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.