Monday 9 November 2015

Friday Night Lights - 06/11/2015

Jester was so taken with our dive last night thay was wanting to return to St Catherine's to visit my other known firework anemone in the vicinity at 30m. However, while  I guided us to it. It wasn't the star of the show. There were other lights.

In particular, the waves produced by the westerly wind meant that the shoreline sparkled with bioluminescence while the milk way glistened above. Quite a spectacular start to any dive. 

Once we went down we found an assortment of nightlife including our friends the cuttlefish, pipefish and stickleback. Oh, and my firework anemone for a belated Guy Fawkes Night.







Friday 6 November 2015

The Alternative Guy Fawkes - 05/11/2015

I'm more interested in firework anemones than actual fireworks. With that in mind the plan was for Jester, the Zookeeper and myself to go hunting for the former type of fireworks. However, a three hour commute meant that the Zookeeper was exhausted and didn't fancy the dive. As such Jester and I headed to Seal Reef intent on re finding a firework anemone we found once before. 

Sadly, we failed. Instead, we found a proliferation of colour changing cuttlefish, a stunning nudibranch and Jester's first ever red gurnard.

We had heard that visibility in the area was good (8-10m) and it didn't disappoint. Visibility was easily 8m even in the dark. 

I was test driving a fully functioning Mares Eos 12rz and hoping to use the wide beam (with no hotspot) for some decent pictures.

We headed down to the small boat and off the bow looking for a firework anemone we found quite some time ago. We struck out, but we did find a langoustine, pipefish, cuttlefish and two red gurnards.

Moving onto the reef, and with deco fast approaching we headed back up gradually. As deco approached his minutes to deco hand signals looked an awful lot like flipping me the bird. Vulgar gestures aside, Jesters aging eyes were on fire, spotting a variety of worms before his spot of the night.  Blind luck I say, but it was a nice Eubranchus Farrani or, as I've heard the Mermaid describe them, "the wee fried egg ones".

It was a great 57 minutes as we emerged to booming of Inveraray fireworks.