Bring me sunshine

In the immortal words of Morecambe & Wise, "bring me sunshine" because we're getting solittle of it here just now with multiple cold fronts sweeping in from the North North East which really has put a damper on the whole diving thing.

Normal services shall be resumed when the wind drops off and starts blowing the right direction. In the mean time I took a photo of the conditions out there today.......

Friend of the devil

Now this is something you don't see every day, very rare footage of the Black Sea Devil anglerfish. There’s less than half a dozen pieces of footage of the anglerfish in existence, but the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) got lucky recently and have recorded the first ever sighting of a Black Sea Devil anglerfish in its natural habitat.

 The footage was captured by MBARI Senior Scientist Bruce Robison while controlling the remotely operated vehicle Doc Ricketts in Monterey Bay. The 9cm-long anglerfish is swimming around at a depth of 580 meters (1,900 feet), and due to the species this is identified as a female complete with fishing pole (the males don’t have them).
As the video explains, this is an ambush predator.

It is not built for speed, instead using the light at the end of its fishing pole to attract fish and squids within range to be sucked into that huge mouth. This example is also an easy one to identify if seen again due to the broken tooth hanging out of its mouth (presuming it doesn’t fall off).

Taking on the world

It's been a while since we last went shore diving due to familial responsabilites, etc. but we managed to squeeze in an early morning dive. The viz was fantastic but there was an absolute ripper of a Northerly current which meant we had to keep it very low and very slow.

Looks can be deceiving......

We wern't on a particular mission for anything today, it was just an excuse to get in and get wet and play around with the small stuff, which you will always find here in abundance without fail. There's such a great selection of gobies and blennies here, you really are spoiled for choice.

There also seemed to be a lot of trumpetfish around this morning as well, far more than I usually see here so it was nice to go stalking them through the sea fans and sponges.

Peek-a-boo, I see you.

We were pushing 90 minutes on the dive with still plenty in reserve but with the condtions the way they were, it really didn't make much sense to carry on when we'd already seen so much good stuff.

And of course the best way to finish any dive is a visit to Chef Jen at the Greenhouse Cafe for some of her great food. Today's culinary treat was a green eggs and yam wrap with extra cheese, bacon and hot sauce, quite possibly my new favourite.......