November Dive in Devonshire Bay

On a beautiful morning my buddy and I set our kit up at Devonshire Bay and discussed the dive. We knew where we were going and how deep we wanted to go. It was already slightly warm, about 24 degrees at 0830 so kitting up was, frankly, done quickly so we could feel the cool embrace of the water.

With bailouts on and scooters attached, an ‘Ok’ was passed between us and away we went. Down into about 2m of water until the limestone bar forcing us into 1.5m and then out. It’s always good when the water is calm as it was today because this stone bar acts as a playground for various types of fish, from Parrot fish to wrasse in their multitudes. It is not very full or coral as it is more a solid slice of rock. Heaven help anyone who bumps into it on a ship.

Scootering!!

Out in deeper water we follow the cables still in 15-20m until finally, just under a mile off the coast we arrive on the slopes of the island’s mountain. When following the cables the bottom feels ‘flat’ even though it undulates quite a lot, so when you get into deeper water and look back you can clearly see the mountain towering over you, its rocky outcrops and sandy draws looming over you while the darkness below beckons, the rapture of the deep.

Today we followed a slightly different route as my buddy knew a “short cut” (oh dear I hear you say!) and found ourselves in a different area to the last dive where we saw the black tip, but it all worked out well. Although it took us 40 minutes of scootering to get there we finally arrived in 60m of water on the sandy slopes of this Volcano we call home.

I asked my buddy if they were happy going further and was met with approval so we did. At 70m I suggested having a look to see if we could see the 2000m drop off but on getting to 75m we couldn’t see anything. Maybe next time when we have better gas mixes we can go deeper and see something more dramatic.

It was warm at depth, 22 degrees all dive but the viability was cracking. In the region of 30-40m, we could clearly see another cable off to our left (east) which I felt was the one I used before with my previous buddy, so we scootered over there to see what was happening and perhaps see if we could see another cable.
The landscape here is a sandy bottom with frequent rocky outcrops, homes to various types of fish including a lionfish which we spotted at 80m slowly hunting for his next meal.

Lionfish in midwater

I did a bailout drill here and mentally went though my other drills like hypoxia and hyperopia, because why wouldn’t you with such perfect conditions? We did have a very gentle current pushing us south and away into the Mid Atlantic Ocean but that wasn’t a problem for our scooters. Having had a few concerns about CNS toxicity during the last dive I decided to lower the high PPO2 on my unify from 1.3 as I usually have it set, down to a set point of 1.0.

This means that the CNS concerns I had on the last dive were effectively mitigated BUT that my decompression time stacking up faster. I was seeing 78 minutes time to surface here, had I been using 1.3 as my set point it would have been much less. Balance must be found. It was here that I had my first ‘bump’.

Having decided after 15 mins on the ‘bottom’ that we would start to head up in order to avoid too much deco we set off. My scooter however was making funny noises in the prop area so I whipped off the prop and gave the inside area a bit of a clean. Somehow there was sand in there even though I had not put it prop down in the sand before the dive nor had I put it in the sand at depth.

Anyway, wiping away this sand and replacing the prop I went to start only to find that one string from my leash was on the wrong side of the prop. Pulling it off again, the magnets keeping the proper ok are so strong that it took the prop and jammed my finger between it and the main body. Ouch. When you slam a hammer onto your finger, that’s what was like.

Heading back up still we were scootering over the 18m plateau after already having fomented a few stops when out of nowhere a turtle sprints out from under me and runs into the distance. I really did not see him until he ran. Crazy how well he was camouflaged or perhaps how little I was paying attention?

Green Turtle

As our stops shallowed we had to stay well above the bottom, scootering mid water while keeping an eye out for the cables on the sea floor below us. Not as easy perhaps as you might think because while the cables are often running over rock, they also sink into sandy areas, one of which I call the ‘Great Sandy Plain’ because it is an area of about 5 minutes of scootering which is only sand in all directions so the cable is barely even visible, educated guesswork is essential unless you decide to run along the rocks on the other side of the plain and locate the cable that way once it emerges on the coral formations.

Incidentally it was here that we saw three rather large groupers meandering gently eastwards. What a lovely sight.

Grouper

At our 9m stop we had a little explore, namely for a rock as a weight had come off my buddy at some stage during the dive. Many were found but none really suitable so it was the scooter keeping him at the right depth. Awkward times are coming, at the end of this 9m stop we still have over an hour of deco. An ascent now would certainly mean a trip to the pot a 10 minute drive away!

At the start of the 6m stopped decided to keep it slightly deeper, about 8m because the tide was low and our usual spot was at 4m. My ceiling at this stage was 6m so why push harder than I need to?
With my buddy still having issues with positive buoyancy and not being able to tie himself to the cable with his reel and bag, we jammed his scooter beneath the cable and he held onto the nose clip. Not ideal but what else could we do?

It was also here that I had a play with my O2 manual add. This didn’t quite work as planned so my PPO2 went up to 1.68 in cell 3 first, then cell 2, at which stage I thought ‘bugger, I need to do a flush because I’ve been quite heavy with my O2 finger’. One flush later and little buoyancy change (awesome) I have my PPO2 down and under control once more.

Mercifully my buddy had slightly less deco than I so he departed from this stop about 10 minutes before me. I cannot imagine his relief when his deco was cleared and he could move again. I had to admit that while my buddy was struggling I was having a lovely time watching a little red fish moving about in the coral in front of me. How close would he get and how jagged/sharp were his teeth! He came so close that I could see his individual teeth, within about 3 inches of my mask! Fantastic for a non fish person. Perhaps I am finally getting interested in them?

Queen Angelfish

As well as this chap (perhaps a small red herring or small minatious grouper??) I was also joined by a queen angelfish passing very close, within 18 inches, gliding between the rocks and coral around my deco stop. She had some damage on her forehead area (no idea what this is called sorry) and a bite mark further aft on a back fin which I wondered about.
I must confess that this hour on the last stop was not at all a bad experience!

Once my buddy had left I had a few minutes to while away alone but once done I scootered back to the bay along the cables seeing all sorts again, parrot fish, a teeny tiny Moray eel that I first saw a few weeks ago, the smallest I have ever seen, a grouper, sergeant majors, all sorts.

Sergeant Majors Shoal

Scootering into the bay I did an amphibious landing on the beach, took my bailouts off and just lay in the water, bumping gently in the sand. This felt like heaven!

Dive Stats

Dive time: 3 hrs 27 mins.
Bottom time: 55 mins.
Max depth: 75.4m
Gas consumption:
O2: 90 bar (270ltrs)
Dil: 80 bar (240 litres)
O’Dive score: 77