Robert’s Ramblings

A playful greeting from a grey seal welcomed us as we arrived at our Little Skellig dive site, an experience that stood in sharp contrast to the grim events of 1809, when the full-rigged ship Lady Nelson was wrecked here. Of her crew, only two survived while twenty-five souls were lost.

During our dive we were repeatedly “buzzed” by two of these enormous grey seals. Their curiosity drew them close, yet their caution kept them just beyond camera range. It was a magical, slightly mischievous encounter that reminded us we are guests in their underwater world.

Little remains of the Lady Nelson after more than two centuries. A few scattered iron cannons lie on the rocky seabed, the last enduring traces of the ship, survivors themselves of both time and plunder.

Diving in places of such natural beauty, yet shadowed by tragedy, is a humbling experience. It reminds us never to take for granted the power of the sea, nor the privilege of being able to explore it.


#littleskellig #scuba #diving #kerry #underwater #seals #greyseal #ireland #skelligs #ladynelson #shipwreck

It was just John and me today, the last dive of an unforgettable Portmagee weekend. With the ocean calm and flat, we decided to head across to Puffin Island.

On the western side of Puffin Island lies a dramatic fissure, almost splitting the island in two. Here, 50-meter cliffs of 350-million-year-old red sandstone plunge vertically into the sea. Beneath these towering walls was our destination, Cuas Gorm, or in English, Cove Blue.

Us we dropped below the surface we were treated to 20m visibility views of sheer rock faces dropping to 40 meters, blanketed in anemones and sea stars. As we descended deeper into the fissure, we found house-sized boulders scattered like building rubble, forming a spectacular three-dimensional maze of caves and swim-through tunnels where lobsters and shrimp hid in the gloom while wrasse playfully darted around us.

It was such a delight exploring Cuas Gorm in such great conditions and visibility. I’m already looking forward to next time.


#puffinisland #scuba #diving #kerry #underwater #sidemount #CuasGorm

As I headed upstream from Lover’s Leap toward the River Blackwater Beach, I noticed a change. There were fewer lifeless fish on the riverbed now, and the first signs of the living, dying, and desperate.

I saw trout with clouded eyes, their bodies veiled in a milky-grey film. Some floated upside down near the surface, barely moving. Others rose from the bottom in spasms of effort, only to sink back down again, spent.

These once beautiful creatures should have been freckled with vibrant red spots against sleek, silvery-brown bodies. They should have been darting through the current with speed, agility, and grace.

Instead, I watched their sickness, their distress, their final moments. Grief weighed on me. Anger too at what was, almost certainly, the work of human negligence.


#fish #fishkill #blackwater #mallow #munster #freshwater #grief #death #browntrout #ireland

Today, I slipped into the waters of the River Blackwater beneath Lover’s Leap, downstream from Mallow, hoping to capture some of the local river life.

What I saw instead distressed me. It made me angry. It made me sad. In less than 100 metres of river, I counted more than a hundred dead or dying brown trout and European eels.

I’ve since learned that more than eight kilometres of river upstream have been affected by what is believed to be a fungal infection, now under investigation by Irish authorities.

For months, I’ve been hearing about the devastation to marine life in South Australia caused by an unprecedented Karenia mikimotoi algal bloom. My experience on the River Blackwater today gave me a small, bitter taste of their grief.


#fish #fishkill #blackwater #mallow #munster #freshwater #grief #death #browntrout #ireland

Many divers that are not into photography simply swim continuously through their environment expecting that this will give them then best chance to see everything there is to see. For things that do not swim away this makes perfect sense.

If on the other hand you really want to see fish behaviour, the opposite is true. Pick a spot, really any spot will do, settle down, relax and wait.

It will not take long, perhaps a couple of minutes or two, but the fish will come to you. On this dive I had three curious blennies come and play with me for as long as I was prepared stick around.


#blennies #cheeky #critters #diving #fishbehavior #ireland #kerry #manchestermerchant #scuba #wreckdiving

It’s wonderful to be surrounded by an abundance of fish life, all going about their business, oblivious to our diving intrusion.

It’s quite something else when the wildlife wants to play.

I first noticed the blennies as I nestled down amid the wreckage, one, then two, then three, then four, as the blennies came out to play. Soon, our favourite game became, “How many fingers can be nibbled all at once?”

Too bad I was set up for big-vista, wide-angle photography, or I would have captured a fun, cheeky blenny portrait.


#ireland #kerry #scuba #diving #manchestermerchant #blennies #critters #cheeky #wreckdiving #fishbehavior

The spider crab is Ireland’s largest crab and can be found pretty much everywhere.

Here on the wreck of the SS Manchester Merchant, this guy was happy to pose for me amid the twisted metal, the starfish, the blennies, and the pollock. It all ended when I got a little too close, and he shuffled off in annoyance. At least I got the shot first.

Life on this wreck, lying in the middle of Dingle Bay, County Kerry, is nothing short of fabulous. I saw more fish, in both numbers and species, than I have on an entire year’s worth of dives combined!

It was a privilege to dive on the SS Manchester Merchant, and huge thanks go out to the members of the Inbhear Sceine Kerry Sub Aqua Club for organising such a great day out.


#Scuba #diving #ireland #kerry #manchestermerchant #shipwreck #spidercrabs #crabs #claws #wildlife #crustaceans

This lobster, hiding in the debris of the SS Manchester Merchant, was not coming out to play, no matter how long I lay there and waited.

The space was too confined to get any closer with the strobes attached to my camera, so I decided to fold them back, sacrificing light for access.

As I pushed my camera down into the hole, the lobster at first held its ground, then backed off just a little. I backed off slightly too, which seemed to draw it back toward me again.

Suddenly and without warning, bang! Two massive claws lunged out at me. I’m sure I heard chitin on glass as lobster and camera briefly sparred for territory.

After that, the lobster backed off, held its ground, and there it remained until I left.

Lobsters are normally very timid creatures. This time, however, I assume the behaviour was aimed not at me, but at some brutish competitor reflected back from the camera’s lens.


#Scuba #diving #ireland #kerry #manchestermerchant #shipwreck #lobster #homarusgammarus #claws #wildlife #crustaceans

We were deep, very deep, perhaps 35 metres down or more. A brooding grey sky above meant that very little light had made its way to us here. Colour had been left behind, languishing in the surface shallows.

To say there was no colour at all wouldn’t be quite true. All around us was a deep, dark, monochromatic green. I was tempted to call the photo ‘Green Day’. That green is what my camera managed to capture at a technically stretched ISO 12,800, but to my eyes, there was no colour at all.

So, in the end, I chose to share the image in black and white. Because down there, in that quiet depth, we were truly diving beyond colour.


Scuba #diving #portmagee #kerry #ireland #deep #monochrome #black&white

As I break the surface at the end of another amazing dive beneath the waters of Bray Head I’m comforted by the sight of the approaching boat with a competent coxswain at the helm.

Getting back into the boat is a real team effort. The first diver removes their gear piece by piece, handing each in turn to the coxswain. Once all gear is on board the diver must then kick and breach themselves out of water and over the side of the pontoon into the boat.

With two in the boat, they begin helping the remaining divers until all are onboard.

This is my last chance to capture a few images before making my entry stage left and then heading back to port.


#Scuba #diving #portmagee #kerry #ireland #kerrysubaqua #inbhearsceinekerrysubaqua #boating #ocean #rib #boats