Malcolm Nobbs - 2009 August

In August 2009 Chris Powell and I travelled to South Beach, Studland Bay, Dorset to dive in search of sea horses.

Conditions were ideal and Chris and I charmed the National Trust into providing us with transport to carry out equipment down to the shore. Entry was then straight off the beach where shallow eel grass awaited us. We searched methodically, spotting a few crabs, a small cuttlefish, two species of pipefish and plenty of small fish but frustratingly not a single sea horse. After 2 hours 46 minutes we were both getting cold when I ran out of air … so we got out.

The next day Chris and I resumed the search. We managed to make our tanks last longer this time, 3 hours 10 minutes, and searched a variety of areas ranging from sandy bottoms to long thick sea grass. We saw another small cuttlefish, plenty of pipefish, numerous wrasse but the sea horses were as elusive as the previous day. My only consultation was that this was my longest dive to date on a single tank, although the following year I did two longer dives, 204 minutes and 265 minutes in Sydney.