Undersea Adventure

Steve and I just about to drop over the side.

Finally I get to dive this year and we chose the windiest day for months. A rather unpromising start as it was clear we wouldn't get out beyond the breakwater as waves were crashing over the defences. Dived around the Plymouth Napoleonic sea fort for an hour and ten minutes in about 14M of water and just revelled in being underwater. Much to see with large confident shoals of pollack hanging still in the water with their faces into the current and nosy wrasse digging around behind me with every clumsy swish of my fins stirring up morsels of food. Much evidence of spring underwater with bundles of amourous starfish covering the seabed, blennies jostling in pairs to defend their territory on the submerged walls of the fort and pipe fish and multicoloured nudibranchs hiding among the weeds, soft corals and sponges. Unable to capture the natural history action for the blog immediately as I was carrying a 'film' camera but I might get some photos from Toby as he was taking digital pictures carefully as I charged about picking up old bullet casings from the seabed.

In the evening, having dropped the boat off in a Devon farm, I watched a newly born calf finding it's feet in the cowsheds. Then shortly afterwards I pulled over by the side of the road to watch a cow chasing a fox across the field, presumably emboldened by the calving, perhaps just crossing the land on the way to find chickens. In a quietly English version of the musk oxen defending themselves from the wolves of the far north I watched the cow excitedly chasing the fox with it's head lowered and the rest of the herd watching cautiously from the field edge. The fox, bold and strutting in the evening sunlight, kept just ahead of the cow aware that it didn't need to run too fast to keep out of it's way.