UAE East Coast Temperatures

[Searcaigh]

Inch 1 today (first time this year) and Three Rocks (Pinnacles).

Amazing vis on Inch 1 and no current

On arrival Al Boom were already on the mooring and on our boat my buddy Kerstin and I were first off and had a good 5 mins on the wreck before the Al Boom divers arrived We also had a good 10 mins on the wreck to ourselves after everyone had left ..... perfect.

Took us ages though to find a seahorse, and it was not really playing as it was tucked in a crevice and refused to come out and play.





Second dive was on Three Rocks aka Pinnacles, nice chilled solo dive as Kerstin started her tech skills using twins at this shallow site.

Water temps were really good 26C on Inch 1 and 29C at Three Rocks.

 

[BoltSnap]

Kerstin started her tech skills using twins at this shallow site

Who is she training with?

 

[MasterChief D]

No more frogfish on IC1, Searcaigh?

 

[Searcaigh]

Who is she training with?

Doing PADI Tech 50 with Jeff the new manager at Palms at the Radisson in Dibba.

I will be doing a 40m and 50m dive with them tomorrow, Jeff has found some coral reef at 40m, more info to come later.

I have dived with Jeff on the Ines a couple of times.

No more frogfish on IC1, Searcaigh?

I wish, we were lucky to find the seahorse, it wasn't exactly in the most accommodating place for taking photos, I didn't have a lasso to wrangle it out

Some other pics from yesterday, I was using my 40mm lens for the first time since I bought it last June. It fits in my 60mm port, but I need another port to be able to get 1:1

Close up of a lionfish



Filefish

 

[Searcaigh]

Dived a new site today, 42m with giant cauliflower like corals, no idea what species but thinking they could be Dendronephthya sp.

 

[Searcaigh]

Temperature spike today, 28C on the bottom of Deep Reef, and 30C at the bottom of Car Cemetery 2 and I was in a 5mm

Another boat had dropped the shot on Deep Reef, but either they were not accurate or somebody used it to pull themselves down and it moved in the current. In any case it took 6 minutes of swimming to reach the reef in 3-4m visibility.

No seahorses or sea snakes, a tad disappointed but we did find a few large pipefish



Car Cemetery 2 was amazing vis, and I was looking for something decent to shoot with the 40mm lens, but no cuttlefish around to play with. However still plenty of slugs

Chromodoris annulata



And a headsheild slug Chelidonura livida

 

[BoltSnap]

How deep is "Deep Reef"?

 

[Searcaigh]

How deep is "Deep Reef"?

28m

 

[Searcaigh]

Back on Deep Reef again today, bottom temps 24C and surface temps 29C. I had decided to use my new 3mm that I received from Fourth Element as a freebie (as it took them 9 months to deliver my other suit - 3mm Proteus) since I had never used it. I also had a hooded vest on too, so fairly comfortable.

Incredible visibility, around 10m, of course my buddy Fraulein Kerstin said it was 9.87m, achtung baby! I was shooting wide angle today.

We had a couple of sea snakes for most of the dive, good buddies. How long can these animals hold their breath?





Near the shot line we also came across a nice large seahorse



It was a nice and relaxing dive and just what I needed after a hectic week at work.

Some other pics

Cuttlefish



Oman Hawkfish

 

[Searcaigh]

I thought I should post some pics of Deep Reef, excuse the backscatter, although vis was excellent the water is never crystal clear.

The reef itself sits around half a meter from the sand, and has an overhang on top of which there are large bushy corals, white to light pink in colour, we usually find the seahorses at the base of these corals. There are also many small gorgonian fans, and I frequently wonder if there are any pygmy seahorses living in the area, one day I will bring a magnifying glass and check out some of them.