53 minutes on Cirkewwa Reef, Malta

One dive was all I got, but it was a fatty.

I interrupt a conference between Painted Combers and juvenile moray eel.

The two combers nosed around the depression in the reef wall like debt collectors at a doorstep. The baby moray wasn't coming out, and when I arrived wielding a camera in macro mode, the eel retreated.

Wrasse crossing

A Turkish wrasse checked me out to see if I was going to dig up some food. Around the corner, over the drop-off, a different wrasse led a string of babies along the reef wall. Jason beckoned to me and wrote "Off to school" on his slate, by which time the fish had gone.


Blenny Hill

First a yellow, then a red one. Tiny things with black heads and bright bodies. Each rested long enough for me to approach but not for the camera to capture them. Damn you, garish fish, although I admire your colouring. Turns out the world knows them as triple-fin blennies.

Cnidarian Mass Suicide

At five metres depth: Inverted or horizontal jellyfish pushed themselves into the rocks; at hollows; against sponges. They pulsed like purple mushrooms. Some were already dead. This stretch of reef was their terminus.

Holy Mary, Covered In Clam

Jason gestured and I obeyed, diving down to about 16 metres and expecting to see an octopus, or a Dentex ready to burst into the open sea, or a grouper sulking. Instead the reef resolved into a statue of the madonna posing in a natural alcove. Plastic flowers and a clamshell necklace set off her piety.

Sea fan

Jason led us away from the wall towards the wreck of the Rozi. A saddled bream pushed in, following a harpoon-length behind Jason. It was like a stray cat. Later Jason explained that dive groups go out to the wrecks with bread crumbs and scraps; the fish get used to it and learn to expect treats when they see divers. As a great doyenne of diving once said re: hand-feeding fishes, "it messes with their indigestion systems."

all images copyright of their respective owners.

malta beckons

Post-Oestral descent should be sweet. Hope the winds are good.

 

Um el Faroud again, a must. And the Maori. This time with camera, and maybe that neon-blue nudibranch will still be there, waiting; maybe my memory will give birth to it, slime-flesh and frills, on the rusty hulk.

 

And to dig with my fingers in the underwater sand, drawing the combers and wee fishies to the disturbance, eager for scraps. That would be nice, too.

 

"Come on, Alex, you can do it!" - The Arcade Fire

remains

my mother, bless her, maintains she should be buried at sea.

 

i'd like to be cremated and the ashes to be formed into a paste. the paste pellet should be delivered by divers to a place with good vis and a welcoming mood.

the meaning of dive kit

one or two transactions, a chaperoned visit, and the acquainting of one baby boy with another. the wives, too.

 

the man selling his kit was an experienced, well-dive-travelled Divemaster. The man buying the kit an amateur into his third year of the sport. We are both new fathers. in one case the baby boy was a catalyst for a decision to prune the risks from life. in the other the baby boy will fit into one's life's dreams and passions.

 

passions are hard-fought-for, but sometimes wither and waste away. we'll see.

 

and finally we walk away with plenty monogrammed dive kit. tried, trusted, and ownership transferred. it carries a blessing and the memories of many dives. i will cherish it.

 

 

Work Try-Dive

[Historical] As a good-bye to my former work-place I arranged a group try-dive at a pool in Brighton. It was good fun watching the range of reactions; each person took to the water differently, and came out with their own transformative experience.

 

the one who has been trying to hold his breath underwater all his life

the one who goes rock-climbing

the one who sea-kayaks, and wind-surfs, and wave-boards, and who wants to concentrate on one watersport at a time.

 

it was clear that something had happened in their heads. it wasn't just like an evening out bowling. I'm glad.

More books to read.

Cod, by Mark Kurlansky

SBS: the invisible raiders, by Jim Ladd

Books

Shipwreck, a series of photos from 1860-1967 of wrecks "fresh daily" as seen from the shores of Cornwall, by a Gibson family based on the Scilly isles, together with some marvellous contextual history and anecdotes by the late John Fowles. Some stunning pics. As chosen by the delightfully named Bella Bathurst for herlist of top ten books about the sea.

Shadow Divers - bought another copy in the states, and now met the heroes, Chatterton and Kohler, at the London Dive Show. The first third of the book has enough death-by-diving to put one off one's hobby, nearly.

Richard Dawkins's The Ancestor's Tale - plenty of goodness re: hagfish & lampreys, sharks, corals and algae. That Darwin was quite a fella. If only we could time-machine a SCUBA set back to him. a regulator planted in the middle of that flowing white beard...the staring eyes under heavy brow...


INCOMING:

The World Underwater Book - there's cleavage and a shark on the cover.
Tim Ecott's Neutral Buoyancy. At some point...
A trio of Hans Hass Meisterwerken - courtesy of Jimbob.
2 more Sandman compendia

Running out of time...must...read...faster....

Recent Acquisitions

As every diver knows, when you can't dive you can still spend silly money on diving-related goodies.

A dive buddy's retirement from the hobby means some goods are now in my possession:

1. A pony bottle and reg
2. mask, snorkels, dive bags
3. 2 x 12L tanks (in test)
4. undersuit
5. giant rubber octopus costume

So all thanks to Marky. Of course all this will help the wife when she starts her Open Water course this year. now all that remains is for an oxygen-cleaned 15L cylinder to knock on my doorstep and invite me for a couple of nitrox dives.

PS PADI Nitrox knowledge reviews completed. All hail the notion of hanging your life on the strong nail of simple algebra: Partial Pressure of O2 at 28 metres with EAN36? Come on! Come on!!

LIDS but no Ariel

London International Dive Show: my dear son Alex's first exposure to acres of neoprene and diving goodies, as well as a unique encounter with Messrs Kohler and Chatterton - hallowed Shadow Divers and lecturers on Titanic. Will try to lure them to Malta because there's lots to talk about, esp. unregulated wreck-stripping.

The wreck of the Ariel was due a visit but a cold and the wind conspired to prevent me or anyone else popping round. Sunk in 1892 carrying wheat (which presumably has swelled up and been eaten by, er, which fish eat wheat?), the Ariel is somewhere between Brighton and Newhaven in 30 metres.

Let us pray to Poseidon for good vis, to Aeolus for good winds, and to er...St.Rhino for a good nose.

PS who is the patron saint of noses and colds? surely some martyr somewhere had his or her nose removed?