Derek’s Dive Domain

Well three or four weeks ago, I was on holiday visiting a diving friend who works out in Denmark, and lives over the bridge in Sweden.  So I took my dive gear with me on the Easyjet flight in the hope that I would get some diving whilst over there.

My hold luggage was bang on the 20 kilos, and my hand luggage was a further twelve kilos when bagged up, and the hold bag was a bit bigger than the allowance, but getting to your flight first with Easyjet seems to help, and I got to checkin right as it opened and they just waved all my bags through, no problems at all.

On to the diving, and we decided to go to a place called Lillebaelt-Soebaddt in Denmark, which translates to Little Belt, and is in the shadow of one of the bridges between two of the islands that make up the country of Denmark. 

The best way that I can describe the dive site, is in a reasonably well looked after area, used by various watersports clubs, in a sort of a National Park type environment.  Think of it as a bit like the Menai Straight, but with better wildlife under the water

We kitted up, and entered from the shore.  I was using my regular kit plus tank and weights hired from a shop, I was using my BCD for the first time in months, as it is lighter to pack on the airline than my wing, and my buoyancy was a little off as a result, but not too bad.  We went in and gradually descended to about 6 metres, and then went over a little shelf to 10 metres, and then another one down to 17 metres.  There was a slight current, but we had hit the water at roughly its most slack, so it was nice and comfortable to drift along slowly and look at the creatures.  There were starfish absolutely everywhere on this dive, I have never seen so many in one place, in all sizes.  I also saw loads of sponges, and some coral, hermit crabs, a couple of nudibranch and even a member of the Scorpionfish family.  The water temperature was 18 degrees, yet the wildlife on show was reminiscent of the dives in Tenerife last year, just without the colourful fish!

We drifted along for about half an hour, before ascending up to 10 metres for a short while, and then onto the ledge for the  final few minutes of the dive, before surfacing to find we really hadn’t drifted along that far at all, and were only a hundred yards of so from the entry point!

Whilst we were in the water the heavens had opened and everywhere on land was suddenly very wet, so we stayed in our suits whilst we ate some apples from the tree in the car park (very handy!) and our sandwich, before kitting up for a second dive on the same site.

The second dive was quite different to the first in that we entered a little way further up the coastline from our original entry point, and the current was much, much stronger on this dive.  We spent the dive n the upper ledge this time, and had a look in some of the nooks and crannies in this area.  The current was quite strong by now, and we spent about ten minutes of the dive, hanging onto a handily placed chain whilst studying some fish and critters in closeup.  All too soon, it was time to head out again, and we surfaced and walked back to the car park to de-kit.

Two really good dives, I was so glad that I had taken my kit with me on the offchance of these dives coming together.  The first dive of the day was my 150th logged dive as well, and what a lovely dive site to reach such a milestone

My buddy Filip, or Felix as he is known:

 Felix is a Commercial Diver by trade, he currently works in an aquarium in Copenhagen, but in the past has worked in the field, and his dive skills consistently put mine to shame on the two dives, despite not having dives in open water in quite some time…

Dive 1 (150) Max Depth 17.5 metres 48 mins

Dive 2 (151) Max Depth 10.7 metres 33 mins

A few days later we tried to get some more diving in on the coast of Sweden, we were hoping to do some diving at the foot of some cliffs, I can’t remember the name of the dive site, but we had not bargained against the dive season finishing in Sweden and Denmark on 31st August, all the dive shops only open at weekends after this time, and we were trying to dive midweek, so we were not able to hire any cylinders.  As a result the second dive trip was canned, but we still went to the coast on the east side of Sweden, to a National Park area at Stenshavud.  This was another area with a beautiful beach, and we donned the kit and snorkelled for an hour or so in about 2-3 metres of water maximum, but there was a lot to see.  There were jellyfish everywhere, and loads of shoals of very young fish milling about, so plenty to keep you occupied.  It was one of the most relaxing things I have done in a long time, just floating on the surface, head down in the water watching the life pass by.  Being as I was not diving, and would be flying in a couple of days, I borrowed one of Felix’s old drysuits for this, so as mine would definitely be dry for the flight home.

  Me in borrowed drysuit, on the beach at Stenshavud National Park, on the east side of Skane, emerging after a long snorkelling session.