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)

Stavanger 1/7- 3/7 2023 A journey to the west

Hi and Ho!

It has once again been a while (but such is life).

In the meantime i have been diving as usual, and most recently went to Norway for a diving trip, more exactly the Stavanger area, where the goal was to look for Spiny dogfish, a small species of shark native to this part of the world.

Due to the weather, we couldn't go to the spot we had originally planned, but such is life when diving.

Prideaux's hermit crab, together with the Cloak anemone (Calliactis palliata), these two are almost always encountered together 

1/7 2023

Dive 1: Talgje

Depth: 30 m, Time: 50 min, Temp 8 C

We were shown a site on the eastern tip of a island called Talgje, so that became the name of the dive site. We began with kitting up on the shore, where there was a few benches one could put the gear on while kitting up, we then divided ourselves into pairs and started to wade out into the water (with some difficulties, lots of algae covered slippery rocks. Well into the water, it quickly dropped off and got deep, so we got our bearings on the surface, talked through the plans and started to descend. As we descended, we quickly realized that "oh mighty Poseidon, the visibility is REALLY good" and for real, the visibility must have been 20-30 m, almost tropical levels. Our guides (local divers from the area) started with putting out a meshbag with some mackerels in it, in order to potentially lure out the spiny dogfish in the area. We then left the meshbag hanging mid-water and continued to swim along the wall, taking in and enjoying the sights. As we swam along, i started to spot hermit crabs that were swimming away from us, getting a bit closer, I realized that this was a different species than the one we have in my usual diving spots. A species we actually don't have in Sweden, the Prideaux's hermit crab. 

After about 20 minutes, we turned around and made our way back towards the starting point, where the mesh bag was located, hoping to find sharks circling around, but alas, no sharks this dive. We ended the dive at 50 minutes, got up and started to make ready to head to the cabin we had rented, to make some dinner (as it was a bit late at this point)

Dive 2: Ølbergstrand

Depth: 3 m, Time 40 min, Temp: 11 C

From our guides, we had heard that there was a dive site reachable from the shore close to the cabin we were staying in, a dive site where there was a kelp forest, So me and two other buddies headed there after eating dinner, we soon found that it was outside a small harbour, and that the most effective way to get there was to enter the water in the harbour and do a surface swim out. Well that is what we did, as soon as we had gotten out of the harbour, we started to descend into the water, and soon found the kelp forest after a bit of swimming. We spent some time in the kelp forest before one of us was starting to get sea sick (there was some swell from the open sea further out, and this was a exposed site), so we started to make our way back at this point. We ended our dive at 40 minutes, got up and started to doff our gear and head back to our cabin.

Gold-star Tunicate in the kelp forest of Ølbergstrand

2/7 2023

Dive 3: Horgje

Depth: 29 m, Time 55 min, Temp 8 C

We got invited to do a boat dive together with the local diving club, Stavanger Dykkerklubb. The tour took us to the nearby island of Horgje, more exactly the south-eastern tip of the island, where one can either dive along a wall, or a more gentle slope with a lot of algae forest. Me and my buddy chose to dive the wall this time, and so we did. Unfortunately, i had accidentally left the camera out in the sun again, so i was getting a fogged up lens, and thus, no photos from this dive. Oh well, me and my buddy swam along the wall, the visibility was pretty good here as well, though not as good as Talgje. After about 30 minutes, I made signal to turn around, and we started to swim back to the boat. We ended the dive at 55 minutes, got up in the boat and doffed our gear, waiting for the other's to finish their dives.

Dive 4: Fantahåla

Depth: 36 m, Time 66 min, Temp: 8 C

The fourth dive took us a bit outside of Stavanger, to the site of Fantahåla in Lysefjorden. This site is a wall that goes quite deep down, so one needs to have good buoyancy control. We were guided there by Gjesdal dykkerklubb, using their boat to reach the site, we were dropped of inside the ravine of Fantahåla and swam to the wall before starting to descend. As we descended, it quickly became clear that visibility was to be quite bad, to the level of  the kind of visibility we have here in Sweden. We followed the wall, and soon, our guide pointed their flashlight at something, this something turned out to be a Deeplet sea anemone, another species that is relatively rare back home in Sweden. As we swam along, there were more of the Deeplet sea anemones, but as my camera housing was still a bit foggy, I couldn't quiet get a good photo until the tail-end of the dive. 

We ended the dive at 66 minutes, got back into the boat and started to head home once more :)

Deeplet sea anemone with a Norway king crab hiding underneath

3/7 2023

Dive 5: Talgje

Depth: 29 m, Time 59 min, Temp: 8 C

The last dive of the trip was taken at Talgje, this time, we went down into the water on the other side of the bay, where it was much much easier to get in and don our fins. We swam out of the bay and started to descend pretty soon afterwards. Once again, the visibility was incredible, maybe slightly worse than the previous time, but still extremely good by our Swedish standards. We followed the wall once more, hoping to find any sharks, but to no avail, there was no sharks this time either, there was however a lot of other critters to photograph instead, so i was still satisfied. After swimming around for about 30 minutes, I made the signal for me and my buddy to turn back, And so we did, we did however miss our mark by a bit, and ended up on the wrong side of the bay, so there was a bit of a surface swim back to our starting point. We ended the dive at 59 minutes, got up and started doffing our gear, making ready to head back to the cabin for dinner and cleaning before leaving the next morning.

All in all it was a very satisfying trip, even if one of my drysuit boots was leaking quite severely, so i ended ever dive sopping wet.

So until next time! Keep on swimming!

Candy-striped flatworm, there was a lot of them on the site of Talgje

15/9-18/9 2021. A trip to Flekkefjord, Norway with Chalmers diving club.

 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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!

Opening to one of the 1700s cannons on the bottom, this was the first of many.

Diving weekend in Norway 13/12-15/12 2019. Rusty wrecks and new divers

Hi and ho!

Torsk (Gadus morhua)

It's been a while since the last post. This time, along with Chalmers Diving Club, I was on a weekend trip to Norway, more specifically at Prodykk Oslo, north of Drøbak. The goal of this trip was to dive around wrecks, which were available for both beginners and more advanced divers at this dive site

Dahlia anemone (Urticina felina)

The first dive was a night dive 13/12, When we arrived in Norway we received a message that an acquaintance of the issuer had the time and desire to show us a local place called Hvitsten Torg. We walked in from a sandy beach and waded out a bit before going down and swimming west along a wall. On the soft bottom, there were plenty of Valthorn snails or Kongesnegle as they are called in Norwegian. On the wall were all sorts of sessile and crawling animals, such as sea anemones and sea drills.



The second dive day 14/12, Started with a porridge breakfast and some sandwiches before we went to the dive site with the recently graduated divers at Prodykk Oslo's premises, where all the wrecks were available. Getting the equipment in order took a while, but after a while most people could get in the water and start diving. We swam around the various wrecks and looked at various animals hiding in them or sitting on them. The weather on the surface left a lot to be desired, with rain, snow mixed rain and generally wet.

Common whelk (Buccinum undatum)

The third day started just like the second day, with a porridge breakfast and preparation of a lunch consisting of cheese sandwiches with toppings. This time we switched around the diver and did some other dives. During this dive, I managed to navigate fairly well, as my dive buddy and I came up about where we started. On today's second dive, some of us planned more experienced to go down on a wreck that was a little deeper. However, it turned out that one of us had problems with his suit hose and therefore had to cancel his dive. Due to a misunderstanding between us that remained, we went up instead of continuing down towards the wreck. When we straightened out the misunderstanding we felt we had too little air left to continue to the wreck, so we decided to dive under the jetties instead. We held on for a while until we felt it was time to get out of the water.

Aeolidia papillosa

As mentioned earlier, the weather was not optimal for comfortable diving at all. But all in all, it was pretty nice after all :)

So until next time, Keep on swimming!

Cerianthus lloydii