Lysekil archipelago 11/10 2020- Unpredictable weather and happenings.

Hi and ho!

This weekend, after much discussing back and forth, me and my buddies had decided upon doing two boat dives in Lysekil. In order to do this, we had to leave at quite the early hours, as the first boat tour went out at 10 am. Said and done, we arrived in Lysekil, kitted up our gear and went to the boat. Unfortunately, one of my buddies accidentally destroyed the zipper of their drysuit while kitting up, so they had to pass on the first dive of the day. Me and my other buddy went out with the boat though. The weather forecast had told of rainy weather all day, and while there was some wetness to be had from the skies on the first boat ride, it did not last very long. So, we arrived at the first dive spot, put on our gear in the boat and got ready to head into the waters.

Devonshire cup coral doing coral things.

Dive 1:

Depth: 26 m, Time: 57 min, Temp: 14°C

Me and my buddy rolled into the water and began swimming towards the cliff wall where the dive was to happen. when we had reached a close enough distance, we signalled that we were going down and began descending. As we descended, it quickly became evident that the vis, while OK, was to be a bit grainy, with a maximum of maybe 7 m vis in any direction. We soon had visual contact with the seafloor, we spent some time on the way down photographing, before we began swimming in the direction we were supposed to go. As we swam, we came across large areas of boulders, where many fish were to be found, both, wrasse and gadiform fish of different kinds.

We also came across large swaths of shell bottom, here it was often also a bit less visibility due to silt in the water column, not sure if that was the previous dive pair, or just naturally occurring silt clouds, the likes that has been in Släggö all summer long. Either way, as we were swimming over the shell bottom, I spotted something a bit dug down in the seafloor, with a closer look i determined that it was a Great Scallop. After photographing it for a little bit, and moving a bit further away, i saw that my buddy was doing something close to the area where the scallop was. Turns out he was picking up a small seastar and placing it on top of the scallop in order to make it start fleeing. As much as i prefer to not touch the animals, i cannot deny that i find the flight of scallops quite entertaining (though you shouldn't touch the animals when you are diving really). So, after we managed to get the scallop swimming, we continued our dive further. As the time started to tick away, and my air started getting low, we began ascending to shallower depth in order to soon end the dive.

As we got up, there was coffee to be had in the boat, which is a super nice thing when you dive in Sweden, so us divers had coffee while we were driving back to harbour for lunch and surface intervall rests.

Great Pipefish on the mixed sediment bottom

Dive 2:

Depth: 28 m, Time: 58 min, Temp: 14°C

After a surface intervall with pizza and relaxing, it was time to get ready for the second dive of the day. This time we went out a bit further in the archipelago, to the outer islands, where the sites are available depending on the weather conditions. This day was one of the rare days where they could go out there without an issue, especially at this time of the year. We went with the same dive pairs as in the morning, with the exception of a new dive pair, consisting of two other friends of mine, one of which was the one that ripped their zipper in the morning. We were dropped into the water close to a set of small islands called "Trillingarna" (The Triplets) where the dive was to happen, me and my buddy descended almost immediately and began swimming with the cliff wall on our left side. On this site, there was a lot of ravines and crevices where the creatures were hanging about. Not much notable on this dive really, Saw quite the number of Henricia. sp sea stars, which, like always, is hard to differentiate to species level from photos only. 

Either way, when I started to near NDL, it was time to start heading upwards again (As my buddy dives rebreather, he does not have to worry about NDLs on this level of diving). So, we swam up in a relatively slow manner, taking our time photographing as we went. When we surfaced and got back into the boat, we once again were given a cup of after-dive coffee, which is always nice 😁

All in all, it was a super nice dive day, with perfect weather for all the sort of diving we do.

So until next time! Keep on Swimming!

Henricia. sp sea star, variant red.

Släggö 19/9 2020, Stubborn gear and semi-night dives.

Hi and ho! 

This weekend, me and my buddies were to meet up with another diving club in Lysekil for some diving and hanging out, unfortunately, this did not come to pass, as our timings did not fit with each others. So instead of going to a new place on the north side of Lysekil, we instead went to Släggö, a safe card when it comes to diving. As we were gearing up, i noticed that one of my regulators was leaking air, and breathing did not fix it, so i had to go up to the dive center and ask them for help, which they did, as they are a really helpful dive center :). When I got back down, one of my buddies had a problem with their suit zipper, it didn't want to close, turns out the zipper teeth was completely broken, so he had to go up and rent a suit from the dive center. After many But's and If's, we finally got into the water, and got ready to start the dive.

Black goby, letting itself be photographed

Dive 1: Depth: 29 m, Time: 57 min, Temp: 16 °C

We swam out from the pier and quite quickly decided to descend into the water, as our land personell was following us with a drone, hoping to catch us doing the descent on photo i presume? Either way, we descended and started following the bottom downwards. As we swam, we started to see that the visibility was getting worse and worse, at below 25 m, there was a significant limitation to our range of vis, being about 4 m at most maybe. As we came to the max depth, we found the "wind protection" structure that can be found a bit out from the cliff walls on the soft bottom slope. After a while, we began running low on "no deco" time and thus promptly ascended to shallower depth, as we got above 24 m, the waters cleared up, and the visibility became around 7 m. As we reached this point, it was also time to turn back, as I was hitting "turn pressure", so we followed the wall back, photographing as we went. As we were nearing the starting point once more, we started to see more and more divers in the water, we promptly decided to end the dive as one diver "bombed" down right to our side. As we got up, we understood, that there was a diving course going on right there and then. So we got up, got out of our gear and went to the pizzeria for a nice surface intervall and early dinner.

Super closeup of the Great scallop, notice the eyes on the rim of the shell?

Dive 2: Depth 29 m, Time: 58 min, Temp: 16 °C

After a nice surface intervall, with food, coffee and hanging out at the dive center, we got ready to get into the water once more. This time, we were only two, as one of my buddies, the one that had to borrow a suit, decided that one dive was enough for the day, they had gotten a bit chilled during the last dive. So me and my second buddy got ready and jumped into the waters. Once again, we followed the slope downwards, as it was getting darker due to the time of the day, there was a lot more life in the water during this dive, with crabs running about, and fish being much less skittish. As we dove down, the visibility had improved somewhat, even if it was still a bit dusty down below 25m. We turned towards the cliff wall and started following it outwards, as we did so, i suddenly spotted a great scallop out and about on top of the sand, with it's tentacles out and the shell opened. So I started photographing it real close up. Soon after that, i hit turn pressure, and we began swimming back, following the cliff. As it was much darker in the water now, even the gobies let themselves be photographed somewhat, so I spent some time doing that on the way back. As we neared the pier, we decided to end the dive there and go up, as the surface people probably wanted to go home soon by then. 

All in all it was a super nice dive day, even if there was some problems with gear in the beginning, but hey, at least the weather was nice and calm.

So until next time! Keep on swimming!

Spotted dragonet, somewhat well camouflaged against the seafloor