September ended with glorious weather, blood moons and lunar eclipses. October began no less spectacularly, from a scuba perspective. The Zookeeper and I headed to La Ruelle de Conger for a cheeky night dive. The skies were clear and the autumnal air was crisp. Ideal for diving in my opinion.
I was test driving my new Oceanic OCI in Scottish water for the first time and also a new Mares Eos 12RZ torch.
As we stood at the waters' edge looking out onto the moonlit darkness buddy checking, the Zookeeper asked the universe for a gift. Quite specifically, an octopus just hanging about in the open. We've seen one before here, twice, but its pretty uncommon and even more so to see them out in the open. However, one can ask!
We headed down, the Zookeeper didn't have her camera and I'd poorly fitted my Sealife into the case so only three buttons were working. It wasn't going to be a photographic masterclass.
As we hit the reef at around 20m we spotted some of the usual life, dragonettes, the ubiquitous congers. Then as we swam over some rocks the Zookeepers torch went mental. I looked up and saw it. There, bold as brass, was a curled octopus sitting on top of a rock just chilling in the autumnal darkness,
As I mentioned previously my camera wasn't fully functioning. The problems I had were:
- I couldn't switch off the flash
- I couldn't change the focus settings
- I could only switch from basic photography to video.
With this in mind I switched to video mode and began filming our little pal.
After the encounter we Hi-5'd before bobbing back slowly to the surface. We surfaced to discover the Milky Way glowing in the night sky and extraordinarily dense bioluminescence. We played in it for a few moments before declaring it the dive of the year thus far.
As for the kit, it all worked admirably. I love the variable beam of the Mares torch.
As for the kit, it all worked admirably. I love the variable beam of the Mares torch.
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