Good vis at Fury Rocks

Sunday 15th February was really foggy in Hong Kong and visibility was better underwater than it was on the surface!


We headed out to Fury Rocks for one dive, to be followed by a seafood lunch. This was going to be more of a sociable day out than a diving day, as we had 3 overseas visitors 2 of whom were ex-SCDC members - Steve P, Cheryl and Mick. 9:30 saw us leaving the pier at Aberdeen Boat Club and heading east to Fury Rocks. The sea was very flat, but the fog was really bad. As we sailed along, large ships would emerge from the mist in an eerie, ghostly fashion.

We finally arrived at the dive site and Brian, David and Rob deployed a shot line. Their plan was to do a circular search for a shot weight that went missing several months ago. My plan, on the other hand, was to get the dive over with as quickly as possible so we could head to Po Toi for lunch and a few beers. At least that was my plan until I saw the water. Visibility must have been well over 10 metres, certainly the best I've seen in Hong Kong for two or three years.

I put on Andreas's semi-dry suit much to Steve's amusement, as he pointed out that Andreas and I were the same weight, but different heights. Consequently the suit's legs were hanging over the end of my feet, and I had to roll the sleeves up. But, whether I looked like an idiot or not, I did feel warm. Rita, complete with brand-new, working pressure gauge (unlike last week) was navigating and we dropped down under the boat to about 10 metres. From there we could still see the junk quite clearly. We swam along the rocky reef, seeing some evidence of what presumably was a very broken up wooden wreck. The soft corals were prolific and a riot of colours. There were stacks of scorpion fish, a school of 15-20 stripeys, plus a moray that was out foraging. There was also a line of fish traps, although they looked as though they had been there for a while and there were no fish in any of them.

The topography of the site is really nice, with lots of large rocks, as well as nooks and crannies to explore. Lots of shrimp and nudibranchs, and not very many urchins, which made a nice change. We turned round after about 20 minutes and made our way back towards the boat. Rita had decided to ignore the usual guideline and we'd gone with the current to start with instead of heading into it. I think this was because she only had a 5mm wetsuit on, so would be starting to get cold on the way back, so by coming back into the current the exercise would warm her up! It certainly warmed me up - tired me out as well. Finally we made it back below the boat, where the people on the deck could see us clearly enough to tell which of us was which - quite impressive since we were in 10 metres of water.

The final divers to go in were the threesome who were going to do the circular search. Meanwhile the rest of us were shouting words of encouragement such as "Get a move one, we're hungry" and "If you're not back in 45 minutes you'll have to swim to the restaurant". We impatiently waited for them, but at least we got to eat the brownies that Let had brought along.

Finally Rob surfaced about 100 yards from the boat, but the others' bubbles were heading under the boat and beyond. It seemed very odd that they could be so far apart, especially in such good visibility, so the assembed masses were looking forward to some advanced mickey-taking of the poor unfortunates. The mystery was explained later when Brian claimed that it was planned, because Rob was low on air so they sent him to the surface while they carried on with the dive. We were almost convinced, until Rob announced that he'd been expecting them to follow him up!

Brian brought back some strange beastie that none of us could recognise, which he stuck in a bucket of sea water so he could photograph it. Meanwhile the club gastronomes were arguing about the best way to cook it, and whether it was going to taste as rubbery as it looked. Before we could find out Brian dropped it over the side

Lunch at Po Toi was excellent as always, and we had the odd beer or two before heading back to Aberdeen. Thanks to Trevor and Catheryn for marshalling a very successful day out.