UAE East Coast Temperatures

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Another trip to Gunther's wrecks with Barracuda from Fujairah, long ride but well worth it.

Two other boats were dropping divers when we arrived but there was no sign of them when we descended. My buddy Kerstin was first down and within less than a minute found three seahorses.

Today I was using my 60mm lens which is much easier for such large critters

Second dive was on Martini Rock, but not much to write home about.

 

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Gunther's wrecks

Is this a new site? I never heard of them when I lived there.

 

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Is this a new site? I never heard of them when I lived there.

It was created in the 1990s and was re-discovered two years ago, might be three, time moves so fast.

Gunther was a German guy that ran Sandy Beach Dive Centre when I arrived in UAE back in 1997. He had a very nice BMW R90/S too.

Anyway he created the site as an artificial reef with several small boats as well as some scaffolding to build a structure several metres in height, it's quite expansive too. Maximum depth is 24m

 

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Back to Gunther's Wrecks again on BDC3, 50 min boat ride from Fujairah Marina, and if you dive from Sandy Beach a five minute boat ride.

We did our second dive on Inchcape 2, while others did Hole in the Wall.

I decided to use leave the Nikon on the boat and use the Olympus TG5 using my new Backscatter mini strobe.

This proved to be a wise choice as the seahorses I found were in a place where a large housing with double strobes would have been challenging.

Water temps seem to be warming up at depth, with a nice comfy 27C.

Found one Trapania sp nudibranch on Inch 2 was unable to get a decent photo of it, however this small cowrie made up for it

 

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Back to Deep Reef 2 yesterday and Car Cemetery 2 for the second dive.

Bottom temp was 24C, would have been fine if I didn't do a second dive, but I really felt cold on the second dive wearing a 3mm and hooded vest.

That said, we found two seahorses on Deep Reef but sadly no nudis on CC2.

On the second dive my camera was stuck on f32 and I couldn't change the aperture so that restricted my subjects, but I did get a half decent shot of a cleaner shrimp.

and a tiny juvenile scorpionfish came crawling by

A good day out with Barracuda Dive Centre on their smaller boat, but I think I'll take their boat next week that is diving off Khorfakkan where it's three degrees warmer or bring my 5mm.

 

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It's getting cold 23C bottom temp on Deep Reef ..... I think the drysuit will be coming out soon, but I was reasonably cosy in my 5mm + hooded vest.

Nothing spectacular apart from a seahorse but didn't take too many pics this time. Apparently there were several sea snakes but I didn't see them as they were always behind me according to my buddy Kerstin.

The second dive was on Inchcape 10 and vis was not so great. I put the dome on the TG5 and decided to shoot without the strobes.

There were masses of fish around and it got dark several times as the shoals passed overhead..

Tomorrow we head up to Martini Rock and Hole in the Wall.

 

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I put the dome on the TG5

I thought that you had a DSLR IIRC. I remember your using a housed camera from the time we dove together.

 

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I thought that you had a DSLR IIRC. I remember your using a housed camera from the time we dove together.

Correct, however I bought a TG5 a couple of years ago and sometimes use that with a Nauticam Housing.

I was using the Nikon D7100 with the 105mm lens today.

 

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Nice 27C on both dives today at Inchcape 2 and Hole in the Wall (although we headed north on the latter dive site)

My buddy and I had a 34 mins peaceful dive on Inchcape 2 before the occupants of the Neptune boat descended. The rest of our boat was destined for Martini Rock.

A few tiny nudis spotted including this 10mm Flabellina exopta

Second dive was north of Hole in the Wall, and there was nothing exceptional but we had a really chilled out float around for 65 mins.

If diving off Fujairah next week it might be time to dust off the drysuit.

 

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A couple of more shots from Friday

Trapania sp. about 5mm in length

I like flatfish, when you look into their eyes you can see their sole

Sexy shrimps, Thor amboinensis, are abundant around Hole in the Wall