Dive trip 3/12- 5/12 2021. Club excursion to the "polar region".

 Hi and ho!

This weekend, the dive club had their yearly winter excursion to Lysekil, combining it with the last parts of the CMAS** course we've had during the autumn. The weather was clear but windy, which in combination of damp ocean air and minus degrees temperatures was really cold if i have to be totally honest. like really freaking cold even. But regardless, we still went diving :)

Rock gunnel (Pholis gunnelus) hiding in the algae on the bottom

Dive 1:

Depth: 18 m, Time 25 min, Temp: 6 C

After some retakes due to insufficient weighting, somewhat leaky drysuit (not mine this time) and other stuff, we started descending quite close to the pier in Släggö, We began swimming outwards, following the sloping downwards. I have to admit that i did get a bit lost and we went a bit too diagonal to reach the usual spots of Släggö, instead we swam out over the soft bottom slope where one usually finds squids during night dives. But as it was daytime, no squids to be seen. Not much of note on this dive. But as we neared the 10 m mark, my buddy started corking, i tried to turn them around and get their  gas out of their suit, but that proved unsuccessful and i had to let them cork while i quickly ascended to the surface to make sure they were ok, which they were. We then swam back to the starting point and got up from the water. When we got up, my buddy told me they were soaking wet, which is less than ideal when it is sub zero temperatures in the air as well as quite windy.

Small frilled anemone on the side of a sunken rowboat

Dive 2:

Depth: 20 m, Time: 50 min, Temp: 6 C.

After lunch and some time to rest, it was time for the night dive part of the course, and of course the other non-course participants like me were doing a night dive as well, no way we were gonna miss this. Well, my previous buddy didn't participate due to their suit being sopping wet and that we discovered that there were holes in the arm seals (and the neck seals was extremely bad too, the dive centre really shouldn't have even had this one out for renting i feel). So i dived with another group instead on this dive. We entered the waters and descended almost immediately in order to look for the lumpsucker that has set up shop. We didn't see it this dive, but alas, tis fine, I've seen it quite a few times already. We started swimming diagonally across the bottom, heading towards the area where one usually can see the squids. At about 18 m, we encountered the thermocline, which was really quite deep down this time. Here it was about 10 C, but as we didn't stay for too long either, we didn't get to enjoy it for quite as long. After turning around and swimming back for a little bit, i noticed a small shape on the bottom, finally, a squid! So of course i had to stay a little bit and photograph the critter. As i was photographing, some of the other dive pairs came up to us to look at the little squid. We swam back and surfaced at 50 minutes, got up and started loading our gear into the car, preparing to go back to the hotel.

The squid!

Dive 3: 

Depth: 12 m, Time: 30 min, Temp: 6 C

On the second day of diving, we first went to Släggö once more for some of the last course stuff, and to just have a nice easy dive after breakfast. I paired up with my buddy from yesterday and we jumped into the water in short order. We quickly descended after that and almost immediately found the lumpsucker hanging out. Unfortunately, i had forgotten to remove the camera cover, so no photos of the lumpsucker this time, as i had to faff about with removing the lens cover underwater, with drygloves on (i managed to do that, but by then the lumpsucker had moved away) Well either way, we continued for a bit more along the bottom, following the line and the slope. While my buddy did have some issues with buoyancy and trim, they did sometimes lie really beautifully in the waters :)

Well either way, at about 12 m, i sort of felt that we shouldn't go deeper, as my buddy was flailing around quite severely right there and then. So i signalled that we were to turn around, which was probably for the best. We swam back in orderly fashion and i once again got a bit lost on the way back. But it wasn't too badly off course from the pier. We surfaced at 30 min and got up, my buddy said they had been leaking from the neck all dive, so they quickly got into cover to change into dry clothes, as it was still rather windy here.

Dahlia anemone with very clear banding

Dive 4:

Depth: 27 m Time: 51 min. Temp: 10 C

After packing up our things and heading out from the hotel, some of us decided that we were to do a last dive in Skår, the dive site close to the ferry terminal in Gullmarsfjorden. 

Me and my buddy descended quickly as soon as i felt it was deep enough, we soon found the dropp off and followed the wall closely, trying to get to the thermocline as soon as possible. The thermocline was found at about 14 m depth this time, which was quite shallow compared to the thermocline the evening before. Well, either way, we continued following the wall downwards. After about 25 minutes, i made signal  to turn around, as we had to swim back too after all. So we turned around and started to head back. As we neared the end of the dive, i spot a small shape on the sand bottom, turned out to be a sand shrimp, which promptly dug itself down into the sand as soon as i got close, but i managed to snap a few photos before it completely burrowed down. We surfaced at 51 minutes, and it was cold in the surface, so we quickly got up and started to doff our gear. Making ready to get home.

All in all, It was a nice dive trip :)

So until next time! Keep on swimming!

Sand shrimp (Crangon crangon) peeking out of the sand

Skår 14/11 2020, Troubles and bubbles.

Hi and ho!

As the autumn is going strong, the days are getting shorter and shorter, meaning night diving is getting easier and easier to do. So, this week me and my buddies decided to shift things around a bit and go to a site we don't go to as often for some reason. The diving spot of this weekend was decided to be Skår, the site furthest out in the fjord of our dive spots. We arrived at the dive spot and met up with our other friends that was to dive with us, got our gear out and set up, divided into buddy pairs and set out for the first dive of the evening.

The North sea tube anemone, a common species on the soft bottoms.

Dive 1:

Depth: 27 m, Time: 44 min, Temp: 11 °C

We waded out in the water until we were about waist deep, at which point, we donned our scuba fins and started swimming out until we reached a point where we couldn't see the bottom anymore. We began descending, and that is where the first troubles started. My buddy had problems descending, but after a little while they managed to start sinking. We descended in a relaxed fashion, signalled "OK" when getting visual of the bottom and started swimming to the right, following the slope and the walls. As we were swimming, and I photographing, my main light started to act up, blinking and dimming randomly, sometimes turning itself off, a problem that persisted throughout the dives, I had to fiddle with that every now and then. When we hit turning pressure, we turned around and began going more shallow and back towards the starting point. At about 20 m, while I was photographing something, my buddy signalled that something was wrong. I looked up and saw that they were starting to float upwards, what ensued was a quick session of dragging down and stabilizing, before I signaled that we were ending the dive by going upwards following the bottom. We continued swimming upwards, while I kept a somewhat closer eye on my buddy. At about 10 m, my buddy started floating upwards again, so I grabbed them while they were looking for a rock to hold onto, as to not float up again, after we found a suitable rock, we leisurely swam upwards to our safety stop and stayed there for the 3 minutes a regular safety stop takes. We ended as soon as the safety stop was done and surfaced. At the surface we did a quick analysis of what went wrong, and came to the conclusion that my buddy had changed to another kind of undersuit, which messed up their buoyancy. We swam onto shore, got up and got ready for a nice surface intervall.

Angular crab ready for a fight

Dive 2:

Depth: 30 m, Time: 38 min, Temp: 11 °C

After a surface intervall with discussions and coffee, me and my buddy got ready for the second dive of the evening. This time, my buddy had added 2 kg of lead to their system, which made the descent much easier this time. We swam out and started descending almost immediately after making sure everything was OK (well except my light that is). After getting visual of the seafloor, we started following the slope downwards and to the right once more, this time going slightly deeper than the earlier dive. As we were swimming, the second dive pair signalled us to come and look at something. Turns out that something was a Norway lobster hiding in it's burrow in the soft bottom, however, due to to my lamp acting up, I could not photograph this one. Soon after this, we started to near the NDL, so in order to keep somewhat better margins, me and my buddy ascended a few meters before we continued to follow the walls and slopes. As we were swimming, my buddy signalled me that they saw something, I turn my head, and behold, there was an Angular crab sitting on the cliff wall right beside me, so I started photographing this specific individual. After i felt I was done, we continued until we hit turn pressure and turned around. We swam upwards following the slopes and soon hit the safety stop. While laying on the safety stop, I spent some time photographing a Baltic prawn that had come wandering into my line of sight. We ended the dive soon after and got up, turns out I had navigated rather wrong, and we were a bit further from the landing point than I thought.

All in all, it was a nice night diving evening, even if  I have realized that I need to buy a new dive light very very soon.

So until next time! Keep on Swimming!

Baltic prawn out and about on the sand at night.

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