Diving - More Adventures underwater
Diving in Nice, France
I sneaked in a dive on a short break to visit Nice and Monaco.
I used Nice Diving, who were located in the Port Lympia area.
It was raining, so I took the tram to the Port and found their shop quickly, but it wasn't open when I arrived, so I looked for a cafe, but none of those were either.
I huddled out of the rain for a while and then returned to the shop and collected a wet suit and cylinder from them and was asked to return in about half an hour, being directed to the nearby Cafe De Cycliste, which had opened by then.
The boat was an odd flat bottomed thing, with a tiny wheelhouse, but cover to keep the rain off and nets to store our dry stuff out of the rain and wet benches.
As well as the skipper and a young woman acting as crew (I guess), there were 3 local women diving, my guide (Hugo) and myself on the boat and we motored around to the Villefranche bay and dived at a site which I believe was Grand Baie.
I was asked how deep I wanted to go. 40? 50? 60? 70? Florence, one of the women on board, had told me that the wall dropped down to 200M or so, but I said I'd stick to under 40M (as my travel insurance only covered me that deep).
The 3 women (regulars from what I understood), dropped in as a group and then Hugo kitted up and we dropped in, descending a few metres to the sea bed.
At first he was obviously checking me out, asking for gas and if I was OK frequently, but after a while he relaxed and we just swam with him taking his own photographs and me using my GoPro.
The wall, actually seemed to drop down in steps and we descended to around 35M, spotting a Cuttlefish early on.
Further down, we came across numerous Rascasse (Scorpion Fish), including one large example and some bright red Starfish, which I guess were noteworthy as Hugo pointed them out.
There were lots of Wrasse, although none looked exactly like these we have in the UK and plenty of silver fish, that I've yet to identify.
A video from my trip to Nice
We gradually worked our way back up the slope as the dive progressed and then found ourselve in around 6M under the boat.
Hugo asked if I was cold, but I wasn't particularly, even though I was in a 5MM wetsuit, so, with air to spare, we swam around in the shallows, exploring the seagrass and good light at that depth, even on an overcast day.
We headed back to the boat at around the 45 minute point and exited via the ladder on the boat (no lifts here!).
It wasn't a super exciting dive, but it was a pleasant one and there were certainly some different fish to see compared to a UK dive and the vis was better at over 10M.
It was a pleasant bonus to get a warmish sea dive in, so late in the year, although I'm sure if I'd dived on one of the sunny days of our trip I would have enjoyed it even more as I was distinctly chilly on our way back to port and returned to the Cafe De Cycliste for another coffee, before heading back and meeting Mandy in the hotel before venturing out again in the afternoon.
Goodbye 2024, it's been a blast!
I rounded out 2024 with a quick December dip with retro gear at Wraysbury with Andy.
It was pretty cold (log shows 7C, but I'm sure I saw 6C at one point), but the vis was good (4M or so).
We jumped off the pier behind the shop and headed to the bus, from there we went to the pit, where dredging was taking place with an air lift, but didn't go down as work was in progress (Richard reckons it's down to 18M now).
We followed the edge of the drop off for a while, but Andy seemed to get a bit disorientated looking for the cave complex.
After a while of randomly swimming, though, we found it in the end and swam through it for a few minutes, before turning back and heading along the edge, past the Scimitar and remains of the Spitfire (now nearly completely corroded away) and then past the confined water area and back out at the slip behind the shop.
While we saw quite a few of the invasive Crayfish, we didn't spot a single fish in our whole dive!
Andy's shoulder valve had let in a lot of water, so he was happy to cut the dive quite short and to be honest, it was enough for me, too.
Andy modelling some of his retro gear, mask and an ABLJ, predecessor to the modern BCD
While I'd dived in my vintage Buddy Commando BCD and Conshelf XIV regulators, we had planned to try out the twin hose regulators that I'd bought from eBay afterwards, but in the cold conditions, we decided to give a miss on this occassion and return to them when the weather and water were warmer!
With that dive, I was done for 2024, but it'd been a great year for diving and I already had some UK trips (including another big - if not as big as the Galapagos - one) planned for 2025!
