the boat. One tip: don’ t snorkel dive down into their groups— they tend to leave if you do that.
We’ ve only started seeing large aggregations since around 2016. We suspect it’ s a sign of a population recovery after commercial fishing stopped in the 1980s. Hopefully, we’ ll see even more of this behaviour in future.
Do you have a favourite example of animal behaviour in Irish waters? I love symbiotic relationships, like jellyfish with small fish sheltering inside them. We’ re planning some Gulf Stream blackwater dives [ night dives over deep water, using a line of dive lights as a visual reference ] off the west coast to see what else is out there.
Where are the most colourful dive sites in Ireland? The east coast has a lot of sediment so although it’ s nice, the better dive sites are on the headlands off the south, west and north coasts. Sites with a little current are generally the most colourful. The Skellig Rocks in Kerry have sheer walls absolutely covered in jewel anemones and the 200m drop-off on the North Wall of Rathlin Island is just stunning, with its coat of sponges and soft corals.
How do you rate Ireland’ s wreck diving? The Donegal coast is a dream for rebreather and tech wreck divers. Some of the very best wreck diving in the world, really.
Incredible anemones on Skellig Michael
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