Slippery nipples....
... was mainly what fueled today's diving. I was all set to have a chilled Friday night when my neighbour decided to have a house party ... alot of nice food, alot of nice people and of course the odd beer ... followed by a slippery nipple (Sambuca and Baileys). A late night ....
Anyway Mart called me at lunchtime while I was working on the house and decided that it would be a good day to head out in the boat. A one o'clock start and heading out for some mackrelling behind a lighthouse in 130 foot of water. Plenty of mackerel later we did some more fishing for gurnard and bream (but also found a few dogfish...)
I wasn't too sure about the whole diving thing after a late one but gave it a go in the first spot. Down to 8m or so and short aspettos (but not as short as I would have expected so I am proposing that Sambuca could be the ultimate drink in terms of still allowing you to dive the next day - I think that this is a major breakthrough
) - so anyway little aspettos and missing a bass and then missing a pollack... hmmmm maybe my theory is not correct ! Serious current to keep swimming against but not too strong that you couldn't kick against it... bit tiring though
The next spot is a good few miles offshore I guess and called Peron/Black Rock... I was about to slip in while Mart told me it was about 10m - then he also reminded me of the local name : 'Porbeagle Alley' ... yup this is the spot where they frequently get large Porbeagle sharks..... I hesitated as I know that they are large sharks.... but the water looked clear and we had come a long way.
Dropping in I think I saw large shapes on the bettom so made my way closer to teh rocks and about 7m. A few aspettos of about 1:20 nothing heroic but still surprisingly long for someone who had had a late one... Moved out into more open water as my confidence improved and Mart was keeping a good lookout from the boat for large sharks (whilst gutting and cleaning the 50 odd mackerel we had caught
).
A few drops down to 10m onto the kelpy bottom and although it looked flat from the surface it was surprisingly craggy when you got down. I was super light weighted so I could move really easily between places when under. Shot a nice bass that came past and chucked it in the boat quickly.
A few more dives and really large pollack about and massive shoals of small baby pollack. Nice underwater scenery and clear to 10m so a good dive. I think that with another person in the water I'd have had more confidence and so on... a bit of a learning curve and definitely very different from shore dives. New experiences and new things learnt....thanks again Mart for another great offshore diving day
Edward
