Dive Report : Molle, Sweden

Background

As part of a birthday present by my girlfriend which was to take me to Sweden for my birthday, i also got to go diving for a day. The holiday was fire just under a week and we had some great experiences, you can read more about it in her very detailed blog here. 

Diving Day

The day started at 7am, slowly for me - not just because I am naturally rubbish in the morning but because between the high pitched, vocal seagulls and a group of Swedes coming home very drunk and had parked themselves on the benches outside our flat and were keen to make sure that all of Angelholm knew.

Breakfast was much like the previous day : meats, yoghurt and cheese. And coffee!

We left for Mölle at about 845 and we arrived at Kullyn Dyk dive centre by about 915. I met Lasse, a very friendly gentleman, and we quickly got a full set of equipment ready for me. I even got a brand new wet suit!!

It did feel very strange getting a BCD Jacket rather than a harness and wing, although Lasse did mention he had one, a Halcyon one too (!), I kindly refused because of the time it would take to get the harness how I like it.

A short drive down the road to the Mölle harbour where we found the boat.

Gear at the harbour.

It didn't take long to get loaded up and the rig built, and then I wanted to start getting into the wetsuit on because I was worried about the size. It did take about 15-20 minutes of stretching, pulling and grunting but it was on. I had to jump in and cool off after all that though! After a gentle float to cool off, we took off and I got to know my guide, an instructor called Ingrid.

Time to cool off!

The ride was only about 20-30 minutes and the water was like a mill pond!!

Silky smooth water!

We arrived at the dive site, a place known as Paradise Harbour, so named because historically, captains would bring their ships into this harbour to shield them from bad thunderstorms.

Before kitting up I looked over the edge of the boat to splash some water on me to keep me cool while I kit up, below me I can see the reef. Looking good!!

Getting into our rigs we entered the water using a backward roll off the boat, this is without a doubt the first time I've ever used this technique since PADI Open Water course!

About to jump in!

Entering the water was a welcome relief from the heat. Having not dove in a wetsuit with single tank for years I had no idea about weighting. Lasse had made a weight belt up with 9 kg for me, but I was paranoid, so put an extra 16 pounds in the jacket pocket! I knew about 30 seconds after I started swimming I was way Way overweighted!

Dive Narration

Nervous about my weighting I left my BCD inflator alone while I dropped down into the reef. We were moored on a pebbly area and surrounded by a kelp-like forest. Looking up I see the boat and the sun shining beautifully shimmering slightly through the rippling water. GoPro out ... On .. Video recording on!

Kelp-like forest

At this point Ingra led us through the underwater forest for nearly 50 minutes, for the most part I was grinning with a smile the whole time. The water was lovely and warm and the visibility was fantastic. The environment felt like I was diving in am aquarium! There were quite a few jellyfish floating about and lots of starfish which ranged in size from tiny to the size of dinner plates!

I'm glad I had my GoPro because writing this blog because I can't remember much about the dive!

At the end of the dive I was down to about 50 bar so decided that this would be a perfect time for a weight check. Just passed the anchor was a pebbled area that I could kneel down on (the shame!).

Dumping all of the air from the BCD I landed on the seabed. My BCD had quick release pockets, each one had an eight pound lead block in, pulling one out I put it on the ground, still holding on I tentatively let go .... Still on the seabed .... Big breath in .... Still on the seabed ...

Now let's see what happens with the second pocket ... Pull it out (the pocket! You dirty minded sod!) and I'm still there! This is great, it will mean I can leave all that lead on the boat and it will make the second dive so much easier!

Surface interval

We elected for a one hour surface interval and diving the same site, although Ingrid and I would be diving the southern edge of the reef this time. After getting out of the rig, and swapping cylinders, I jumped back in to do some snorkeling around the area of our first dive to take some more footage. I paddled around for about 20 minutes like this until I came back to the boat to prepare for dive #2.

Dive #2 narrative

In much the same way as dive #1, Ingrid led and it was very much a blur. Thankfully I could remind myself by watching the video footage back again.

One of my favourite pictures!

Return

The cruise back was gentle and pleasurable, Ingrid and I chatted some more while we took apart our equipment and sun bathed. Just as we arrived at the harbour, I spotted Charlotte and Marcus sitting under a small lighthouse.

A quick boat unload to return to the dive centre to pack away equipment. For 950 Kr, just £72, I got full equipment rental (wetsuit, mask, fins, gloves, two cylinders of air and boat fee) for two lovely dives.

Paradise Harbour, Molle, Sweden from Chris Armstrong on Vimeo.

A-frames, Loch Long, Day Trip

Getting wet again

So it's been a very long time since I was last in the water, so long in fact that not only have my tins gone out of test, they've gone out of the second test too!!

As part of my return to water, I'm doing some nice easy single tank only dives with some friends from work. On Friday I did a dive at a local puddle in Inverkeithing. I had been quite nervous about it because I imagined that I would be flailing about, unable to sink and generally suffer a complete loss and fabulousness.

Thankfully that wasn't the case, I was surprisingly comfortable, especially after the first 20 minutes where I started to relax. The result of this is a trip over to the west coast in the salty-stuff! The plan had been to go to St Abbs this weekend, but the forecast was looking grim, Loch Long was Plan B.

Going to the westside

At 630 am the alarm was going off. My lovely girlfriend has made me cinnamon pancakes for breakfast which I inhale. The car is loaded with surprisingly little gear (because I'm borrowing cylinders and I'm not using the twinset) and I head off to Uphall to meet Tam and Mark. A very fun game, which I had forgotten all about since upgrading to a Mondeo estate, of 3D-tetris ensued. 

Amazingly 6 cylinders, 5 dive bags and three people got into a fiesta and we were off on the road for 830. The poor car did struggle on the hills though but we made it!

Both dives were identical, so rather than describe each one, I'll provide a general narrative that adequately describes both.

Dive 1

In: 240 out: 90
RT: 40

Dive 2

In: 160 out: 50
RT: 30

There isn't really steps down to the water front, it's more of a scrabble across a rocky path. It's easily do able, but I recommend taking your rig down, then your weights and then you go down when in your dry suit. It just means you are less likely to slip.

I had my brand new Santi BZ400 custom undersuit on so I was pretty bound up, between that and the weight belt (which I've never used before because normally I'm in a twinset) so it was a struggle but fins got on eventually - it's amazing how much finesse you lose when you don't dive regularly. I remember kitting up being a breeze. I remember on my trimix course having stages and even that wasn't really a problem, and here's me struggling whilst wearing a single 12!

Once in the water, the visibility at the surface was probably the best at maybe three to four metres.

Once the team was settled, we swam off. When swimming across the sea bed, I'd say it's sparse with life. There was the occasional crab but that's about it. After swimming about a bit we found a concrete pillar laying on the sea bed. These are your reference points to find what are called the a-frames.

The a-frames are a pair of concrete structures. Approximately triangular, stood up right spaced about 1m apart. We were at the 15m a-frames, there are more at about 25m where the visibility is said to be better. But because I certainly hadn't been in the water for a few years really, I didn't want to go deeper.

The a-frames are absolutely covered in life. I defocussed my HID light from the tight, light-sabre-type, beam to provide a wider beam for lighting the area up more.

In my mind I always imagined Scottish waters to be murky and the animal life to be muted colours like yellows and browns, but in reality there were many more vibrant colours, typically purple and pinks. I was very much surprised!

We would do two or three laps of the a-frames which usually meant we were at about 100 bar (the needle drops disgustingly quick on a single!!) before heading back the way we came to head back to the surface. Each dive was about 35 minutes long.

We were lucky that the weather was nice enough during the surface interval and post dive to allow us to breakdown our equipment and be dry.

I thoroughly enjoyed my dives at the a-frames and would definitely go back again, although I'd make sure to go when it hasn't been raining within the previous few days as that did noticeably cripple the visibility.

On the day a tanker was docked at the nearby terminal, I am guilty of wishing it would sink, that would make a fantastic dive! For those who have been to Malta, said tanker was at least the same size as the Um El Faroud! Generally a very good day out, thanks to Tam for driving and Mark for sourcing the extra cylinders!

Dive Report : Divewise House Reef Check Out Dive

Location:

The house reef is through a gate about 30 yards from Divewise.
 

Dive Team:

Alan (Guide & A), TBD (A), TBD (A), Svenke Wall (B) and Chris Armstrong (B).

Dive log:

I had been an epic Muppet and managed to lose my 3mm wetsuit somehow earlier this year. I think that when I first joined by local dive club and we had gone to the pool in Burnt Island to do a check out I had left it there. So I had to rent a 5mm from Divewise. The objective of the checkout dive was to get the weighting sorted, and personally I wanted to get the gear checked out to make sure that all the gear had survived the journey.

I had dove my twinset in the UK in my 3mm wetsuit in the past so I knew I would be massively negative, 5mm vs 3mm, not big difference eh? Well it was! I took two 2kg blocks and slotted them on my waist strap.

Firstly, Alan led us in to the harbour to get our weight sorted and out and then we were ready we dropped down to 3m and did some quick skill checks like mask clearing and regulator sharing for out of gas emergencies. I was buddied up with a Swedish gentleman called Svenke. He was in a dry suit! Nearly 30 degrees air temperature and a water temperature of 25 degrees, nah I’m glad I left it at home!!

Settled and happy, Alan led us around the house reef.

There isn’t much to report; the house reef is fairly bland in terms of “attraction” to see. There are no sunken cars, vans, small boats or anything like that which would probably help a lot I think. The visibility was lovely 20m+. A far cry from all the UK diving I had done. There were quite a few fish, schools of fish danced and glittered beautiful silvers. I was on the hunt for an octopus looking under every rock but couldn’t find one. I was absolutely entranced with the dive. The visibility was beautiful, the water was lovely and warm, the fish were beautiful and I just felt so happy to finally be on a dive holiday!

I came out of the dive feeling excited, the water was gin clear, the fish were beautiful and even though it was relatively unexciting because there was very little to look at, it was still a lovely dive. Its nice to just check out the gear, get your weight right for some "proper" diving.

YouTube Video

My dear friend Svenke shot some video and has kindly allowed me to share it.