UAE East Coast Temperatures

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Unfortunately Triton Trumpets are not found in this area, and my friend who is the head of marine biology at Khorfakkan University is not sure if any predator of COTs exist in the Gulf of Oman.

I've seen Triton Trumpets in the Red Sea and first hand experience of watching one attack a COT when one of my buddies placed it on top of a COT we found during a night dive. The Triton basically drilled right into the COT through the top of it.
Yes, a big concern that there are next to no natural predators for this damaging pest.

I didn't know that there were any Tritons in the Red Sea.

I had thought that they were only found in the South Pacific.
 
Is it something us Bald Apes have done to reduce the Tritons?
Yes in some areas of the world the locals collect them sell the shells to tourists. I assume they eat the contents first.
 
It's been cold recently, rain and wind have prevented boats going out due to Coast Guard warnings etc., but I managed to squeeze in a few dives when @outofofficebrb came over for a visit and even managed to get a cancellation on a Dhow to Musandam, this will be a separate post.

Plenty of nudis around including this Goniobranchus annulatus with SEVEN Rhinophores :eek:



Some other critters too including this sea snake that was resting on the bottom at 24m allowed me to get fairly close.



We even had four of the largest marble rays I had ever encountered at Car Cemetery 2, which gave @outofofficebrb some subject matter as she was shooting wide angle.

Our last dive was at Sandy Beach / Snoopy Rock and basically had to be abandoned after 80 mins due to strong surge. However I did get a nudi shot Caloria indica

 
Three tank dive with BDC yesterday, and from our Fujairah Divers WhatsApp group there were six of us on BDC with six other divers.

It's Ramadan, and the only fasting person was the boat captain LaBlue.

Temperatures stayed at 23C on all dives from surface to bottom.

Dive 1 in Inchcape 1 had a ripping surface current, vis was absolute sh!te, even on the bottom at 30m. Found a new nudi I hadn't seen before and ran into deco. Fortunately I always carry a 50% pony, and cleared deco on the ascent. The two subsequent dives (Gunther's Wrecks/Snoopy Deep and Inchcape 2) were done using EAN40.

The nudi on Inchcape 1 was this Goniobranchus alius



After an hour SI, we dived Gunther's Wrecks and my buddy Kerstin found a nice Cadinella ornatissima

I've changed the photo slightly as it was upside down originally, then we found a second one five minutes later.





On the last dive, we had several nudis, including the Pikachu (Thecacera pacifica), two Phyllodesmium sp, several Hypselodoris species, a Goniobranchus annulatus, a few Caloria species. but the nicest one is this Janolus sp.



Great dives, and with the boat leaving at 08:50 we were back in Fujairah marina by 15:30, a bit of a long day but it was worth it.
 
Flat calm seas off Fujairah yesterday, and only three of us on the boat, perfect morning's driving on The Blocks and Car Cemetery 2.

Water temps were changing 23-24C, so thankfully I think we can expect warmer shallower temps soon during the safety / deco stops.

Not as many nudis as I expected, however the Golden Eyeball Award goes to my friend Vickie who spotted this shrimp on a crinoid.

 
It was raining when I left home yesterday morning and I really wondered what it would be like at the east coast, but no messages from the dive centre regarding any coastguard warnings, so I carried on.

the rain got heavier but then dissipated as I crossed the Sharjah desert area, but was really low visibility and heavy cloud cover.

No wind in Fujairah, and with two boats going out and me being on the busy one I really wondered about changing especially as there were four instructors on board with students in various OW stages.

I had however asked to be dropped off at Inchcape 2, rather than the shallow sites, which is what happened.

Two solo dives on this wreck all to myself, no other divers, it was so mystical. I found not only one Janolus I was looking for, but a second one too 😍





Water temps, are slowly warming up, with bottom temp varying 23/24C and safety stop temp around 25/26C

Another month and I should be back in my 5mm.

It rained during the SI, but the air temp was fine at 27C

There were loads of Hypselodoris dolfusi, I gave up taking photos of them unless they looked to be in a good position photographically.



The surprise though was this Gymnodoris rubropapulosa



Lets hope it doesn't eat all of the other nudis :eek:
 
There's been a plethora of nudis off the east coast over the past month at most of the major dive sites, Inchcape 2, Inchcape 10, and The Blocks.

Not so much at Car Cemetery 2.

We dived Car Cemetery 1 yesterday, first time since December 2020, and visibility was around 15-20m, totally blown away by this. I could have shot wide angle!

There is also a massive ghost net covering a large part of the area with the expected dead fish that have been caught up in it too.

Major highlights yesterday were an octopus on Inchcape 2 as well as a Gymnodoris rubropapulosa eating a Hypselodoris carnae.





Water temperature 23-24C
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/perdix-ai/

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