A Commonwealth of Anemones - 29/07/2014

With Glasgow in full Commonwealth Games swing, the Announcer and I headed out the city to Loch Fyne for a dive. Drishaig Reef was our destination of choice as the Announcer had never seen the fine array of Firework Anemones. The day started badly with me forgetting my drysuit and the Zookeeper cancelling on us due to unforeseen circumstances. A quick trip back to my house and we headed out.

At the site we kitted up headed down to 25m where we encountered our first anemone of the day (we saw about 10 in all). Swimming along we also bumped into a nice wee scorpion fish in amongst the usual array of life.

In terms of photography I took lot of pictures of the anemones and the scorpion fish, but not much else.

Firework Anemone

Scorpion fish

Scorpion fish

Firework Anemone

Firework Anemone

Anniversary Plunge - 26/07/2014

Today Gill and I have been married for 13 years. To celebrate I woke Gill up at 7.00am, packed the dive kit in the car and sped up to the A-Frames, Loch Long for a quick dive before heading back to Glasgow to enjoy the Commonwealth festivities and a farewell lunch for a friend -  I know, I'm an incurable romantic. :/

The site was already busy when we arrived as a result of the presence of Deep Blue, an east coast based school. Fortunately, as they were all students we kitted up quickly and entered the water before they could get in to ruin the vis (which as luck would have it was good). 

Gill had been wanting to go a bit deeper than she normally goes, so our plan was to go down to around 25m hang about for a bit and then come back.

The dive started well with a large dogfish in the shallows, before we headed down  to 25m in 6-8m vis. To be honest I've only visited the deeper frame once or twice, but Gill had never been there so it was a novelty for her.

The whole dive I was using Gill's reg set. Her mouth piece is uncomfortable and her SPG leaked air constantly. I'll b glad to get my Mares Abyss Navy back.

Gill swimming round the big frame

Angry crustaceans

Bloody Henry

I'm A Spanish Dancer, A Dancer For Money - 15/07/2014

Military escort - the Village People

Our original plan had been to dive the wreck of the Cedar Pride, but Nasser asked me a question when he picked me up. "Do you want to see the wreck or sealife and corals?" To be honest, I'm more into the sealife. So, I plumped for a sealife dive over the wreck.

On hearing that legendary riot starter and night diver Stephen Frewbowski was in town for a night dive, the Jordanian Navy were sent to investigate. Some smooth words and the opportunity to have his photo taken with the author of Poseidon's Parlour was enough to ensure the evening would go swimmingly well.

In all seriousness, it should be noted that it is the law in Jordan that even experienced divers must have a guide. Furthermore, for security reasons (it's a sensitive part of the world) if night diving you must have shore cover provided by the Jordanian Royal Navy. Apparently, in the 70s a nutcase from Egypt used an underwater scooter to go from Taba in Egypt up to Eilat in Israel for less than honourable purposes.

We dived the reef next to the Cedar Pride (called Rainbow Reef) which began simply before drifting over and along a beautiful coral wall that dropped from about 8m down to around 18m by my reckoning as we moved along we moved onto a new second reef called Cable Reef which seemed to drop much deeper as it felt we were just hanging mid ocean. Essentially, a reef that has formed round a giant electricity cable powering parts of Egypt on the other side of the Gulf of Aqaba. However, it all went so smoothly that had it not been explained to me after the dive I'd have thought was all one site.

If you've never dived in tropical waters at night you are really missing out. Gone are the colourful reef fish of day and out are the lesser seen beasts and reef hunters. Barrcuda, grouper (the ugly kind), lionfish, the sea cucumbers, the urchins and starfish that hide by day and, of course, out come the Spanish Dancers. Moreover, the coral sing their own unique song at night, best described as the snap, crackle & pop of Rice Krispies.

My camera ran out of juice about two thirds of the way through the dive, but I managed to get some decent shots before it went kapoot.

A great dive to round off a fantastic experience diving with guys at Aqaba's Anchor.

Lickia multiflora

Lionfish

Fire coral

Spanish dancer

Sleeping fish

Black urchin

Sanddollar

Pufferfish

Make Reefs, Not War - 15/07/2014

Make reefs, not war.

Day two of diving with Aqaba's Anchor and we hit two excellent reefs Seven Sisters & the Tank and Gorgon I. Both were quite similar with the exception being the former had a former US military tank. Young Al was having mask problems so Gill and I just followed Isaac through the maze of canyoning reefs. 

The tank was sunk by the King of Jordan to create an artificial reef. It probably was meant to be something big and interesting, but it now actually makes quite a potent symbol. I won't over egg my own political beliefs, but I think I've come up with a new slogan - make reefs, not war. Moreover, the tank has become an impressive nursery for a number of species fish and has also been colonised by fan corals - life thriving on a vehicle designed for killing.

Dive One gave us the more interesting sea life including a large Moray Eel, a Frogfish, an excellent little Nudibranch, a couple of little Scorpionfish and a baby Lionfish. Dive Two, however, was more about the giant coral sea stacks. It too was nice.

Tonight it's back to the Cedar Pride for my first ever night wreck dive. :D

Gill likes the tank

Red sea anemone fish

Nudi!

In amongst the coral

Frogfish

I think this is fire sponge, I never touched it to find out

Canyoning reef

Clam

Photobombed lionfish by Gill

The lionfish

Small coral thing

Mutha puffer

The Big Frewbowski

Japanese Gardening - 14/07/2014

I'm not into gardening. Typically, gardening requires sunny days - I'm not even that interested in sunny days. Today's second dive might well convince me to take up gardening if all gardens were like the Japanese Gardens. Before entering Isaac had even joked that every resort on the planet has a dive site called Japanese Gardens. I'll wager they are not all like this one.

Diving with Aqaba's Anchor, this site is neatly positioned right beside the the wreck of the Cedar Pride. The array of corals here was vast and I mean colourful healthy corals. This site was also more fishtastic. Along with the usual parrotfish, lyretails etc. I saw two types of pufferfish, a young free swimming moray eel, some little surgeonfish and nudis. I'm not the best at fish ID, you'll probably be able to spot a few more varieties from the small selection of pictures below.

It was a pretty shallow affair (a max of around 17m) but to be frank I could of been at any depth I was just snapping away.

The highlight was when Isaac spotted scorpion fish in amongst some sea grass and when I couldn't sea he chased it. Well it bolted out and it's safe to say that the hand single for 'patting your shants' is universal. I'm sure I saw Isaac laugh underwater. Dive buddies that luagh at you underwater?! e must of been trying to make me feel at home. Anyway, I'll let the picture do the talking.

Two OKs

Isaac

Some kind of fish

Parrotfish

Wee fish

Pufferfish

Anemone

Sawtooth Feather Star

More wee fish

Even more wee fish

Juvenile moray eel

Juvenile moray eel

Nudi!!!

Cedar Pride Comes Before It All - 14/07/2014

When I first started diving my local dive shop, Aquatron, had a picture on the wall of a wreck. At the time I had no idea what the wreck was called, I just knew that I was breaking out of my comfort zone because I wanted to see cool stuff like that underwater. Today, together with legendary Glasgow Roller Derby skater Gill.I.Am, I dived the Cedar Pride from the shore here at Aqaba with Aqaba's Anchor.

The wreck, in a sense, is artificial in that it was sunk on purpose at the behestof the then Prince of Jordan, King Abdullah II for the purposes of dive tourism. Well it worked, because I'm here.

We dived from the shore as it is a well documentedfact that Gill doesn't like boats and I don't like stress. We were accompanied by the surprisingly international Isaac who is Jordano-Turk-Norweg-ish. :) Top bloke and ex-commercial diver who is trying to establish Aqaba's Anchor as the premier Aqaba based dive troop. We also had his intern (don't they always have an intern). I'll somewhat ignorantly call him Al, as I have no idea how to spell his actual name, though it began with Al.

Entering the water, we headed down over a sandy bottom, passing a pretty stunning Table Coral en route to the wreck. Being 80m long it slowly emerged into sight. Strangely, it was smaller than I expected and with slightly less life, although the corals in particular are really starting to make it their home.

Passing round the bow, the deck became visible with the large cargo holds open, but empty. We entered and headed up to the air pocket. I kept my reg in. As fun as air pockets are the air, while breathable, probably isn't the best.

Coming back round the stern we hit the edges of the coral reef that was to form the basis of our next dive. The coral formations were brilliant and more colourful than I remember in Egypt last year. Although, in Egypt's defence they had more, larger fish. I can't help but think I'm becoming a dive nerd when I was more interested in the feather stars and black sea urchins on the reef than the wreck itself. Though Gill particularly liked the wreck.

It's a nice wreck, I've dived better, but given its importance during my early diving days it's safe to say the Cedar Pride came before it all.

Table Coral

Under the Table Coral

Passing the bow

Swimming round the stern

Salad coral

Coral and fish