Ormestad 28/8 2021 Blue waters and deceptively good visibility.

 Hi and ho!

This weekend, after a somewhat large surface intervall due to various stuff, it was once more time to get diving! After much back and forth, we decided to go to Ormestad, the site with the vertical wall from the surface and down to 90 m depth. The weather on this day was rather good when we got there, with sun and clear blue sea, the visibility seemed quite good as well from the surface. So we divided ourselves into pairs or groups and got ready to head out into the waters. Me and my buddy decided that the first dive was to be over the soft bottom on the right side of Ormestad instead of going to the wall for the first dive.

Devonshire cup coral

Dive 1:

Depth: 30 m, Time 54 min, Temp: 14 C.

We descended quickly after swimming out from land, as this site drops off pretty quickly. During the descent we quickly discovered that the visibility wasn't as great as we had thought on the surface, but not bad by Swedish standards. We followed the bottom slope downwards until we hit the maximum depth we had agreed upon. As it had been a little while since i was in the water, i couldn't quite get the buoyancy right in the beginning, but after a while it came back to me. As we had taken our time to reach the deepest part, we were sort of running a bit low on the No deco limit time, so we ascended a few meters to have some larger margins. After about 30 minutes, I made signal to turn around, as we had said a maximum dive time of 1 h. So that we did, swimming back slowly but surely. We surfaced at 54 minutes, got up, doffed our gear and got ready for a surface interval

Claws of a Norway Lobster hiding in it's burrow

Dive 2: 

Depth 24 m, Time 41 min, Temp: 14 C

After a surface intervall, it was time to head out into the water, this time we had another, newer diver with us, yet we decided to dive the wall of Ormestad, the main attraction of the dive site. Said and done, we swam out to the wall before descending, We descended in a orderly fashion and slowly made our way along the wall, I kept an eye on our newer diver, so didn't snap as many photos this dive. The dive went pretty fine, though I did find it a bit nerve wracking to see the newer diver flail about all over the place. After a little while, it was signalled that we were to turn around, so we began swimming back along the wall, though at a somewhat shallower depth. 

We surfaced at 41 minutes, swam back to shore, doffed our gears and got ready.

All in all, it was a very nice day, and i finally got into the water after a slight dry-spell again.

So until next time. Keep on swimming!

Henricia starfish, this one with a beautiful purple colouration

Ormestad 27/3 2021. Mud and clear waters.

Hi and ho!

This weekend, me and my buddies decided to go dive in the Gullmar fjord, as we reasoned that the ice cover that had been there due to the cold-snap in January to February had to be gone by now. Said and done, we decided that the site of the day was to be Ormestad, the best wall diving spot in the area. Due to rain and melting ground frost, ice and snow, the ground in the area was very soft and muddy (so muddy that we in fact got stuck for a while when we were leaving the site later at night). So, we parked our car, carried our dive gear to the wood pier in the area and geared up for the dive.

Bobtail squid resting on the bottom

Dive 1:

Depth 26 m, Time: 43 min, Temp: 5 °C

We waded out into the water and started swimming towards the cliff on the left side of the bay, as to reach the main attraction of Ormestad, the vertical wall that extends from the surface and down to 90m depth. When we reached the wall we started to descend, following the wall down to an appropriate depth and outwards with the wall to our left. As we descended, we realized that the surface had rather bad visibility, which cleared up after about 5 m, going from 2 m visibility to about 7-10m. On the wall, it was full of sessile organisms like tube worms, sea anemones and sea squirts of different kind. After a little while, it became time to turn around as I hit turn pressure in my tanks. So that we did. At 43 minutes, we surfaced and started to swim back to the wood pier from where we started. During this dive I was testing out the new camera housing trigger (in reality a old one from my previous camera house, the one on my current camera housing broke last week), which worked pretty well, just took a bit more force to take photos.

After we got up, we had a bit of a surface intervall before getting ready for the next dives.

Dive 2:

Tall sea pen, one among many

Depth 28 m, Time 37 min, Temp: 5 °C

After having a surface intervall, we got ready to get into the water, I almost didn't do the dive, as my stomach was feeling like it was acting up a little bit. But soon it calmed down, and I got ready to dive in a jiffy. This dive, we went towards the right side of Ormestad instead, where there is a muddy slope instead of a vertical wall. We followed the slope downwards, looking at (and in my case, photographing) the critters that showed up here. At about 24 m depth, we hit a rather nice "forest" of Tall sea pen, which I stayed around to try and photograph a little bit. After we left the forest, we encountered a bobtail squid resting on the sea floor, which I of course had to photograph as well. Around this time the no deco limit time was starting to run low, so we had to start swimming upwards again. We surfaced at 37 minutes and swam back to shore.

All in all, it was a nice dive day, even if we did get stuck in the mud with the car as we were leaving. 

So until next time! Keep on swimming! 

Rugose squat lobster hiding in crevice 

Ormestad 5/9 2020. Into the abyss and back again.

Sealoch anemone, a closer look :)

Hi and ho!

This weekend me and my buddies went to Ormestad and the great walls that can be found there. This time around, we had gathered quite a sizable number of people that wanted to go diving. a whole 9 people, including an instructor of mine. So we got to Ormestad, picked the gear out of the car (after I accidentally bumped into a log, managed to scrape off some paint off the car), carried it to the jetty at the shore, divided into dive pairs and got ready to head out into the water.

The great wall of Ormestad, covered in various organisms

Dive 1: 

Depth: 35 m, Time: 60 min Temp: 16 °C

I paired up with my buddy, and planed to go quite deep this first dive, we got into the water, swam out to the wall and descended when we realized that the winds were not favourable. We descended in a orderly fashion straight down towards the abyss. As we descended, we felt that there was a current going outwards from 15 m to about 30 m. So we got carried by the current while descending for quite a bit. While I was photographing some other stuff, my buddy signalled to me to come and look at something, so I came over, and lo and behold, a Plated squat lobster, the first I've ever seen of this species. So i spent a minute trying to photograph that one. After a while, we started nearing deco, so we started to ascend a bit in order to go into deco. As I hit turning pressure I signaled to my buddy and we began swimming back, Not much occurred on the swim back really, saw some lobsters hiding among the rubble and in the crevices of the cliff. As we were laying on the safety stop, my buddy and I decided to shoot some SMB, as it is good to train for real situations. said and done, we both launched our buoys and started ascending as we retrieved the lines for the buoys. As we did this, my buddy got a lion's mane jellyfish right in their face, and promptly dropped their double-ender which I saw and retrieved immediately. As we got up, we took off our gear and enjoyed our surface intervall with food and drinks.

The plated squat lobster (Munida rugosa), hiding in a crevice

Dive 2:

Depth: 28m, Time: 59 min. Temp: 16 °C

After a nice surface intervall with food, drinks and chatting, we prepared to go into the water once more. This time we did a bit of a switch between the pairs, me and my buddy got a newer diver with us as their previous buddy wanted to do another kind of dive. We planned to do another dive at the wall, this time a bit shallower though. As we got there, it became clear that the newer diver was having problems, too much weight, and he could not stay afloat, thus we had to abort the dive and get him to the surface so he could end the dive. When we got to the surface and got his buoyancy under control, he told us that he just was going to head back to shore and that we should continue with our dive. So we kept an eye on him for a bit to see that he got to safer, more shallow waters, before we began our second dive for real. I had no camera with me this dive as I was aware that there was a risk of problems occurring with our second buddy, which did come true. So anyways, after seeing that he got to safer waters and that the dive leader on land saw them, me and my buddy started to descend once more. There was still that current at about 15 and downwards, so we let it carry us for a bit, looking in the crevices and rubble along the cliff. At about 26 m, there was a rather sizable overhang, all covered in tube worms, anemones and ascidians. As with the previous dive, we started ascending as we were nearing deco time. So that we did, as we ascended, the current had increased in intensity, which made the swim back a bit of a slog before we got above the current. As we were laying on the safety stop, I started to feel the nature call, so after we had our 3 minutes on the safety stop, I signaled to my buddy that nature was calling and i needed to get up pretty soon, so that we did, and I got to rush and take care of business. 

All in all, it was a very nice dive day, much better than expected, especially with the weather forecast telling of rain, yet there was none.

So until next time! Keep on swimming!

A dead man's fingers coral

Ormestad 27/6 2020. Heatwave and sweet thermoclines

Hi and ho! 

Peacock feather duster worm, a tube dwelling species of marine worms.

This weekend me and my buddies decided to go out in the "nice" weather for a whole day of diving and bbq on the beach. Said and done, we decided to go to Ormestad, the best land diving wall in all of the Gullmar fjord. When we got there we realized how sweltering hot it was (32 C, while not much for many countries, is rather hot for us Swedes), but nonetheless we were determined to dive. So we kitted up as quickly as possible and rushed to the waters in order to escape the heat.

Dive 1: 

Depth: 26 m , Time: 47 min, Temp: 9 °C

Devonshire cup coral

Me and my buddy decided to dive the main attraction of Ormestad, namely the wall. so we swam out to it and started descending. When we hit 5 m, it was like hitting a wall of cold air as we penetrated the thermocline, which was rather shallow this dive. It went from 20 C waters to sub 10 C waters almost immediately, which was a nice escape from the sweltering heat up on the surface, the visibility also became so much better, going from about 3 to about 10 m. We kept descending, following the wall, photographing as we went. As always, the wall of Ormestad just kept giving, with huge amounts of Peacock feather duster worms, sealoch anemones and other organisms. As we lay on about 25 m depth, I saw some of the other divers in our group coming our way, quite the distance below us (maybe about 5 m), when they passed underneath us, their bubbles unfortunately silted the wall for us as there was a slight concave shape on the all between us, but such is life. Me and my buddy turned around and swam back at about 120 bars left, as we had decided upon on the surface.

When we got up on land again, we took off all the gear and prepared for some nice bbq.

A school of Herring with some nice ambient lighting

Dive 2:

Depth: 16 m, Time: 55 min, Temp 9 °C

After bbq, and some resting to digest the food, we decided to once again get into the water. This time the plan was to keep it a bit more shallow, while diving on the same wall. So said and done, we kitted up and began swimming towards the cliff once more. We descended in a fashion similar to the previous dive and began following the wall. As i used a different tank than usual, i was a bit "off" in my trim, but it was manageable. On this dive I photographed some different species of starfish, including a Henricia. sp starfish, as we were swimming back, we both spied a large male of Cuckoo wrasse, but alas, it was impossible to photograph, I did however manage to get a somewhat decent photo of one of the females that was hiding in a crevice, so there is that :)

As we got up, we heard that it was starting to rumble in the distance, signaling that there was a thunderstorm coming in, so we packed our stuff quickly and finished up in good time before it all broke loose 

Henricia. sp, 

All in all, it was a super nice dive day, even if the surface temperature was pure torture this day in a drysuit.

So until next time. Keep on swimming!

Female Cuckoo wrasse, not as colourful as the male, but a nice beauty nonetheless

Ormestad 1/3 2020. Gunk and wall dives

Hi and ho!

This week we went to Chalmers Diving Club once again to "Gullmarsfjorden's best wall dive site ", Ormestad. This time it had rained quite much the days before, so the road down to the dive site was muddy to say the least. Once we got to the dive site and loaded off all the gear, it was time to start getting ready for the first dive.

Dive 1 : 

Time: 40 min. Max depth: 22 m Temp: 5°C

Trubbstjärtat långebarn

We prepared and stepped into the water. When my dive buddy and I went down, a blood vessel burst in my buddy's nose, so we had to end the dive. Once up on the surface we did a quick reorganization, my dive buddy swam ashore and I went down with another dive couple. In the new dive pair we went down in regular order and started swimming outwards and downwards. This day the visibility was pretty good throughout the water column, with plenty of light a good distance down, totally opposite conditions to last week. Since before us there had been a course with Re-breather on the dive site, the bottom was quite upset at some places. It became bad with photos this dive when a combination of "silt" in the water column and some other stuff, which made me focus more on other things.


After we finished the dive we went up and then had lunch consisting of sausages with buns.

Sea-loch anemone

Dive 2: 

Time 34 min . Max depth 27 m. Temp 5-7 °C

Peacock pipe worm

After eating and resting ourselves during the surface interval, we set ourselves up for today's second dive. Although it was closer to 5 in the afternoon, it was still bright outside. That said and done, we went in and decided to dive along the wall that lies to the west at Ormestad, as this is the best wall in all of the Gullmar fjord. The wall starts shallow and goes quite vertically down to 80-90m depth, so you have to keep track of how to stay neutral in the water. When we reached the wall we found that it was flowing, so we just floated with the current for a while. During this dive we saw a lot of Peacock Pipe Worm, Sea-loch anemones and other trapped animals. Unfortunately, the battery in my camera ran out in the middle of the dive, so there were not too many pictures this dive either.

When we went up I tried to shoot Surface Marker Buoy, which could have gone better because my lips were just too cold to be able to stop tight against the blow nozzle, but eventually I managed to inflate it.

So until next time, keep on swimming

Reteporella beaniana - A bryozoan

Ormestad 23/2 2020. Pea soup with shrimps

Hi and ho!

This week me and my dive buddies went to Ormestad, in the Gullmar fjord, which according to one of us is the best dive site in the Gullmar fjord. The weather forecast had predicted a day of blowing and scattered showers. When we arrived at the site and removed all the equipment, it was time for the first dive.

The Sea pen is not a plant, it is an animal

Dive 1: 
Me and my dive buddy decided to do a wall dive, which meant we had to swim a long way to reach the rock wall that is on the left side of Ormestad. That being said and done, once we got to the place we thought was appropriate, we started going down. The first 5 meters before it cleared up was like "pea soup", once we got under the murky surface layer, the visibility was about 3-5 m. We swam on along the cliff wall down to about 25 m depth. When we got rid of the lamps along the bottom, there were very many small reflective dots, the eyes of shrimp, and large ones as well. After a while we turned and swam back the way we came. The water temperature was measured to 5 ° C at all depths, which was expected as there has been a lot of mixing of the water masses lately. As we stepped out of the water, my dive buddy slipped and hurt themselves in the arm, which caused us to change the diver pair for dive 2.

There was a lot of Caramel shrimp during the dives

Frilled anemones sure can grow big, they are pretty too though

Dive 2:
On the second dive, me and my dive buddy chose to go out on the deep soft bottom, this because we were too lazy to take the long surface swim to the rocks. That said, we went down in peace, the visibility was as bad as the first dive the first 3-5 meters. Once we got down under the lid, oriented ourselves and made "Okay signs" we swam out and down, while we swam we saw that more and more shrimp, until it reached the level of a mat of shrimp. By then I had stopped photographing them as it became far too much for me. When we reached the maximum depth of about 30 m we swam around for a while before it was time to turn. While we were swimming around, we came across a large Deep sea king crab out on the soft bottom, more shrimp and a couple of large sea snails. The temperature in the water during this dive was between 5-6 ° C, which is quite normal for the season.



All in all, this was a very good dive day, even though my first dive buddy got hurt

So until next time, keep on swimming!

Deep sea King Crab

Ormestad 28/4-2019, Krabbor, Hummer och cylinderrosor

Henricia spp

Tjenare!

Cylinderros (Cerianthus lloyidii)

I helgen var jag tillsammans med CDK ute på dagsutfärd till Sveriges enda och bästa tröskelfjord, Gullmarsfjorden, närmare bestämt, Ormestad. Denna dykplats består av 2 olika sorters dyk: Simmar man åt vänster förbi båthamnen kommer man till en klippa som sluttar rakt ner i vattnet. Följer man denna klippa kommer man till en vägg som går rakt ner till ca 80m. På detta väggdyk ser man ofta Påfågelrörmask, sjöpungar och diverse fiskar och skaldjur i skrevorna. Är säsongen rätt (mellan Januari till Juni) kan man även med god chans se trollkrabbor sitta lite varstans från 12m och neråt. Simmar man åt höger istället kommer man till en botten som sluttar neråt i platåer i typisk gullmars-stil. Här kan man mycket fisk och nässeldjur som lever på mjukbotten samt även krabbor, havskräftor och ibland även rocka!
 Just på denna dyktur såg jag cylinderrosor, krabbtaskor, trollhummrar och en liten hummer bland stenarna och ute på lerbotten. Vi var lite oroliga med vädret då prognosen sa att det skulle regna under dagen. Men när vi kom fram till dykplatsen så var det bra väder, och det blev bara bättre under dagen.
Sikten var god under dyket, med några få lager av dåligare sikt på grund av olika salthalter. Temperaturen börjar närma sig 10 grader i ytan så man känner att sommaren kanske har börjat komma :)
Det är nästan så att man börjar känna sig lite lätt bortskämd med alla bra dyk man har haft på sistone.

Ser fram emot nästa dyk och vad som kan tänkas ses där.
Så tills nästa gång. Simma lungt

Havsros (Urticina felina)

Europeisk Hummer (Homarus gammarus)