UAE West Coast Temperatures

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Great dive with Masterchief on the A300 wreck last Monday, viz was appalling and on the second dive we lost each other but surfaced about 3M away from each other after a 5 min check at 12M.

Few flatworms around, but did not find any nudis



Conditions on the surface could not have been better, amazing given what it has been like over the past month, especially during weekends with this upcoming one being no exception with 20 knot gusts forecast.

Nice company on the boat and plenty of space

 

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Water temps 31C, air temps 41C

Had a 105 minute dive under the EMEG office at the Jebel Ali Palm

Dozens of nudibranchs between 5-10mm in length, all of them Hypselodoris infucata

 

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Water temperature 32C today, diving the base of Jebel Ali Palm under the EMEG office on the jetty.

Highlight of the dive was getting buzzed by a cormorant at 5M, awesome

Spent more time looking at small fish but the nudis are still there although only one species, Hypselodoris infucata



End of my pointer is 6mm



Played around with a small cuttlefish and found plenty of small fish around the seagrass.



Second dive at this site and definitely a decent muck dive with 2-3 meters visibility. Was using the 85mm lens with +5 wet diopter for a few shots, might try the 105mm next time.

 

[Benzonar]

Gordon,

What is the algal growth like on that site - in particular was there any Arvainvillea algae? Its the paddle shaped stuff that the Costasiella slugs like so much. I'm starting to look for the sap suckers at this time of year so looking for sites with good algal and sea grass beds. Let me know if there are any open invites to that site in the future. Could be interesting.

 

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Hi Stewart,

I will check my pics for the algae when I am back in Dubai. Working on Major Ali via Yanni and Hannah to see if we can do a night dive there, keep you posted.

How was Anilao?

 

[Benzonar]

Anilao was fantastic as always, lots of lovely critters.

 

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Bit of a change today, no early rise to rush off to the east coast, but an easy drive south of Dubai to Ghantoot just over the border into Abu Dhabi.

My daughter had done part of her staff instructor course here with Divers Down last year, and had mentioned that there were lots of nudis (all same species) lurking under the marina area, so my buddy Kerstin and I went to investigate.

Visibility was really poor, a metre max really, but we found dozens of Goniobranchus obsoletus, most of them were less than 1cm in size.

Divers Down have a nice set up here and perfect for OW training. We may return for a night dive at some point just to see what comes out of the mud.

The water temp was a toasty 24C, still in my drysuit though as we had planned a long dive. Max depth was 7m.

 

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Another day of diving at Divers Down in Ghantoot, water temperature was 27C and I was very comfortable in my drysuit

Main plan was for my daughter to get used to her drysuit again having only done one dive in it so far.

Same vis (<1m) and it was a challenge to keep in visual contact once below 3m.

Loads of the same nudis around Goniobranchus obsoletus, but they all seemed to be grown up now since I last saw them.

 

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Due to no diving on the east coast this weekend Plan B came into effect.

My daughter was teaching an OW class and although dives 3 and 4 should have been over at Snoopy she changed the location to Dubai off one of the local beaches in Jumeirah.

My buddy Kerstin and I decided to have a nice long lazy dive at the same place, giving me some time to try out an Olympus TG5 since the depth was only 6m.

Plenty of seagrass and a few nudis, but the strobe refused to fire on slave mode so no decent or even half decent shots. However after watching Backscatter's online video about the camera I realise that I didn't have it set up correctly and will be giving it another try.

Water temp was 29C, perfect in a skin for 90 mins

 

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Back diving off Dubai again this morning, managed to get a half decent shot of what I think is Limenandra fusiformis

and we found a pair of Elysia marginata too in the sea grass.

Water temps 29C ....... lovely