Diving the Mixon Hole 20th June 2010

After yesterdays stunning viz, I was looking forward to some equally good viz when diving the Mixon Hole. The Mixon Hole is an interesting underwater feature that is worth exploring for that alone. It is also a haven for wildlife crabs, lobsters, flatfish, dogfish, and tope.

Simon the skipper dropped us off at the 7m edge and we swam along towards the edge. Amazingly we saw a cuttlefish on the way. The edge is rather interesting as there is just this sharp drop. I cannot say I carry out my descent in any elegant way at all.

I want to see the mud wall as I go down but the wall is not vertical but at a 60 degree angle. Therefore I have to keep backing away from the wall by using my hands to shove myself away. This tends to make for a rather messy decent and I tried several techniques on the way down and all were not good.

Sadly the Viz was not so good at about 3 metres, mainly due to lots of bit of seaweed. The dive plan was to keep to the edge of the Mixon Hole as we felt that there would be more life and indeed it was a haven for crabs and even a few lobsters.

I sent up my SMB after we got to the bottom and it was a struggle with it working against the tide. It took Dan’s help to reel it back in as it eventually was dragging me backwards. I think that the next time I send up an SMB from the bottom of the Mixon Hole we will swim with the tide.

Dan final found and caught a suitable large crab followed by a dogfish which both ended up in his goody bag. The crab found the dogfish and decided not to let it go when we were on the boat and it took a lot of effort to separate the two!

On the assent to the top of the hole I came across a cuttlefish trying to blend in with the mud walls. Also we just caught a glimpse of a tope on the way up and a very brief view of it on video.

One of the nice features about diving on the Mixon Hole is that the 5 metre safety stop is just a couple of metres above the bottom outside the hole so there is still a lot to see!

Simon the Skipper of Stormforce enjoys the driving of the boat and so we had a speedy trip back to shore. This was a great day and a very nice dive.



Here is the link to the videoDiving the Mixon Hole 20th June 2010