Släggö 21/5 2022 Springtime for the sea

 Hi and ho!

This week we went to Släggö for easy diving (and roof over the head, it was forecasted to rain). We also was to meet up with some friends that were doing their course things there. When we got to the site and took a look, we saw that spring had indeed come to the area, the harbour was a soup of jellyfish, and quite a lot of Lion's mane jellies too, especially in the area around where you jump in from the pier, so there was that. 

Harbour swimming crab

Dive 1:

Depth: 25 m Time: 54 min Temp: 10 C

We jumped in and swam out for a bit before descending. The visibility this day was a little bit on the bad side, but not the worst for the season, lots of particles in the water though. Continuing on, we followed the wall outwards, taking it a bit slow as one of us had new gear they had to get used to. As we swam along the wall, we kept looking for lobsters and other critters that like to hide in crevices, I did only find one, but heard later from my buddies that there had been 2 of them. At about 30 minutes, we decided to turn around as to have enough gas for a second dive later.

We swam back in a nice pace and surfaced at 54 minutes and got up, preparing for a nice surface interval with pizza.

Greater pipefish 

Dive 2:

Depth: 26 m Time: 55 min Temp: 10 C

After a surface interval, we headed towards the dive site once more, now the rain had stopped, and the weather was surprisingly sunny. One of my buddies decided to not do a second dive as their suit had leaked a bit too much the previous dive (reminds me that i need to do a leak check on mine, it is getting ridiculous). 

Me and my other buddy jumped in and swam out to about the same spot as the previous dive, before starting to descend. We followed the wall this time as well, photographing as we went. Not much of interest was really found on this dive, but i did get to experiment a little bit with angles and light positioning, so i guess there is always a silver lining. We surfaced at 55 minutes, got up and started making ready to head home once more.

All in all, it was a very nice dive day

So until next time! Keep on swimming!

Devonshire cup coral

Släggö 27/11 2021 In my winter "wonderland"

 Hi and ho!

This weekend we got a sudden case of winter dumped right on us. On saturday, the day we went out diving, it was snowing quite properly, enough to actually make the roads a bit hazardous with slush and a proper snow cover. Either way, we are a crazy bunch and went diving regardless of these weather conditions. When we arrived at the dive site, we saw that they had cut off a large part of the parking lot there for unknown reason (probably to renovate the pier, as it is getting a bit worn really). The wind and snow was whirling so we took shelter underneath roof before changing into drysuits, whereafter we kitted up our gear and made ready to head out.

Greater pipefish hiding among the eelgrass in the shallow parts

Dive 1:

Depth: 26 m Time: 61 min, Temp: 11 C

We jumped in and almost immediately descended, aiming to look for the lumpsucker once again. And lo and behold, after like 1 minute, one of my buddies signalled the rest of us to come over and look, for they had found the lumpsucker. So after staying there for a little bit and stressing out the poor fish, we continued on diagonally towards the right. But after a little bit, one buddy decided that we were to start going straight outwards instead, as we have usually done on Släggö, they felt that we had gone towards the right forever at that point. Either way, we continued to follow the slope downwards and outwards as one does here. At 20 m we started to encounter a haze, something that's usually encountered at 25 and below. Either it is due to weird wind and current conditions going on right now there, or it is bad technical divers with horrible trim (a thing we have seen there indeed) that has stirred up the silt. The visibility continued to be sort of bad down here, though the water temperature was much nicer compared to the surface, a typical trait for when winter season is starting. We swam around for a bit here before starting to make our way towards the rocky wall and then back towards the starting point. When we found the rocky wall, one of my buddies started signalling that they were seeing something in a crevice, turned out to be a lobster, but as i was about to snap a photo, they signalled once more above me, several times, turned out that there was another lobster right above as well, so after quickly snapping a photo of the antennae of the first one, i snapped a quick photo of the second one above before it hid inside the crevice. We continued following the wall back towards the starting point. As we neared the end, we once again encountered the lumpsucker and harassed it for a little bit before we surfaced at 61 minutes. We got up and doffed our gear, preparing for a nice surface interval at the pizzeria close to the dive site.

This Common bobtail squid was posing nicely for the camera

Dive 2:

Depth 17 m, Time: 58 min, Temp: 10 C

After a surface interval in the warm pizzeria, we once again made ready to head out into the water. This time one of my buddies decided to not do a second dive, as they had gotten a bit cold and didn't feel like it was worth it. But me and my other buddy were crazy enough to do another dive on this snowy day. Once again, we descended almost immediately after jumping in and making sure that everything was in order. As we are descending, I shone my light on my right wrist and see that i hadn't closed the ring system completely, so i quietly did that before it started leaking in (not that it really mattered, still haven't fixed the leak in the ring system. We continued diagonally towards the right, hoping to see squids, descending down to a depth of about 17 m. On this dive there was a lot of harbour swimming crabs out and about as well as a few longspined bullheads, a close relative to the more common shorthorn sculpin one usually sees on this site. We did see two squids on this dive, the first one was a bit fiesty, swimming straight into my camera and light, so i had to back away in order to try and get a action shot, which of course was impossible with the gear i use right now. Either way, after 30 minutes i started signalling that we were to turn around. So we began swimming back slowly but surely. We didn't find the lumpsucker on this dive, not that we looked very much either, so that might have been a contributing factor. We surfaced at 58 minutes, got up and started making ready to head home after a nice but cold dive day.

All in all, the weather could have been better, but such things don't really matter too much underwater, so it was a satisfying dive day.

So until next time! Keep on swimming!

Longspined bullhead, the other relatively common sculpin on the west coast

Kårevik 10/5 2020 Pipefish, goobies and jellyfish oh my

Hi and ho!

This weekend i went to a site that is not as far away as the usual sites in Gullmar fjord. The site was Kårevik on the southern end of the island of Tjörn, one hour north of Gothenburg. The original plan was to go to another site, but we decided against it as it can be a bit hard to get in and out of the water at that other place, especially after raining.

This time we were quite many as many people wanted to dive, which is good, the more the merrier. When we arrived in Kårevik, we took a look and decided to enter from the beach instead of the cliffs due to currents and wind that day.

After doing some dive planning, pairing up and kitting up, it was time to go into the water.

Greater pipefish looking a bit offended by my photographing

Dive 1:

Depth: 9 m. Time: 58 min. Temp: 11 °C

Brown crab being a bit threatening if you ask me

Me and my buddy swam out a bit until we decided it was deep enough to descend, we signaled to the dive masters on the surface, got an OK, and started descending. We descended to about 3 m before we found the bottom and started swimming slowly but surely following the depth curve and the cliff walls, photographing as we went. At one point, the other dive pair that was with us started shining on something while i was close to the bottom photographing a Greater pipefish, it turned out to be a Brown crab of a significant size walking towards me, so after i finished bothering the poor pipefish, i took the opportunity to shoot a photo or two of the crab. After a while, me and my buddy turned around as to be able to take it slow and easy on the way back to the entry point so we would be back by the time limit of 60 min we had decided upon with the dive masters at the surface. As we swam back, i noticed that there was many a moon jellyfish in the shallower waters. When it was 2 minutes left of the hour, we decided to just go up and end the dive. 

When we got up on land again, we decided to take a late lunch with some bbq on the shore as a surface interval.

  

European flounder, floundering about

Dive 2:

Depth: 10 m. Time 48 min. Temp: 11 °C

After a 2 h surface interval, we decided to get into the water once more, so, after changing scuba tanks and some re-organizing of dive pairs, as one in the second pair choose to remain on land, we went into the water for a second dive.

We followed the same procedure as the previous dive and signaled ok to the surface people before we started descending.

This time we swam a bit faster and got a bit further compared to the first dive. Due to this, i did not photograph as much, instead looking around at the different animals. However i did manage to get some pictures of a larger flatfish, as well as some other creatures. As we turned around due to the dive time starting to tick away, i noticed that there was a bit of current towards land, which suggested that the tide was coming in, not that it really is anything to worry about in Sweden, we don't get that great difference in tides. This current also brought in many a Lion's mane jellyfish closer to shore, so we ducked and weaved between the jellyfish as we swam back for a bit. When we neared the end, the sun began shining, and the resulting light was really pretty over the eelgrass beds in the shallower parts.

All in all this was a very nice dive day, even if the weather in the beginning did not make it seem like that.

So until next time, Keep on Swimming!

Eelgrass bed in the sunlight