Brixham

Exmouth Dock

Jumped off fish quay at 18:40 with Derek and Phil. Bryan provided shore cover. Went down slope in a SW direction (usually go more westerly). Bouldery, sand and clay patches. Dead fish and line close in but less rubbish than along quay. Lots of sponges and sea-firs on rocks. Abundant common starfish. A tompot blenny, shore crab, small mullet (?), and other unidentified fish seen only as fast moving shadows, or lurking at the back of overhangs. Levelling off at the bottom at about 16-17m it was more shingly, with smallish boulders. Wildlife was similar here but thinned out. Phil found a butterfish and a flounder, and I got a quick look at these.

Very dark, and pretty poor (1.5m best) vis. Blobby plankton throughout. Big UK torch made a great difference to the dive; having used some smaller ones lately. Rubbish on bottom included clothing and a bunch of blue fabric. I half expected to see a dead body wrapped up in it. It was quite creepy down there.

Nerdy camera stuff: white balance evaluation on the old IXUS 700 triggers the flash (if on) and uses that 'image'. This is really useful (and worked underwater). Torch also very useful to help camera focus and far more manageable with the latern grip as it can be held with a couple of fingers. These tweaked using GIMP and noise reduction applied with Neat Image.

A bit disoriented after swimming about down there, we eventually headed back up (NE) to light. Current getting much stronger. Found more and different sponges, took a few more pictures, and swam back to the slipway.

Aquarium of the Lakes

Not bad. Though I went mainly to see the local saltwater fish there was some interesting other stuff - cave and South American fish, otters, reptiles, creepy crawlies etc.

Overall the fish looked pretty healthy (wasn't sure about a few of the freshwater ones in the walk-through tank). The shoreline discovery bit was all good and educational. The highlight could have been the large sea fish. A large shallow ~3ft deep open tank contained conger, cod, catshark, thornback ray (wonderful), and a ballan wrasse but unfortunately it was difficult to see these comfortably because the glass faced narrow and busy walkway that led to the exit. I think it was overpriced - and I really like fish and sea-life! We paid GBP 8.75 each, plus 3.00 GBP car parking.

[The lakes, and many of the rivers, looked really inviting - must take snorkel kit (at least) to the Lake District next time.]

Hilsea Point (Pinnacle)

Near perfect weather - sunny and calm. Hilary boathandled us out, and I dived with Brian on a bouldery rock pinnacle near Hilsea Point. We dropped in very close to the rock and I sent up the blob. Vis excellent ~8m(?) and scenery wonderful with extremely large boulders, swim throughs, vertical walls and fairy grottoes.

We saw bib, ballan wrasse, cuckoo wrasse. Spiny spider crab, sea urchins, spiny starfish, purple starfish, seven armed starfish, sea fans, peacock worms, giant sea squirts and others, dead men's fingers (white/orange), boring sponges, sea cucumbers, elephant's ear, etc,.. lots of jewel anemones. Managed to get a few pictures - but not very good - blurred or grainy as filter cut out a lot of light (and white balance not right because buttons sticking).

Max depth 26.5m. Dive time about 40 minutes. Great to be back in drysuit. One of the best dives of the year. Hilary dived with Clint and Anne and they, although didn't land on the pinnacle, found lots to see and had a very good dive too. I drove us back - that was fine, and boat retreived no problem despite very low water.

Babbacombe

Drysuitless, I resolved to dive in my 5mm wetsuit. It would also be an opportunity to do a weight-check in it for possible summer diving. It was very cold getting in (water 9°C) and chilly throughout dive.

Vis was awful. At the shore it hadn't looked 'too' bad, but it was fairly murky a few metres out. We headed north from the slipway and the visiblity worsened as we encountered dense brown 'wallpaper-paste' patches. Around a few rocks managed to take some close-ups; concentrating on photography allowed me to disregard the cold for a few minutes. But I didn't really get much. My Sealife strobe stopped firing - possibly too dark, and housing buttons were sticky (at just a few metres).

Saw one or two masked crab, and a good sized spiny starfish. Lots of netted whelks about. Signalled to Derek 'cold' and 'home' after 25min and we turned around. Each time I pointed out critters to him (spiny spider crab, pipefish etc) on the the way back, I regretted it - but hoped he would be able to take a decent picture. Total dive time was 61 minutes.

Budleigh Salterton

Misty start turning into a nice warm day. Getting ready I discovered a small nick in my drysuit neck seal so trimmed to avoid a larger tear and donned very carefully.

Dived with Derek. Geoff decided to go for a walk. We went in opposite the flagpole and surface swam to near buoy (75m or so) to save air, then dropped and continued south. Swam over some rippled sand and shortly arrived at 1st reef. Low rubbly reef with turfy bits and kelp. Usual sort of thing yellow boring sponge, common starfish, snakelocks anemones, a few spider crab, lots gravel sea cucumbers, and an orangey scorpion fish (below). Hermit crab and netted whelks in the sandy spaces. Dogfish and a few sand gobies.

Continued south to second reef - a bit more bouldery and interesting. Some isolated boulders with interesting sponges and dahlia anemones. Around the bigger chunks of reef, lots dead mens fingers, more sponges, nudibranch eggs, and dayglo orange blobs that I haven't figured out what they are yet. More gravel sea cucumbers and brown sea cucumbers. On the way back I saw a solitary baby cuttlefish, some sort of segmented worm, and an interesting snail (below) Euspira catena - necklace shell.

Had another go with my Sealife flash (deciding a new one too expensive) that had so often failed to trigger. And with the G9 it worked far better than it had ever done before. The flash triggered (sensor placed over internal flash, and green filter) every time, and two layers of green bottle plastic over strobe balanced the orange 'green-magic' filter nicely. Photos here used flash; natural light ones with auto ISO and manual WB came out fine too.

Very nice relaxed 75 minute dive at about 5-7m. Didn't matter fill was a little short! Vis was ~3m. But near the shore 1 metre or less, in which I lost a fin getting out - much to everyone's amusement! Must remember not to take fins off if can't see them! And I discovered it is possible to swim with one fin and and not go in circles. Anyway Derek found the fin - luckily tide was coming in, and we could go home. Had tea on the bench by the road enjoying the sun and sorted ourselves out. Had a further play with my neck seal and managed to tear it - easily, so time for a new one of those.