Reacquainting myself.

I had arranged to take my photographer friend diving again to try and get some good shots of grey seals after our last failed attempt.

We rendezvoused in the afternoon at one of my favourite spots which is home to the friendly seals I have blogged about in the past. From my experience I knew that there was about a 90% chance of encountering the seals and likely getting to swim with them. Through my binoculars I could see two of them basking on the rocks just above the water line, and as we got ready the tide reached them and they slipped into the sea.

Knowing that they were around and swimming I felt confident that we would get a good dive. As we entered the water we saw that the visibility wasn't great but certainly acceptable and we struck out towards where the seals had been resting. As we drew near I saw the recognizable head of what I had always though of as the 'mother' which we were informed later is a male. In my experience the males are usually more standoffish which is perhaps why I always assumed he was a female despite his masculine features.

We dived with him for some time but he was not as playful as usual and I didn't wasn't to pester him so we finned off around the rocks to a gully I know the females and younger seals like to frequent. I hoped that he might follow us but he had obviously lost interest at this point. Luckily the younger seal (probably the pup I first met last year) was in the gully as I had hoped and she immediately began circling us and acting in a very inquisitive and brave manner. Two other females showed up but kept their distance, on occasion racing past us very quickly, they put on a great show!






(As usual it's best in hi def/ full screen.)

Unfortunately my friend had only brought his compact camera and not his large high quality rig so although we got some nice shots and some fun video he didn't get the images he needed for his project. It was a great dive though and I was thrilled to find the young pup growing up into a beautiful adolescent, much braver than she was the first time I met her. She even approached me and gave my fins a little sniff so I'm hopeful of many more great dives with her In the year ahead.

On the fin home my mullet sense started tingling so I loaded my gun and sure enough found a couple for dinner in the murkier water close to shore.

Another Season begins!

Well it's been a long winter and I'm sorry for the dearth of updates! Still Spring is in the air (if not the sea quite yet) and the diving season approaches.

The surf has been outstanding so I haven't felt like my lack of diving has meant I'm missing out on quality sea time. There have been lovely sunny days and offshore winds, you can't beat it! So far this year I have only dived twice. Firstly at a secluded cove to take a friend hunting (with a camera) for seals as part of a photography project. The day was calm and sunny but the sea was cold and murky and although we found three or four grey seals who did investigate us quite closely, the visibility unfortunately meant no photographs were got. They seemed defensive rather than playful, probably due to the proximity to a cave they may use to rest.

My second dive was my first spear of the season and once again the water was cold and murky. My breathe holds were also terrible and I felt a distinct lack of confidence which reduced my bottom times considerably. The incredibly low tides were a good opportunity to visit a local wreck which was in very shallow water and great fun to dive around. Especially as a lot of the sand that normally covered it had been washed away and the kelp that normally festoons the metalwork has yet to grow back.

Finally as I returned, shivering to shore having seen nothing but a few Wrasse, a small shoal of Grey Mullet emerged out of the murk, the largest of which came home with me for dinner.

A good start to the year!

Dolphins in December

My mate called round for a morning surf, and I got laughed at as usual as I strapped on my goggles and camera. We trotted down the hill to find some lovely little waves coming in, but not only that a pod of bottle nose dolphins were playing near the rocks. I left my friend to go surfing and clambered down the cliff and went straight out to see the show.

It was incredible. A crisp clear sunny December morning with decent vis under the water and as soon as I paddled over the dolphins came to investigate me. My goggles really came into their own as they circled just a couple of feet away eyeing me inquisitively. With a quick nod and a burst of sonar clicks in my direction they were off and I watched them splashing their tails nearby before they shot back past me riding a wave towards the rocks. They jumped out of the back of the wave and raced underneath me, it was amazing.






My footage is not quite so incredible as I was using the Go Pro wrist mount which has the dome lens on it which blurs the underwater footage (and it's shaky too). Still it's better than nothing and I am really glad to have a record of what turned out to be one of my best and most interesting dives with the dolphins to date.

They played with me and around me for an hour or more, surfing, circling me and when I dived down they would come and investigate me it was a really special experience and one I know I'll never forget. We drifted along the coast with the tide and I noticed that two or three of the pod were friendly and playful whilst the largest stayed at a distance. I also wondered why they were staying in one place, only moving with the current. It was only after my camera battery had died that I found out why.

There was (what I thought was) a baby dolphin with them, but it quickly became clear all was not well. The baby was not surfacing and the other dolphins were nudging it, then bringing it to the surface over and over again. It was a heartbreaking scene. I finally got close enough while it was at the surface to examine it. It was about 2.5 to 3ft long and its nose was very stubby, it had lacerations on its head and other abrasions and was clearly dead. My excitement had quickly turned to sadness so I released the dead calf back to the sea leaving the dolphins to their vigil. I climbed the cliff with a heavy heart.

As it turned out I was wrong on just about every count! I called the Dolphin people at Cornwall Wildlife Trust and agreed to go back and try and retrieve the body for autopsy. I returned to the sea for a frustrating two hours unable to catch up with the pod who were spending most of their time underwater. They buzzed me a few times but there was sign of the calf.

It was only when I returned home exhausted and called the Wildlife Trust back that we realised my description matched not a baby Bottle-nose Dolphin but a young Harbour Porpoise. I checked some images and confirmed the species, it turns out Dolphins often kill their smaller brethren! That certainly put a different perspective on things! If I had known that I would have brought the body back straight away, but at least I could describe their behaviour which was really unusual under the circumstances.

A fantastic day and my ridiculous looking gear paid off sooner than expected!

What makes a good surf?

Ahhh the surfing season has definitely arrived! Crisp sunny offshore days and great waves! And even better some great showings by the local wildlife.

We turned up for an early morning session last week,the waves were not anything special to be fair but the morning sun was creeping over the cliff and catching the spray beautifully. What made the session really memorable however was a surprise appearance by a pod of bottlenose Dolphins. A set came through and we saw large dark shapes darting within the wave, then suddenly they leapt from the face in a group – incredible! Everyone was smiling and hooting, even the arrival of a trio of long boarders couldn't dampen our enthusiasm.

The dolphins surfed with us, played around us and generally put on a fantastic show. Jumping, flipping upside down, waving their tails in the air and gliding right under us. I dived down to meet them squinting my eyes underwater and often seeing their silhouettes pass right past me, I could hear their high pitch squeaking as they inspected me. There is no better experience in the sea than encountering wild dolphins it really does set you on a high.

After a half hour they moved on and I was left with a warm glow that stayed with me all day.

Today I also had a great surf, lovely crisp, hollow little waves. Another sunny morning - this time with great waves! But again nature put on a great show, as we waded into the water we could see 3 seals playing in the shallows, and more out in the surf. They spent the whole session regarding us carefully, sometimes hooting mournfully in the distance. Several times the smaller females popped up very close by and one duck dived in front of me as I took off on a wave, riding down the line I could see her racing along under me in the clear shallow water.

I've procured a set of small swimming goggles to wear round my neck when I'm surfing from now on so that next time I have one of these encounters I will be able to dive down and see it all clearly!

I think I will also get a wrist mount for my GoPro so that I always have my camera with me as well, just in case.

How things change...

I decided to return to a spot that I haven't dived for a while. When I first started spearing it was one of my regular haunts even though I never had much luck there (apart from spider crabs) but it is a stunning location.

It was a crisp clear day, the sun was out but the promise of cold was in the air as I got changed and hiked down to the beach earning some curious looks from walkers out enjoying the weather.

There were a couple of characteristics about this bay that stuck in my mind, firstly that there was always deep gullies out of my reach that I thought must have been FILLED with all the fish I'd failed to find, there were after all always fishermen here casting off from the rocks. Secondly I remember finding a cave and I wanted to try and revisit it.

It had been a sunny day with clear vis and from the surface I had seen a large spider crab at the bottom of a hole in the rocks. I remember diving for it and thinking it was right at the limit of my abilities, when I reached to grab it I glanced up and saw a cave ahead of me, light glinting at the far side. I shot back up to the surface my mind filled with images of giant conger eels.

Today the visibility was nothing like as good but I knew the area fairly well and struck out round the headland with confidence. I had to duck close to the rocks and under some Anglers Lines, asking of course before hand, earning a few glares for my trouble. Anglers don't generally have much time for Spearos which is a shame. I always try to stay out of their way and am more than happy to let them know what fish I've seen around and where if they only ask.

I did some warm up dives and began to explore. It immediately became apparent how much I have improved since the last time I dived here. I found myself quickly lying on the seabed at the bottom of the gullies I had always eyed in the past. The deepest one was only 11 or 12 meters. Unfortunately the huge fish I had always imagined lurking down there were proving elusive.

I was on the way back when found the cave. I quickly dived down to the entrance and realised that it wasn't that deep and that it was also much wider than I remembered. I checked the exit as well, it's important if your going to swim a cave to make sure it's safe first. A good test is to swim down to the entrance look in, then swim up and around/over it to the exit and look in, if you can do that (and the cave is wide enough) then you can be fairly sure you can make it. But be careful and always dive with a buddy!





I had done some diving through underwater obstacles an Chepstow with the free-divers so felt much more confident and after a calming breathe up made my attempt. After the initial excitement almost disappointingly easy and I went back through a few times, taking the time to hang around in the cave. It was really fun, there's just something eerie about being in an enclosed space underwater and it was really rewarding to see how much more confident I was underwater compared to a few years ago.

As usual I had a great time, despite the poor vis and the lack of fish!

Underwater Surfing... sort of

As the diving season comes to a close so the surfing season comes around. The crowds thin out (a bit, not as much as they used to unfortunately) and the swells pick up.

I decided not to take my board in but instead try some underwater surfing and took my camera along to try and get some footage. There were big regular lines coming in and a stiff offshore wind sending plumes off spray into the air as I put on my old fins and my mask and backed into the shore break.

It turns out I am no George Greenough! For those of you not familiar with his work, check out Crystal Voyager, a classic 1975 surf film, George pioneered filming inside the barrel and there is a long ambient section set to Echoes by Pink Floyd that will blow you're mind!

Check it out on Youtube

I managed to take a few poundings in the shore break (I'm still getting the sand out) and very few even passable shots, certainly no decent footage! I did manage to catch a few waves underwater which was fun, but another lesson was learnt. Don't use your favourite free diving mask! I took an underwater wipe-out (a first), and the mask got torn off and immediately lost. With that kind of swell running there's a lot of water moving around there was no chance of recovering it.

Still it was a lovely day with rainbows forming in the spray behind the waves filling the air with colour. I need to find some way of preventing water droplets on my lens above water as all my attempts to film them ended up blurred.

Close Encounters

The basking shark survey stopped it's work earlier in September so I was surprised to see four of them feeding in the bay this late in the season, one small one was very close to the shore. I rushed off to get my Kayak and diving gear together. By the time I was running down the hill with the kayak slung over one shoulder an idiot on a stand up paddle board had chased the smaller shark out to sea. DON'T chase basking sharks! Stay still near their feeding area and they will more than likely cruise past you without getting disturbed.

By the time I had made it to the waters edge I was disappointed to find that I could no longer see the sharks at all. Undeterred I waited for a gap in the swell and paddled hard for the open ocean, I didn't want to get caught by a wave with all my gear lashed to the kayak!

It was a lovely sunny evening and aside from the gentle rolling of the swell the sea was calm, I caught site of a fin a long way out and headed off in that direction. When I finally got out to their feeding area I found huge shoals of Mackerel creating waves of spray all around with great whooshing sounds and 3 sets of distinctive fins circling a wide area. Just sitting on the kayak watching was amazing!

I hurriedly put on my fins and mask, grabbed my camera and slipped into the water. The visibility wasn't too bad and I was immediately buzzed by huge shoals of Mackerel, their fantastic colours glinting in the sun, below me another shoal swirled, almost in a baitball. I headed past them and waited for the biggest Basking Shark to circle back to me. I floated motionless keeping the Kayak out of the way and was rewarded by a direct approach, its huge silhouette resolving into fantastic clarity, the sunbeams illuminating the inside of its mouth I could see right through its gill rakes as it swept majestically past me.

It came so close I was concerned it might hit me, certainly too close to film effectively! But what an experience! I could see every mottled mark on its skin, its dark eye regarding me and the bright red of its gills as they flared. It was probably over 15ft long and at its stately pace seemed to take a long time to pass, or maybe my excitement caused time to slow. Finally its great tail fin swept elegantly right past my face and it swam into the gloom and out of view.




Aside from not causing distress to them the advantage of not chasing them is that they remain unperturbed by your presence and I was lucky enough to have another six close encounters like this with three different sharks as a result. I couldn't have been happier (except if my girlfriend had been there to share the experience!). The sharks moved away and I let them go, taking the opportunity to load my spear gun and catch some Mackerel for dinner, the shoals were massive and kept returning. On one shot my spear came back with two attached and in the end I decided to stop at five as that was enough for all of us for dinner.

I returned to shore a very happy diver! It made the horrendous hike up the hill carrying my kayak worth it!