobster was peeking out of a burrow underneath the rocks, so i tried to take at least some photos of it before we continued downwards. After a little while we turned around and started swimming to the left instead, which we did until we hit turn pressure, after which, we started swimming back to our starting point again. We surfaced and got to the shore once more, thus ending the dives for the day.

All in all it was a nice dive day, even if the dive site was a bit on the "muddy" side.

So until next time! Keep on swimming!

European lobster peeking out of it's hidey-hole