Christine Grosart 07/12/2024 Christine Grosart 07/12/2024

2024 Mash Up

2024 left me gobsmacked. So many things I’ve always wanted to do, a bucket list of joy and so devastatingly interrupted by the passing of my Uncle Phil. I needed sport more than ever to keep me going.

Sitting around doing nothing is not a good way to recover from loss.

Not for me, anyway.

I trained in #lanzarote and #mallorca , climbed #sacalobra (again) completed my first #ironman 70.3 in Venice (when sick!) raced #annecy #triathlon olympic distance, went paragliding over #lakeannecy climbed #alpedhuez for real, learned to fly a drone @djiglobal sea kayaked the length of #menorca camping on sandy beaches with just the best people @muchbetteradventures raced Weymouth 10k, circumnavigated #portland by kayak with @channeleventsuk and saw a dolphin, learned to roll my kayak (work in progress) Dived with #lundy seals and bought some shares in racehorses!! I don’t think I’ve been caving or cave diving once, but there is more to life and I’ll get back to it when the mood takes me.
People keep trying to get me to slow down. Why would you do that? I like my life how it is. Why would I want to slow down? Life is too short, so make the best of it now. It’s not a dress rehearsal....

Christine Grosart 16/10/2024 Christine Grosart 16/10/2024

Lundy

I live only a few hours’ drive from the North Devon coast. It is shameful therefore that in my 20 or so years of diving, I had never visited the island of Lundy.

But perhaps not that shameful.

Lundy is a small island, only 3 miles long, that sits 10 nautical miles off the North Devon coast. Day trippers sail on the regular ferry MS Oldenburg from Ilfracombe to visit the protected and preserved island, which is home to puffins and seals, one campsite, a pub and 3 lighthouses.

Lundy is protected under a Marine Conservation Zone designation as well as a Marine protected area and the reefs surrounding the island are a strict ‘no take’ zone. This has allowed the underwater flora and fauna to flourish.

Situated where the Atlantic meets the Bristol Channel, big seas meet a large tidal range and consequently, boat rides to Lundy can be ‘bracing’.

It is for this reason every trip I have ever attempted has been ‘blown out’. There just wasn’t a safe weather window for the dive boat to transit.

So, after a Facebook message from a diving friend, making an attempt at a trip in August – seal pup season – I thought I’d have another shot. As the date approached, the weather forecast deteriorated and I envisaged yet another failure at trying to get to Lundy Island.

It turned out that the Friday was a no-go. But Saturday and Sunday looked promising, if a little wild.

Whilst we would be too late for the puffins, it was optimal time for last year’s seal pups to come out to play.

*On board with Kirsty Andrews, top drawer underwater photographer.*

I drove down to Ilfracombe the evening before to stay with a friend, Caroline Bramwell, who has competed in Ironman distance races with a stoma. She also featured in Louise Minchin’s ‘Fearless’ and it was great to catch up with her and spend an evening overlooking the harbour, putting the world to rights.

The next morning the heavens opened. Sideways rain greeted us as we tried to get our cars as close to the boat as possible to unload diving cylinders, camping kit and tonnes of camera equipment.

Boat loaded and cars parked up for the weekend, among throngs of anorak clad tourists, we set off towards an island that we couldn’t even see.

*Bone dry diving with my trusty* *Santi Elite drysuit*

As soon as we left the harbour, we knew it would be a rough ride. The catamaran took off out of the water as we battled waves all the way out to the island and it only really settled after 90 minutes of not being able to stand up.

Divers hunkered down with looks of concentration on their faces as they tried not to throw up.

As we arrived, whilst still windy, the island looked wild, with blue skies and turquoise waters. We passed all the camping gear up onto the jetty and it was loaded into a landrover to be taken up the steep hill to the campsite, where we would be staying later.

Now it was time to dive.

*Smiling for the camera. Image: Christine Grosart. Camera: Canon EOS 100D, Ikelite housing and strobes.*

As the boat swung round and chugged into a sheltered bay, there they were. Waiting. You could almost see them tapping their watches; “Where have you been?”

The Lundy seals were in full chorus and at the sight of the dive boat, they flopped their way ungracefully off the sloping rocks and into the water to bob about, and wait.

We kitted up, cameras checked, buddy checks done and in our own leisurely time owing to no tides, we jumped off the boat and into the turquoise, clear, cool water.

*Image: Christine Grosart. Camera: Canon EOS 100D, Ikelite housing and strobes.*

“Don’t go looking for them….they will find you” was the instruction, along with general seal encounter etiquette.

“And if the come up and cuddle you….don’t cuddle them back!” Apparently, they can be covered in all sorts of bugs and nasties.

Seals are endangered and their behaviour suggests they know it. It wasn’t long before we caught glimpses of large, white and grey bodies flashing past as they sussed us out.

They are behind you - always behind you - as this is where they feel most on control. If you turn around to make eye contact, they vanish, quick as a flash.

Knowing this, I decided to experiment with my relatively new toy, an underwater housing for my Insta 360 camera.

My buddy Matt and I went through our pre dive checks and jumped into the inviting dark blue-green water.

Dark round heads popped up and howling could be heard from the beach. You could almost see the seals tapping their watches and telling each other “The divers are here!”

We swam slowly towards the rocks, staying pretty shallow and fiddling with our cameras, getting the settings right, making sure the strobes were firing. I unravelled my selfie sick for the insta 360 and filmed a little bit of us swimming just to check it was all working. There was no sign of any seals just yet.

When I got back home and checked the footage, swinging the camera view around to look behind me, there were three seals quietly following us the whole time!

It wasn’t long before they started to get more inquisitive and flashes of large white and dark grey bodies shot past us. We milled about, not really sure what to do or where to go as we were now pretty much up against the rocks where the waves broke the shore below the tall cliffs towering above.

Then, it began.

Whilst I was looking the other way, a turned my head back and came face to face with a large, whiskery head. He was sniffing out my camera housing, able to see a reflection of his head in the port.

As soon as he’d been there, he was gone.

This game of cat and mouse continued for the next hour. I tend not to move much in the eater and can hang motionless without moving my fins at all. The seals seemed to love this as they could swim up behind me, grab my fins and hug them with theirs whilst having a good chew of the rubber, my ankles and my drysuit pocket!

While this was going on, my buddies would get the opportunity to get some great photos while the seal was falling in love with my fins.

The downside for me was that this was all going on behind me and I wasn’t getting much in the way of photos! I used my insta 360 on the stick to film the shenanigans going on but eventually I put it away and chanced my arm at some stills.

These depend entirely on the seals. It is a matter of patience, being in the right place at the right time, the seals mood and the settings on your camera being ready for the photo that presents itself.

Seals love admiring themselves in the dome port of your camera. In reality, they probably think it is another seal that looks just like them!

This presents great photo opportunities but also puts the fragile and easily scratched dome ports at risk – teeth and claws come out as they try to investigate. I didn’t want to spend my next few months polishing scratches out of acrylic, so I flicked them away when they got too ‘chewy’.

After a wonderful morning of playing with seals, we had a leisurely lunch and went on a dive around a reef pinnacle. I had the wrong lens for macro shots so mooched about a bit, trying to remember the names of the various squidge I was looking at from my Seasearch lessons.

We pulled into the pier and had some fun hauling cylinders up onto land. I think next time I’ll take my perfectly good caving rope and hauling system!

We opted to walk up to the campsite and we were treated to a stunning view as well as a puffy PFO test!

It was really quite windy and as beer time approached, there was some fun to be had putting up tents and blowing up air beds. I don’t know how I do it, but I always seem to end up on trips with people equally as bonkers as me!

The pub on Lundy fortuitously feeds the locals and those who work on the island, so despite being the only one and therefore a captive audience, the food was very good, the booze reasonably priced and the staff and service was excellent.

We made the best of it, interspersed with a very windy walk to watch the sunset from one of the lighthouses, before returning to the pub.

The next morning we all managed to grab a coffee and breakfast roll from the pub which was most welcome, before eating it on the walk back down to the boat.

Luckily the tide was in, which made loading the cylinders a bit less necky.

Off we went for seal round 2.

They were there again, waiting for us to sort out gear out. They seemed a little keener this time, already in the water with lots of howling going on.

Their heads bobbed patiently while we tested our cameras, did our pre dive checks and stepped into the water.

As we approached the rocks, the familiar tugs on our fins began.

I assumed the position and got mauled while Matt and Daryl this time, who wanted to hang out with us, got their cameras in position.

It wasn’t long before the seals started to get the upper hand. They had worked out that if they got really close, the divers didn’t know what to do and fell over backwards, rendering them completely helpless like a turtle on its back.

The mauling began.

Mugged by seals. Images: Matt Emmerson

One rolled me over and I lost balance, my double 12s twinset pulling me onto my back. Now, fins up and fully exposed, the seal took the opportunity to just get a mouthful of whatever he could. Camera, drysuit pockets, bit of hood, glove…

My buddies were insanely helpful, getting right in with their cameras to film this loss of fabulousness, whilst I completely failed to right myself for laughing and flooding my mask.

Daryl thought this was hysterical, until the seal turned its attention to him and, whilst on his back trying to get the classic Snell’s window seal silhouette, he instead got a good humping and was left abandoned in the weed!

The seals were definitely more boisterous and were having serious fun at our expense.

Being only a few metres deep and with tonnes of gas, we had all the time in the world – and it seemed to stand still.

It is an amazing privilege to be approached by wildlife who just want to play and interact with you. The seals are not fed by humans, they simply seek out play with their curiosity.

In the afternoon, we set off on another reef dive but in my hurry to swap lenses, I didn’t quite put the dome port on the housing properly and flooded my camera and lens.

This was pretty devastating and despite my insurance covering some of it, this worked out to be an expensive mistake.

Fortunately, a brilliant outfit called Nemo Photo who now deal in Ikelite and underwater camera gear in the UK, have been very helpful and I have a new camera set up coming very soon, treating myself to an upgrade.

I can’t wait to get it into the water!

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Seals of Lundy

The Lundy Gang

Christine Grosart 08/12/2023 Christine Grosart 08/12/2023

Ghosts of Kernow

I love Cornwall. Who doesn’t?!

With a huge fishing community and the Ghost Fishing UK treasurer now residing there, it was a no-brainer to run our annual Ghost Fishing UK project out of Falmouth.

We booked 3 different boats over 6 days and lined up some public outreach events to capture the hearts of the holiday makers.

We kicked off at the Cornish Seal Sanctuary It was apt, as the SeaLife Trust were keen to fund our project and they also owned the seal sanctuary.

I was fortunate to interview Maz, one of the animal care team and she was explicit about how ghost gear affected and even killed many of the animals brought to the sanctuary's attention.

Working closely with the British Divers Marine Life Rescue, a handful of seals and pups each year would arrive at the sanctuary with horrific wounds from ghost gear which would remain the same size, caught around a limb or neck, while the seal continued to grow, causing awful deep lacerations.

We dived every day and I took a few days off diving to organise a social event where we invited every conservation and wildlife outfit in Cornwall to meet us, dine and drink with us and to introduce ourselves properly.

We were very warmly welcomed and everybody who came were amazed at how much ghost gear we had retrieved in such a short space of time.

We held public outreach events on Marazion beach and Maenporth beach just down the road from our campsite.

I managed to get a super early morning radio interview and Sophie our media lady got is into the local press.

We had our eye on Louis Matisse Nichols, otherwise known as Mini Beach Cleaner.

Louis, 11, has been beach cleaning since he was two years old, and started his famous Instagram account @minibeachcleaner two years ago.

His pictures on Instagram depict the reality of the state of our beaches. Based in Newlyn, Cornwall, Louis and his family clean up litter on almost a daily basis.

At this time of year, with the school break, bank holidays, and summer weather, the beaches are being wrecked by thoughtless tourists and holidaymakers who buy bodyboards, balls, spades, and lots of food, and discard it all on the beach for someone else to deal with.

That is where Mini Beach Cleaner aka Louis comes in. Using his wonderful creativity, Louis creates collages from the vast amounts of rubbish he collects on Cornish beaches. Louis says he has “a list in [his] mind of what [he’s] going to create” and he takes inspiration from “the animals, and farms”.

When he was younger, Louis said to his parents that he didn’t need to go to school any longer, because being a bin-man meant no need for qualifications.

“He is incredibly creative” says his mum Nadine, who helps him with his beach cleans and acts as camera operator for his Instagram account. with chairman of ocean clean-up charity Ghost Fishing UK, for a taster session in how to remove deadly and toxic ghost fishing gear from the ocean.

We were so impressed with young Louis that we decided to invite him to join us.

Meeting at Porthkerris Dive Centre, Louis met Rich Walker, Chair of Ghost Fishing UK, to have his first ever scuba diving lesson. As a highly experienced dive instructor, Rich taught Louis how to use the breathing apparatus, hand signals for underwater communication, and most importantly how GFUK survey retrieve ghost gear.

Of course, no Ghost Fishing dive is so easy. Soon after Louis was getting his wetnotes out and surveying the net. He was then shown how to use the inflation nozzle to inflate a bright pink Halcyon Lift Bag and raise the net to the surface.

Insanely shy and probably with no concept of what a difference he is making - and will doubtless continue to make - to the our oceans, Louis didn't quite know what to say or do with himself afterwards so we took him out on the boat to watch the real Ghost Fishing divers in action and we even got to see a pod of dolphins who came out for the occasion.

We are told he did not stop talking about it for weeks afterwards!

The team wrapped up the week having recovered 540 kilos of lost ghost gear and we are extremely grateful to the SeaLife Trust for their support.

*Ghost Fishing UK divers clean up the Epsilon*

Christine Grosart 08/12/2023 Christine Grosart 08/12/2023

Who is Betty G?

Wreck diving isn’t really my thing.

I do it for sure, but I would always much rather be in a cave.

Ghost Fishing UK had a report on a wreck out in Lyme bay in about 48 metres of water and the skipper of Scimitar had seen it come up on the sonar and had dropped in to have a look. There was not only a small wreck slightly tipped on its side, but a huge net adorning it, complete with buoys. It was not on the maps and had not been identified.

We made a plan to go and document it with the intention of removing the net the following day.

Once on the wreck, it wasn’t long before the team were able to rub away the brown crud to reveal the wreck’s name. Possibly the easiest identification of a wreck ever!

It was a small trawler that had fallen over with her nets out and sank. Everyone survived and we had a discussion about what to do next. We planned to report it to the receiver of wreck and the weather killed our plans to go back and recover the large trawl.

Plan B was formed and the Ghost Fishing UK team headed to a reported gill net which was lost and strung out in Portland harbour.

I was on the camera as usual and the net was well disguised in weed and was actively catching.

We documented a dead diving bird that had drowned in it, several spider crabs hopelessly tangled and at various stages of death, plus the classic image of ghost fishing – a fish that was stuck half way through it, dead.

We recovered the net, which was no easy task and the team excelled in the skills we had taught them. One diver got a piece of equipment caught up in the fine strands of net, despite being dressed in a streamlined manner. His teammate signalled him to stop immediately and sorted the problem.

The smell from the dead and dying animals made several of the team wretch as we pulled the net on board.

A camera guy from BBC Spotlight came on board to film proceedings and we also managed a radio interview too. It was great to get the message of the Ghost Fishing issue out there in such a short space of time and very satisfying to remove a net that had been causing so much harm.

Christine Grosart 06/12/2023 Christine Grosart 06/12/2023

Back in the swing

After 7 weeks at sea, you can imagine how desperately I wanted to see my diving gear!

I had been very much inspired while I was away by the south coast divers, taking their cameras on shore dives and coming back with amazing images of wonderful sea life around the UK coast.

I hadn’t dived since early March and lock down and work stopped play.

Finally at the end of July I was able to pack my Citreon Spacetourer, fill it with things I had bought from Amazon while I was away (neighbours thought Christmas was coming!) and built my single cylinder set-up which I hadn’t used in years.

I headed down to my favourite haunt Chesil Cove in Dorset and played it safe for my first overnight in my car, camping on my friend’s driveway!

My buddy was a regular at Chesil and I had never met him before, a lovely chap called Jon Bunker.

We kitted up at a social distance just after 10pm and headed into the darkness.

Darkness doesn’t bother me - after all, I’m a cave diver!

But there are bitey, stingy things in the sea and critters large and small tend to come ‘out’ at night!

We dropped under the waves into milky, awful visibility. Thankfully this cleared quickly as we headed deeper and we soon started unpacking the cameras.

Jon was quicker than me and spotted a dogfish which I completely failed to photograph, then a pipefish which went a bit better.

I soon started to get the hang of my Ikelite strobes and we started to see lots of cool stuff.

We came across a huge lobster who had caught a velvet swimming crab in his jaws.

He was extremely quick and very busy and didn’t care for us at all. Then the crab made a break for it and a fast chase began!

Jon was only a few metres away and I could see his torch in the murk when to my utter horror - mixed with excitement - a massive few swimming conger eel passed right by me.

I watched it for a while…not sure to go and try and take a picture or run away.

I ran away and told Jon what I’d just seen before informing him I had chuffed quite a lot of gas in my terror and needed to leave!

I surfaced and lay on my back, paddling back to shore and watched the sparkling stars overhead.

I made my nest in my van with my new Rab Ascent 900 sleeping bag and had a quick flick through my images, chuffed with my first attempt at macro photography. It’s not as easy as it looks!

Christine Grosart 06/12/2023 Christine Grosart 06/12/2023

The monster net

“Oh Hello, this is the Guardian. Do you have a moment?”

I was only a few slurps into my morning coffee and my breakfast was about to go cold.

“Sure, how can I help?”

Volunteering for the charity Ghost Fishing UK always threatened to take over our lives and we can safely say it has done just that.

Chair Richard Walker, myself and third trustee and operations officer Fred Nunn, a long-standing friend of about 8 years, all work pretty much full time in addition to our real full time jobs to run this world leading charity.

We have the largest group of Ghost Fishing trained divers in the world, with 70 on our books and 120 on our waiting list. This is in addition to a large pool of surface volunteers who we can call on at any time for help.

It is an incredible achievement and now, as a completely independent charity we are free to do things our way - and the organisation has flourished.

When I first took a bunch of Bristol no.3 British Sub Aqua Club members on a group trip with my small business, WetWellies Caving - my first customers in fact when I started in 2012 - I had no idea it would lead to this!

Much of what we do is self-taught. The skillsets we have adopted over the 5 years of running Ghost Fishing UK have sent many of our brains bulging. Who knew we'd have to write KML files or navigate the .gov website minefields? Risk assessments, mission statements, method statements, articles, training courses, website...you name it!

Many of us are doing things we probably never would have done otherwise and it has been a true rollercoaster. Fred was terribly nervous in front of the camera - now he takes live BBC interviews in his stride.

*Diver attaching lift bag to a net. Image: Christine Grosart*

I had no press training but found myself having to learn the tough way and absorbing any education around the subject that I could.

This was one such occasion. I had written a press release using a template and some excellent educational materials from Class:PR and it went crazy!

After the Guardian, we started to see that a lot of news outlets were picking up our story.

Scuba divers from Plymouth had reported a very long, lost gill net on the popular and very beautiful Hand Deeps reef.

With a few reports and details in hand, we were pretty sure we could find it and deployed two Ghost Fishing UK teams onto the water. We were treated to a nice big hard boat, Seeker from In Deep Dive Centre and a professional crew who are totally on board with the charity.

One team located it and began surveying it.

Luckily, I was in that team so set about the net with my camera, documenting the trapped life in it.

*The lost net at Hand Deeps. Photos: Christine Grosart/Ghost Fishing UK*

Spider crabs, lobsters, fish and even urchins had got tangled up in the unforgiving gill net which had been fishing around the clock, indiscriminately.

Once surveyed, the team returned with knives, lift bags, stage bottles for lifting gas and a plan.

The net came free from the reef relatively easily and with no damage to the environment.

Once back on board the boat, the 2 hour ‘crab picking’ began.

Each trapped animal was documented according to species and whether it was dead or alive.

Luckily the sun was shining and the In Deep crew waited patiently as we dealt with each animal.

Over 100 animals were trapped in the net and around 80% were still alive and returned to the sea.

The net was measured at over 200 metres long (Fred is very keen on measuring and weighing things accurately) but its owner, not surprisingly, could not be found.

I put my new-found press release writing skills to the test and with a good story to tell, kept my fingers crossed.

BBC Spotlight did two great pieces on the story and we were then contacted by ITV and Channel 4, all keen to come out and film with us in the future.

Our social media lady, Dolly, also set about Instagram and Twitter and the levels of engagement were phenomenal.

It was a huge boost to the team after several months of being unable to dive, never mind head out on a mission and it was fantastic to get this net out of the sea so efficiently after a long time off.

Check out this fab news piece by the BBC!

Film about the project, created by Christine Grosart

Christine Grosart 30/11/2023 Christine Grosart 30/11/2023

Sea Doggos

Tag! You’re it!

There was a sharp tug on my fin and I turned around to catch the cheeky seal diving off into the distance, pretending it wasn’t him.

This never-ending game of ‘tag’ is a favourite of the seals in the Farne Islands, Northumberland.

Around August time they get quite playful. Global Underwater Explorers UK had a group trip going and on this rare occasion, Rich and I were both free.

I needed to keep my skills up with my rebreather so took it along with me, interested to see what the seals made of the bubbleless, silent machine.

After two days of boat diving, Rich took me on a shore dive from St Abbs. I had never dived here and seized the opportunity to do some SeaSearch recording, something that had completely transformed by sea diving.

The underwater scenery was simply stunning.

There were kelp forests and steep gulleys, adorned with fluffy dead men’s fingers and corals.

Nosey, territorial Ballan Wrasse pestered us and we dived through the most beautiful natural rock archway.

We had lunch in a café in the harbour and dive 2 was equally as stunning. British sea diving on a good day is as good as anywhere in Europe and I enjoyed filming with the new Paralenz Dive Camera.

Christine Grosart 30/11/2023 Christine Grosart 30/11/2023

Conger Conger

I've been trying to get to grips with some scientific names for various marine critters. They tend to be formed from genus, species and sometimes order and class.

The easiest one to remember is 'Conger Conger'. Not very imaginative and I guess, in a class of it's own.

This one in Lyme Regis, Dorset was in a cage of it's own.

It had got itself trapped in a large, lost fishing pot, doubtless looking for an easy meal. A spider crab cowered nervously in the corner and the eel was stuck fast through the netting, unable to go forward or back with no chance of escape.

The charity Ghost Fishing UK had been tipped off about two lost pots which had got their lines tangled up in an old diving shot line and subsequently snapped off, abandoning them on the seabed.

Now, both the shot line and the lost pots were threatening unwitting wildlife.

As part of a 5-day marathon effort by the charity and its volunteers, not aided by Covid-19 restrictions and ever changing legislation, a team of 6 divers set out from Lyme Regis to dive the Heroine. Consisting mainly of brick cargo and conger eels, this fairly flat wreck had snagged both a shot line and string of pots, the latter laying hopelessly on the seabed just next to the wreck.

I was on the camera again, using my new Canon 100D and Ikelite housing set up, with Ikelite strobes and snapped some shots of Andy Rath collecting up the old shot rope, made mostly from polyprop. Floating neutrally buoyant, it was a very real hazard for divers, cetaceans and boat propellers alike.

Once removed, the pots eluded us until the other team jumped in to join us. It wasn’t long before we found a large, lost cage just off the wreck and stuck fast, a resident conger eel.

The pots had been there an estimated week or so. The conger wasn’t in bad condition and his cellmate, a nervous spider crab, cowered in the corner, trying hard not to be his next lunch.

I got in close and set about the camera.

Scuba divers are the eyes of the ocean and without underwater images and video, the public remains completely unaware of what is going on beneath the waves. How can anyone care about something they cannot even see or simply just don’t know about?

Satisfied with my images, Fred gave me an OK question signal to which I replied ‘OK’ I was done.

I did not expect what happened next, as Fred immediately opened the lid of the cage!

I screamed through my regulator, climbed over Andy leaving him confused and dishevelled and hid well out of the way, expecting the conger to sense freedom and set about immediately biting me.

Of course, nothing of the sort happened. Fred spent the next 5 minutes trying everything he could to get the conger out of the cage.

He tipped it on its side, shook it about, cut away some of the net which the conger was ensnared in and even tried to remove it by its tail. He wouldn’t budge.

Eventually, after more persuasion the conger slipped slowly and unceremoniously out of the cage and swam nonchalantly off along the sand to head back to his lair in the piles of bricks.

The grateful spider crab also made a break for it at a significantly quicker pace and the team set about raising the pots to the surface.

The pots were returned to their owners in an attempt to work up relationships with the local fishing community. Without their trust, we will not be able to get information where fishing gear has been lost and won’t stand a hope of recovering it before it does untold, wasteful damage.

Christine Grosart 26/11/2023 Christine Grosart 26/11/2023

Going Bubbleless

Learning to cave is the beginning of a whole new adventure.

Where else can you take up a hobby which can lead to exploring parts of this planet where literally, nobody else has ever been? All the mountains have been mapped and most of the ocean floor has been documented.

But nobody knows what lies inside the Earth until somebody goes there.

Many cavers spend their spare time ‘digging’ to remove obstructions in caves such as sand or boulders to open up new cave passages, or even dig open new ones from the surface. I’m far too impatient for that! In order to discover places no human has ever been, I took up cave diving in 2004 and never looked back.

I had mostly used conventional SCUBA equipment, reconfigured for appropriate use in caves.

Following my 2017 exploration in a cave called Izvor Licanke in Croatia, the logistics of using this equipment became a limitation. The cave was deep and we only had enough gas and bottles for one dive on the expedition.

Chris learns her closed circuit rebreather in Egypt

So, I bought a machine called a Closed Circuit Rebreather. It meant learning to dive in a slightly different way and I figured the best way to learn was to get lots of time in the water.

My partner Richard and I headed out to Egypt last summer to take a little break and spend hours getting used to my new equipment. Hopefully, this new rebreather will open up many doors and allow me to explore Licanke even further to discover yet more places unknown to humans.

Image of a clown fish: Christine Grosart, 2017

Christine Grosart 26/11/2023 Christine Grosart 26/11/2023

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!

Well…that’s what we used to say way back when I worked in horse racing!

But this time, I’m super happy that my image of a diver cutting away a Ghost net in Scapa Flow won an award.

Diver in Scapa Flow. Image: Christine Grosart

I headed down to Brixham with Paul Duckworth to promote Ghost Fishing UK and run a stand at the Brixham Marine Conservation day. We met some great people and I gave a talk on the project which went down really well. I was over the moon that my image of Colin Stratton and the Ghost net won the Underwater Conservation Photograph contest.

I came away with a Manfrotto camera bag and no less than four DSLR photography books.

Christine Grosart 08/11/2023 Christine Grosart 08/11/2023

Sunny Swanage

Tompot Blennie under Swanage Pier. Image: Christine Grosart

I woke early, still thrilled about the night dive the evening before.

The sea at Swanage was sparkling and there was loads of space to park up on the pier. People kept their social distance and I was able to kit up in peace, checking my camera over and over and hoping for a good hour or so to learn more about photographing critters.

I wasn’t disappointed!

Images: Christine Grosart. Canon EOS 100D, Ikelite housing and DS160/161 strobes, Macro lens.

At barely 2 metres depth it was like being in an aquarium!

Swanage pier was my first proper scuba dive in the ocean 18 years ago and now I was back, taking photos I could only ever have dreamed of.

Tompot blennies posed for photos, a corkwing wrasse obliged as well and was very friendly.

Tompot Blennie. Image: Christine Grosart

I’d forgotten just how enjoyable it is to throw on a single cylinder and jump into the sea right from the shore. Of course, you have to get lucky with the weather and the visibility but this time both were in my favour.

After 90 minutes it was time to get out and check out the images.

I’m learning to love my Citreon Spacetourer which affords me privacy to get changed and somewhere cosy to sit and look through my images and write my blog - just as I am now!

Cuttelfish: Image Copyright Christine Grosart

Christine Grosart 06/11/2023 Christine Grosart 06/11/2023

Macro with Mustard

2020 has been rubbish for everyone. Well, to be clear, everything from terror, bereavement to annoyance and fury and my favourite one, disappointment.

This year I lost one of my closest friends when she took her own life. She was one of the strongest, toughest women I knew. So there but for the grace of god go any of us.

I was joining in with a British Society of Underwater Photographers (BSOUP) online meeting where we oggle the winners of the latest monthly competition.

That is where I heard about an underwater photography workshop being run in the UK by Alex Mustard.

Alex has a long standing reputation for being one of the best underwater photographers in the world and for once, I was not only available on the dates but had the cash (just about!)

I ummed and ahhed about it, thinking that I was nowhere near ready to be attempting a course for seasoned photographers to hone their skills.

I was barely starting out and really had no clue what I was doing. Rich pointed out that I'd had a pretty underwhelming year and this was my chance to do something fun, for myself.

So, I contacted the agent at Scubatravel who were absolutely superb, especially with the ever present threat of 'cancellation due to covid)' and I signed up.

The cool thing about this photography workshop is that it really was remote.

8 hours after I had set off from the Dales following some caving and diving, I was still driving in the dark, howling wind and sideways rain along a single track road with thankfully plentiful passing places and DEER!!!

I slammed on the brakes and screeched to a halt.

There, in my headlights, staring right at me was a big, beautiful stag.

Nobody else was about and through the driving rain I could see him, staring right at me. He stood for a while until nonchalantly wandering off into the undergrowth and the dark.

Thereby followed a hairy drive in the dark and weather, dodging deer a plenty.

Obviously, I had all the wrong lenses for photographing Scottish wildlife above water!

It seemed to take forever to get to Kinlochbervie and then 10 minutes of complete darkness later, the bungalow where we were staying for the week.

We exchanged greetings in a covid fashion and fed ourselves, before Alex set out a plan for the week. We met Chris and Cathy from Kinlochbervie Dive Centre (formerly Northeast Dive) who were our hosts for the week. Cathy is no shabby photographer either! They looked after us well and we were never short of gas, hot drinks and biscuits.

The weather was not going to be favourable and the chances of getting outside the loch to photograph wide angle vistas, slim. But I was on such a steep learning curve I was secretly pleased to just be able to work on my macro.

Sealoch anemone, Kinlochbervie. Image: Christine Grosart

I'm no marine biologist and have a LOT to learn about marine critters. This is kind of cool for me because I get a lot pf enjoyment out of learning about their behaviour, making friends with them underwater and slowing down to a halt to watch their little worlds unfold.

I watched for ages as a hermit crab tried to climb a vertical 'wall' of encrusting pink algae...only to fall off as he approached the top and had to start all over again. He looked miffed.

I watched another hermit crab trying out a new shell for size and a very angsty pair of squat lobsters joining up to defend themselves against me while I tried to get a decent shot.

Then I spent a while photographing two queen scallops when the long arm of a large starfish came into view. My shot was being photobombed by a starfish! I knew as soon as the arm touched the queenie they would be off and, sure enough, the starfish prodded the scallops and they were gone, stropping off into the silt.

Alex has quite a hands off approach to workshops and you learn things without even realising it!

He ran a lecture most nights, expanding our horizons with ideas many of us hadn't thought of. I was in good company with well established and award winning photographers such as Kirsty Andrews, so we were able to learn from each other too.

Details such as giving as much consideration to your background as your subject, really improved my images. The workshop gave us 'permission' to try things out, make mistakes, get better and the real value was that everybody on the boat was aiming for the same thing and we all had the same agenda.

Thinking about the background. Image: Christine Grosart

In the evenings we'd have a talk from Alex and a show and tell of some of our best images of the day.

The logistics meant we could do two dives of at least an hour each day with a decent surface interval back at Kinlochbervie, whilst being back at the bungalow nice and early evening to have the time to go through our images and fettle them.

This was probably the biggest benefit of the workshops. Mostly on diving trips, I can be up until 1am still sorting images from the day, especially on Ghost Fishing missions where the media needs to be out and with the press the next day or even the same day.

My set up is relatively cheap and all but the camera is second hand. I use a cheap, small and lightweight Canon 100D which is use mainly for cave photography.

It is limited with things like ISO but I enjoy wringing out the camera's capabilities which still exceed my own.

I bought the housing from a forum for a steal and then spent the same again on strobes, arms, clamps and lenses.

For this trip I used a Canon EFS 60mm f/2.8Macro USM lens. I have a Tokina fisheye but as we were unable to leave the sea loch to to weather, never got to use it on this course.

It didn't matter though as I had a tonne of fun with all sorts of creatures, getting closer...then closer still and looking for that all important background.

My photography definitely progressed in only four days and I am so grateful for the opportunity to learn with a true master of underwater photography. I am enjoying so much and cannot wait to get back into the water to get snapping again.

King scallops. Images: Christine Grosart

Hermit crab, dressed for Vegas…Image: Christine Grosart

Dahlia anemone. Image: Christine Grosart

Squat lobsters. Images: Christine Grosart

Sea Loch Anemone. Image: Christine Grosart

Christine Grosart 06/11/2023 Christine Grosart 06/11/2023

Beautiful Babbacombe

Shameful, I know...but I had never dived Babbacombe!

Either the wind was going the wrong way, the visibility too poor, too much rain, waves breaking over the wall into the car park, too many people...

The list of excuses is endless.

But finally. I had some time at home, in the UK and in SUMMER!

This never happens AND the divers from the Facebook group South Coast Divers had been putting up some cracking images of critters down at 'Babbers' as it's fondly known.

I was fortunate to be welcomed by three people I had never met before nor dived with but we all had something in common - squidge!

Squidge is a diver's slang for marine animals. As opposed to spidge, which is wreckage.

Someone once pointed out that with regard to UK wreck diving, you can get the same effect walking around your local scrapyard at night, in the fog with a rubbish torch, in the rain!

There have seldom been times when I could argue with that. Triple expansion engines don't interest me and why is everyone so obsessed about boilers?

No, despite trying to fit in with the crowd, I'm afraid I have to admit to being a 'squidge' person.

This was evident when I spent an entire dive in Scapa Flow photographing starfish on the seabed and making scallops swim - they are so funny!

That evening in the pub, someone asked me where I had dived. "Markgraf" I replied.

"Oh" he said "See any nice scallops?"

I digress.

Jewel anemones and nudibranchs. Images: Christine Grosart

Anyway, off I went down to Babbers and needed to find somewhere to doss overnight. Covid makes things tricky but I did find a prime spot where overnight parking is allowed and the morning view is to die for.

I woke to the most glorious sunrise and the waves gently lapping only yards form Agnetha.

I made myself a strong coffee and had light chit chat with passing dog walkers.

It was time to pack up and head round to Babbers to meet Tamsyn, who had volunteered to show me around. Lisa and Richard Frew from Dive South had also come along for their first time at Babbers.

I'd had some fun building a single cylinder set up as I rarely dive anything other than my twins, sidemounts or CCR. But as we were only going to about 6 metres all that seemed rather overkill.

The super-hard-to-spot Snakelock anemone shrimp. Image: Christine Grosart

The sea was sparkling, the coffee shack was open and although it was busy with families and anglers, the atmosphere was friendly and folk kept their respectful distances. For just a couple of hours, we could drop beneath the waves and leave covid behind.

After an excellent location brief by Tamsyn, we walked to the end of the jetty and were accosted by a grey seal who was obviously hanging around the anglers hoping for some fish.

He'd got too brave for his own good and was sporting a hook in his mouth. He was close enough as we put our fins on that we could smell his fishy breath.

We got in and he soon vanished.

The visibility was about 8 metres and it was great to be diving with likeminded people. I was on a mission to take some nice macro shots and so were they. I was also keen to do some Seasearch recording. I love the way that just a simple, shallow dive can contribute to citizen science and even go some way towards creating MCZs.

Pregnant variable Blenny. Image: Christine Grosart

The snotty water and kelp soon gave way to a shallow reef and this was teeming with life. The usual Tompot blennies made an appearance but apparently I photographed one special little critter without even realising it!

The Variable Blenny has apparently been absent from our waters for several years. At least, there had been no positive ID of one since around 2007.

The South Coast Divers group, many of whom were keen Seasearchers, had been doing plentiful shore diving during these covid times and Variable Blennies were seemingly back in town.

And they rather liked Babbacombe!

For those not in the know, Seasearch changed my life. Well, that may seem an exaggeration but for a cave diver who gets easily bored in the sea and disappointed on almost every dive by 'only' seeing just kelp or weed or rocks with 'stuff' on them then well yes, you can see why I got a bit disillusioned with diving in the sea.

It offered me very little challenge and I found wrecks creepy and a bit boring.

Double spiral worms. Image: Christine Grosart

Then I did a Seasearch Observer course and my whole world changed.

National Seasearch coordinator Charlotte Bolton once said to me:

"Call me sad - but I love ALL my dives".

Rubbish, I thought. You must have at least one or two crap dives.

"Nope" she said "I love all of them."

How was this even possible?

The Seasearch course opens your eyes. It makes you look, Then look again, Then look closer again and before you know it you are analysing seaweed 'feet' and arguing over the markings on a corkwing wrasse.

An octopus could be dressed in a grass skirt and playing the maracas right in front of you but you'd probably miss it because you were trying to decide what length of 'animal turf' to put on your form.

In fact, no, you wouldn't miss it. You would simply enter it as 'rare' and gloat about it on your cephalopod reports - complete with photo.

Oh, it changed my life alright and it definitely changed my diving. It gave me a new lease of life and I spent every day offshore dreaming about not only taking macro photos of cool stuff but sifting through marine critter ID books and filling out Seasearch forms in latin.

I don't know what has happened to me but I like it. Diving for a purpose rocks!

Velvet swimming crab in a snakelog anemone wig. Image: Christine Grosart

I still can't tell the difference between a crab and a wrasse but I do love pretending I can and it is quite satisfying when someone tells you that you've photographed something quite rare when a) You couldn't take a photo of a fish at all last week and b) you had no idea what you were looking at and thought they were just everywhere!

Tamsyn very kindly pointed out a pipefish to me once I'd packed my camera away. She felt bad so pointed out another one on our second dive post coffee and sandwich.

He obliged beautifully. Their snouts are so long they are a pain to get in the frame and in focus, hiding in all that weed.

We headed for Mushroom Rock which is, no surprises, a large mushroom shaped rock right in the middle of the bay. Underneath, it is adorned with jewel anemones. These are my new favourite things to photograph. All colours, pinks, greens, purples, yellows...just stunning.

I inspected every damn snakelock anemone searching for the fashionable 'anemone shrimp'. This elusive shrimp likes to hang out in snakelocks and has kept macro photographers sane throughout covid.

I hunted religiously through every patch of snakelocks, going over and over in my head that it takes determination and hard work to get that photo you want and nothing comes easy on a plate and OH HELLO!

There he was.

I managed a few quick shots and signalled frantically to the others, at which point he turned his bum on them and hid in the most awkward place, almost impossible to photograph. I think Lisa got a few but he really was a bit camera shy.

Velvet Swimming Crabs like to wear snakelock anemones as wigs and they made for some amusing photographs.

I had a fantastic day with such lovely people and definitely got my photography and Seasearch fix.

I'm chuffed to bits with several recent purchases. My Ikelite housing was bought to accommodate my Canon 100D DSLR camera and I bought some second hand Ikelite strobes, DS160 and DS161.

I was debating for a while about a Cinebag Grouper, which seemed like a nice idea but quite pricey for what I thought was just a cooler bag with a badge.

I took a punt and bought one.

How wrong I was. The bag is sturdy, well padded and well thought out, with waterproof inner zip pockets and it is heavy duty. I keep an old sofnolime can full of fresh water in my car and you can use the Cinebag as a rinse bucket.

It takes up little space in my car and protects my equipment on the boats. I love it.

Christine Grosart 06/11/2023 Christine Grosart 06/11/2023

Pretty Persier

The lock down hokey cokey was starting to take its toll this summer, I’m sure, for all of us.

I had booked some blue shark snorkelling with Indeep as a ‘salvage the summer’ attempt but the weather ruined it and we couldn’t go.

So, with Rich around for a couple of days we made a last-minute booking on a couple of days diving down in Plymouth.

I decided to take my KISS rebreather because I hadn’t taken it in the sea much and, well, I should really. It was only ever bought for caves, but I decided to expand my horizons.

To make life even more awkward for myself I threw the DSLR in as well and we decided to camp using my new van awning.

Of course, it rained. Non-stop. The BBQ coals that we picked up were damp and after 2 hours of trying to make fire (all the pubs were full, before you ask…) Rich finally managed a decent meal. It was cold and wet and pretty miserable. I was enormously grateful for my Fourth Element poncho which made putting up a tent in the rain significantly more bearable.

We rocked up at Indeep who provided the usual excellent service in gas and boats. We headed out to a wreck I’d never been to before - le Poulmic. Very small but teeming with life. The weather topside was what we call ‘lumpy’ and we were grateful to be beneath the waves rather than on the boat.

In the afternoon it was a classic bailout to the James Egan Layne. Each time I dive this wreck (mostly pulling ghost gear off it, to be fair) it looks different. Rich had a great time with his camera while I struggled with not-very-good macro.

After a damp night in the van, the weather had improved greatly, and we headed out to the wreck of the Persier. I was excited as I’d never dived it before, and the visibility looked promising.

I gave myself a break and took the Paralenz dive camera. I always find shooting video way easier than images!

The wreck was stunning. We could hardly see it for fish. Great for critter nerds like me but not so great for wreck photographers like Rich, who spent much of his time shooing them away!

The wreck is adorned with pink sea fans and made for great wide-angle shots with Rich’s canon DSLR and new Easydive housing.

In the afternoon, we dived the remains of the Glen Strathallen.

In typical style, Rich and I got distracted by a lost creel that was still catching. He set about freeing the resident spider crab while I filmed. We just can’t help ourselves!