So, last night me and Ed finally decided to attack a patch we've both dived in the day and thought would be worth having a mooch around at night. We've talked about it for years but because it's a bit of a trek, including crossing tidal streams, we'd not done it until now but we decided to take a kayak as a base station and set off at sunset.
Early on we realised that towing a diver from a kayak didn't work too well, so we abandoned that idea apart from when crossing some tide. Got to the area, anchored the base station boat and started diving. Straight away it looked fishy, lots of food in the sand, and it turned out to be ray central. Big and little, mostly blondes but at least one small eyed. I ended up with a couple of plaice and a free running lobster. Left some borderline sole and red mullet. After a while of one up one downing it was obvious the wind had picked up and was blowing directly offshore the way we needed to get back.
We decided not to push it and pack up to set off with Ed swimming and me paddling. Turned out to be a good decision as despite running with the tide the wind against it has kicked up quite a chop to the extent that Ed could make pretty much the same progress in the water as I could paddling. After a bit of a fight we made it back into the lee of the land and it calmed down enough for Ed to make some more dives while I got the base station back to land.
Some good lessons learned for longer night expeditions. The kayak was useful but would probably leave it behind next time unless it was definitely too far to swim. The area looked great, with the potential for some special fish, but it'll have to be calmer conditions before we think about trying it again!
Here's a vid, not the greatest as I always forget that the camera flares out if I point my torch directly at the target. Oh and it's not advisable, or needed, to shoot flatties, but I was out of air so didn't have time to stab it.