First dives after lockdown

I can safely say Rich was very happy we were able to get back in the water for the first time at Chesil cove on Thursday early evening, no more nagging from me to give him jobs to do around the house:)

The beach was lovely, blue skies and calm water, perfect entry and exit conditions. Only a few couples, families and fishermen, enjoying their outdoor time, so no issues with social distancing, we even managed to bag a parking space really close in brandy row. It was easy to fully kit up and do our checks at the van, I decided to travel light and do my first couple of dives with no large camera rig, to make life easier and to take in the whole experience, and opted for the Gopro instead (see the video below). The walk down the beach is always a careful one to make sure those pesky pebbles don’t catch you out (it was steep though, so we knew it would be the usual slog up the beach afterwards, but its always worth it).

We descended to 5m, gave ourselves a quick stretch out for adjustment, and did our s-drills and bubble checks, all good and off we went. It was a lovely 14 degrees, 3-4m Viz with a bit of bloom still in the water, but just so nice to be in. There was enough life about to make a very pleasant little bimble, dogfish, cuttlefish, huge spider crabs, large group of ballan wrasse, loads of teeny nudi’s everywhere even floating around mid water. After a lovely 59 minute dive we came up with the sun starting go down. After de-kitting we decided to stay on the beach a while to watch the sunset, perfect way to end the day.