Hällebäck 21/1 2023 And we're back in business!

 Hi and ho!

It has been a while, mostly due to Christmas holidays and people not being available. Either way, we should be back in business now (yeah totally not jinxing it).

This week, we went to Hällebäck for diving, as it is the season for King crab and nudibranchs right now, and Hällebäck is a very good site to find them at.

First Deep-sea King crab (Lithodes maja) of the year, winter is the best season for them.

Dive 1:

Depth: 32 m, Time: 51 min, Temp: 5 C

We jumped in and did a surface swim until we were in line with the second jetty of Hällebäck, which is a good place to start descending. We gathered up a bit on the surface, as we realized on the surface that there was a brown freshwater lid on the top, limiting visibility to the extreme. Well, either way, we started descending and at about 6 m, the waters started to clear up a bit, though still a bit gunky. As soon as we found the bottom, we started to follow it outwards and to the left, looking for the king crabs and other things that make this time of the year interesting in Hällebäck. After a few minutes of swimming and searching, I chanced to look up on the wall, and lo and behold, a king crab sitting there. After staying around and photographing it for a little bit, we continued on, following the cliff walls. At about 20 minutes, we turned around and started to make our way back towards the entry point again. We surfaced at 51 minutes, feeling a bit cold and miserable, looking forward to the warm drinks we had prepared for the surface interval :)

Typical Spiny squat lobster (Galathea strigosa) photo

Dive 2:

Depth: 23 m, Time: 45 min, Temp: 5 C

After a good surface interval, it was time to head back into the waters, this time we were planning to dive towards the right side instead, keeping it more shallow, while also looking for squids. We descended closer to the jetty that we jumped in from. After descending, we followed the slope towards the right side. Not much was seen on this dive really, probably because of the season and temperature in the water, though there were some critters out and about in the darkness. The seafloor however, did look quite barren and also quite a bit "dirty" in a sense, maybe next time, I should take a photo of it, for scientific documentation?

Once again, we turned around at about 20 minutes, making our way back to the starting point once more. We surfaced at 45 minutes, got up and started doffing our gear and make ready to head home.

All in all, it was a nice first dive of the year, if a bit cold, but that's to be expected for the season.

So until next time! Keep on swimming!

Close up of a Daubed shanny (Leptoclinus maculatus)

Släggö 6/11 2021, Diversnight

 Hi and ho!

This weekend was the weekend of Diversnight, the international night dive event where divers gather and dive together, making the sea light up like the starry skies. Well, the starry skies were very much absent this year, as the surface weather was absolutely atrocious, with winds and pouring rain, right into the dive site, not that it mattered underwater, but just saying.

Grey gurnard crawling along the bottom

Dive 1:

Depth: 26 m, Time 54 min, Temp: 13 C

Me and my two buddies swam out to about the buoy that marks one spot in Släggö, when we reached the buoy, we started descending into the water column, unfortunately, i didn't manage to fix the leak in my glove system, so yeah, there was some slight leakage into the glove, but nothing immediately alarming. Either way, right as we descended and were getting our bearings in the water, i spot a small long shape in the algae and eelgrass, with a closer look it was a Great pipefish trying to camouflage itself. So of course i had to stay a bit to photograph it. After I deemed that I had bothered the pipefish enough, we continued along the slope as we usually do, making a sweep over the soft bottom before heading towards the cliff side. On the soft bottom were the usual suspects of harbour swimming crabs, as well as some grey gurnards crawling across the seafloor. After a little while we turned towards the cliff, so as to have a reference on the way back. As we swam along the wall, we saw that the lobsters and squat lobsters were quite active at the time, as it was dark after all, some even out in the open. We surfaced at 54 min, got up and prepared for a windy and rainy surface interval, though we soon went up to the dive centre to get away from the worst of it.

Common bobtail, one of many encountered this time

Dive 2

Depth: 23 m, Time: 43 min, Temp 13 C

Now this dive was the big Diversnight dive, so me and my buddy jumped into the water, but waited until they rang the clock before descending into the water column. This time we swam towards the right side of the bay, as we had been told that there were squid to be seen over there. After a little bit, my buddy signalled me to come and look at something, turned out to be the first squid of 5, this particular one was standing quite raised up from the bottom, so i stayed for a few minutes to photograph it as it was posing so nicely for me, a real little camera fiend i tell you! We continued after i was done with that squid, following the slope. As we were swimming, i spotted a fishy shape a little bit away, which i promptly swam closer to and saw that it was a Striped mullet, a fish that changes colour depending on time of the day. After photographing it for a little bit, we continued forward, finding many a squid and mullet before we turned around and started making our way back towards the starting point. We surfaced at 43 minutes, got up and doffed our gear before heading towards the dive centre for some grilled hotdogs and relaxing before we were to head home.

All in all, despite the atrocious weather on the surface, it was a nice and successful divers night event :)

So until next time! Keep on swimming!

Striped mullet on shell gravel

Släggö 3/10 2021 Why are we doing this?

 Hi and ho!

This weekend's weather has been atrocious, with pouring rain and strong winds all weekend long. Nonetheless we decided to go diving because we are utterly and completely insane all of us😃. The dive site for this weekend was decided to be Släggö in Lysekil, a easy and somewhat protected site where one can change underneath a roof which is very nice when it is raining like it was this weekend. So, we arrived on the dive site and quickly got into the drysuits, as it is much nicer to kit up like that when it is raining outside. After getting our gear ready, we divided into groups and headed out for the first dive of the day.

Longspined bullhead (Taurulus bubalis) hiding among the algae in the shallow part

Dive 1:

Depth: 27 m, Time: 41 min, Temp: 14 C

My dive group swam out towards the corner of the cliff before starting to descend, before descending, i had to help one of my buddies with a leaking dryglove system, turned out to be a O-ring that had gotten wedged a little bit, but that was soon fixed. We descended into the water and the visibility was terrible, but we pressed on, going deeper, and it started clearing up at about 10 m depth. We swam along the slope and cliffs, getting out to the deeper mixed soft sediment bottom. Here it was as dark as a night dive, which is normal for the season, and thus the night diving season has sort of started for us. It was at this point I spotted a small shape flitting about in the light from the camera rig, with a closer look I realized it was a small squid. So I immediately went about to photograph it, but to no avail, it was constantly swimming into the lens of the camera, making focus impossible. Well, after swimming around trying to get some kind of focus on it, I gave up and continued the dive, now following the slope upwards towards the cliff walls and rubble areas. It was around here one of my buddies signaled that they were at 120 bars and it was time to turn around, so that we did. A little bit after turning around, I look down on the cliff wall for a bit and spot a enormous Lumpsucker in a crevice. After photographing (and accidentally stressing out the poor fish) i swam away from it, leaving it be. At about the safety stop depth, I also spot a shape hiding in the algae, turned out to be a small conger that was too shy to peek out, so no photos there either.

We surfaced at 41 minutes, got up and got ready for a surface interval.

The poor Lumpsucker that got quite stressed by our presence around it.

Dive 2

Depth: 28 m, Time: 43 min, Temp: 14 C

After a surface interval and some food and hot drinks, we once again made ready to head out. This time we did some re-shuffling of the pairs, though i still ended up with one of my previous buddies, as we both had double tanks. Once again, me and my buddy swam out a bit before descending in a orderly fashion and followed the slope downwards once more. Though i think we sort of topped the dive day on the first dive already, and this dive was much less exciting. We found the metal "Lean-to" that is installed on the bottom at 28-ish meters depth, where some spider crabs and some squat lobsters were hanging about. We swam around the structure for a little bit before continuing over the soft bottom, albeit a bit more shallow, as we were running a bit lower on NDL time. We swam along, following the slope and the wall, until we once again ended up in the shallower parts, where we ended the dive at 43 minutes.

All in all, i am satisfied with the dives of this weekend, even if the weather was completely and utterly atrocious.

So until next time! Keep on swimming!

Spiny squat lobster hiding on the "Lean-to" structure at 28 m depth in Släggö

Jordfall 31/10 2020. Two more for the list

Hi and ho!

This weekend we once again decided upon doing some night dives, and as usual, the site was decided upon on the way to the sites. Once again it was decided to be in the Jordfall marina, as one of us was there doing their dive master examination, which fit us rather well. Said and done, we arrived at the site late in the afternoon with food and drinks for our buddy at the site, got our gear out and started preparing for the dives. After setting up, we divided into pairs, made our dive plans, geared up and started to get into the water.

Close up of a squat lobster, look how beautiful the colours are.

Dive 1:

Depth: 31 m, Time: 36 min, Temperature: 11°C

Me and my buddy got into the water and swam out to the end of the jetty before we started descending. Like the week before, the surface waters were somewhat brown due to the freshwater flow from land bringing humus into the top layer, but as soon as we got underneath it, the vis cleared up much more. We immediately started following the slope downwards in order to search for squid. As we were swimming downwards, I spot something peculiar at the edge of my light cone, as I got closer I realized it was a crab, and a species I've never seen before. So I started photographing it, unfortunately it was very skittish and started running as soon as I got closer, meaning that there was no close up photo of this one. Later when I had gotten home and had access to my books and sources, I found out that what I saw was an Angular crab (Goneplax rhomboides), a species that is recently immigrated to Swedish waters.

After leaving the crab be, me and my buddy continued our dive, looking for squids and other creatures, but no squids were to be found in the deep this time. After a while, it became time for us to start ascending, as we were both getting low on No Deco Limit time and gas, so we followed the bottom upwards again. As we were starting to come more shallow, with our NDL and gas still good, we decided to start swimming towards the left, and so we did until we found the cliff wall and boulders, there we spent some time looking into the crevices for various creatures, as I was photographing a crab, my buddy started signalling that they were seeing something, as I took a look, I first did not see anything, but after a few seconds of looking, lo and behold! A squid!, so I spent some time there, photographing the critter before I decided that I had harassed it enough and let it be. We ended the dive soon after, as we decided that it was simply time to get up for a nice thermos of hot beverage. Said and done, we got up, took off our dive packages and began discussing the things we had seen during the dive over some hot coffee.

The Angular crab is a species new to the area, the first records of it are from 2008

Dive 2:

Depth: 22 m, Time: 44 min, Temperature: 11°C

After a surface intervall with discussions and warm beverages, we once again got into the water for another dive. This time we went down in the same spot as before, however we started swimming left quite quickly, finding the walls early. We followed the walls during this dive, keeping on average above 20 m. As we were swimming around, I spot a shape close to the bottom, which turned out to be another squid, so we spent some time around the squid as I photographed it. After a while, it became time to turn around as we had been in the water for a while now, meaning that we needed some time to get back to the starting point as well. As we were nearing the end point, I was taking a closer look on some rocks when I spotted a small shape on top of one of them, turned out to be an Bryer's Nut crab (Ebalia tumefacta), a miniscule species of crab that I've never seen before as well, so that one got photographed as well :)

We ended the dive at 44 minutes as we simply had gotten so shallow that i thought it wasn't worth prolonging the dive anymore by then.

All in all, it was a super duper dive day, especially since I got to see two species I've never seen before, as well as squids, always love seeing them squids :)

Bryer's nut crab, a species about the size of a pinky finger nail, thus making it easily overlooked

So until next time! Keep on Swimming!

Love the Common bobtail squids, they are so cute when they dig down into the bottom like this

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

Släggö 26/10 2019. Tusen och ett nattdyk

Hej och hå!

Spetskalamar (Alloteothis subulata)

Denna vecka åkte jag tillsammans med min dykkamrat till Släggö ännu en gång (börjar se ett mönster här) för att dyka. Denna gång hade vi för avsikt att nattdyka och leta bläckfisk. Vi hoppade i och insåg att sikten var väldigt dålig, likväl gick vi ner och efter 3 m vart sikten mycket bättre. Vi simmade ut mot djupa mjukbotten, där bläckfiskarna brukar hålla till. Dock lös bläckfiskarna med sin frånvaro där. Istället såg vi massvis med hummer, krabbor och trollhummer vara ute på promenad i det fria, dessa djur brukar vanligtvis sitta gömda inuti klippskrevor och under stenar.
När vi sedan begav oss upp och hade legat på säkerhetsstoppet i 3 minuter, såg jag en liten figur pila förbi min partner. vid närmare undersökning visade det sig att det var en liten bläckfisk, och av en sort som inte brukar hålla till på grunt vatten. Så vi blev kvar ett tag på riktigt grunt vatten och observerade bläckfisken.

Allt som allt var detta ett av de bättre dyken jag haft.
Så tills nästa gång. Simma lugnt!

Blåröd trollhummer (Galathea strigosa)