I do not know if I have grown old and soft or if it is the case that I have only seen so much mine, that I now appreciate a warm, bright and nice dive with lots of life in the water. Yes, life in the form of fish and other things that live in the sea, not lots of other divers and swimmers.
As you know, Marcin works at Reel Diving in Gothenburg and now that I have had a holiday, I have taken the opportunity to go and visit him a few times. Worked a bit with his own company and took the opportunity to help Reel Diving with various things. This time we had decided that we would do a real west coast dive one of the evenings if the weather was nice.
Jordfall
After work, Marcin picks me up at the hostel and we drive towards Ormestad, but once in place we become very unsure of where we can park, where we should go and so on, so, we continue towards Hällebäck which apparently should also be nice. Yes, it's nice, but we're not alone in thinking so. Full of fishermen, swimmers and a whole yoga class is on site. We eat our brought dinner and decide to try a third place, if it does not feel ok either, we simply go back here. Third place will be Jordfall. Jordfall has a very good description of the divers which means that we know where to park and where we should definitely not step in. Thank you! Here we stay and dive.
We change and exchange bottles with each other so I will be a little more adapted to the west coast's salty water. Marcin is preparing his work mobile with a completely new shell that will withstand pressures down to 80 meters. Not that we are going so deep, but it can be fun to try a mobile cover just to be able to use the mobile camera.
We walk for a while and dive according to the dive description on dykarna.nu and from another diver we met here on site. I feel very soon that I am very heavy at the back and must struggle with trying to stay upright and because I am so heavy at the back I can barely back but go forward well and turn around. In addition, I feel heavy overall.
The dry suit, on the other hand, is absolutely wonderful, as is the Avatar undergarments that I got with the dry suit. I feel a little warm, but I can easily fix that next time. Strange feeling to be a little too hot actually. Despite struggling with balance and trim today, I have time to enjoy all life, all fish, crabs and more - all colors.
Towards the end I finally find the balance and can relax and film a little more than at the beginning of the dive. Once we break the surface again, it's an incredibly beautiful evening and sunset. We enjoy the surface before we get up, change and go home to the hostel.
Photographing at Hälsö
On our way home from Gothenburg on Friday, we take the opportunity to hand over a Shark Avatar dry suite to another ambassador, Annelie Pompe. And at the same time photograph both her and me in our dry suits. Annelie Pompe is a person I remember from dykarna.nu when I hung out there as a brand-new diver in 2007 and she posted such incredibly beautiful freediving pictures. A diver and adventurer who has been a source of a lot of inspiration since then. It will be so fun to meet her and see if she is as happy and charismatic as she seems.
We arrive at the address we received and Annelie comes out and meets us, together with her Spanish water dog Douglas. Outside is a flat mop and she happily and almost embarrassed explains that she has not had time to get a driver's license yet, in her case I do not doubt it for a second. She has simply prioritized other things.
We bring out the dry suit and she gets to try on both the suit and the associated undergarments. After a little adjustment of the neck seal, the suit sits like a hand in a glove. I who was going to take photos while she was wearing everything completely forgot about me as we had so much to talk about. Luckily, Marcin was able to take some photos and guide me a bit. Of course, I still got some pictures that you can see here. Marcin got some good pictures of both of us too, I think.
When we have received a bunch of pictures, we go and change, and Marcin and I drive on home. But with the invitation to come back and dive next time. Of course, she got an invitation to our favorite mine as well, so it was not a last meeting, I hope.