It's not really a pig - I'm guessing it's the size of a nudibranch, but it might be much larger.  I stumbled across it while reading up on the continuing discoveries being made of life in deep sea hydrothermal vents.  From where we find this rather interesting animal, slightly less attractive but still worth gazing at in awe - it might take a bit of an effort but go on, give it a go - as it appears to have no digestive tract and lives on carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulphide, rather different to all the rest of us oxygen guzzlers.  And does this 2000m underwater in one of the most inhospitable places on Earth, where sulphur vents superheat the water to 400ºc with a surrounding ambient temperature of 1ºc.  Who says there couldn't be life on other planets?

I have a bigger post a-comin' (edit - got sidetracked so not yet) but this caught my eye, and imagination.

Happy New Year.  May we all dance, slowly.

Just to prove I don't only go diving in mud, here's a photo I took in clearer waters.  I've taken hundreds of underwater photos, this is the only one worth looking at.  But it is The Best Underwater Photo Ever Taken.  Ever, so that's ok.

This is me filmed by my cave buddy Tim using his very neat little headcam, for our foray into Dinas Silica Mine in warm and sunny Wales. (February. Brrrrr.)

Yes, it's yet another dark and cold film of me diving in the dark and cold.

We stayed on the safer, upper passage for the whole dive, and did a jump to follow three different main lines along the 9m tunnel. Nothing too dynamic, just getting kit and our heads sorted out properly.  We were never that far from open air - there are some nearby side passages which lead up to unflooded tunnels - but knowing that didn't make this feel like a nothing stroll in the park.  At one hour, this was our longest dive in an overhead environment so we were really focussing on what we were doing.

Tim led us in, so this shows the point that he signals the turn point at 1/3 air supply, and I start leading us back out.

It's a right pig to get to, the Silica Mine.  It's a 600m trek over a big hill carrying all your kit, sorts the men from the boys.  I'm definitely still a boy on this one, I was almost sick when I got to the top.  Sat on a tuffet for 10 minutes, crying for air.

Here's me and cave diving guru Martyn Farr from a couple of months back - the hill you've got to get over is in the background.  (No, not straight up it, there's a path.  With a tuffet at the top.)

This is the main entrance to the mine.  Memories of the tuffet are fading by now.  This picture shows the angled bedding plane that contains the mined seam sloping down to the right.  A short connecting tunnel at the back leads to the first of the flooded tunnels, all of which run parallel to this one with increasing depth.

... and here's the dive base.  This is as far from the tuffet as you can get without getting wet.  I certainly wasn't thinking about the tuffet at this point.

I'm particularly pleased that the go-faster *stripe I put on my helmet, for what were very very important fashionista reasons, not only looks the biz out of the cave but also shows up like a beacon inside it.






*for 'stripe' read 'gaffa tape'.

John Hogan looking the biz at Blandford in 1951, taken from this nice account of motorcycle racing in the 1950's.

I bet he never sat on a tuffet, crying for air.

I've taken up cave diving.  To anyone who knows me this can't come as too much of a surprise - I love being in places that are hard to get to.  I'm obsessed with it right now, lapping up the technique and history books like they're my life blood, my compulsive nature shining through bright and strong.

In the UK cave diving was taken up by cavers who wanted to see what was beyond that next sump, often showing astonishing bravery to be the first people ever to walk in the hidden caverns beyond the watery blockage.  It's gripping stuff, exploration as extreme as a moon landing carried out by amateur enthusiasts with terrifyingly inadequate equipment.  Anyone interested in a good read, try 'The Darkness Beckons'  or 'Darkworld' by the modest master of this sport, Martyn Farr.  These excellently written books describe real life Boy's Own adventures that continue to the present day, and I've loved reading them.

I've been training with Martyn, and have another course with him coming up in few weeks time.  This will be my first experience with sidemount scuba kit - you wear cylinders under your arms rather than on your back so you can fit through squeezes more easily.  It looks straightforward and very streamlined, but I gather it can take a bit of getting use to.

Here's a picture that makes total sense of why people take up cave diving.

.. and here's what I'm looking forward to myself, which maybe makes a bit less sense.  Oooh, UK diving, can't beat it.

People always assume there's nothing much to see when you dive in the English Channel, certainly no life.  Here's a short film I made of a school of bib, aka pouting, aka whiting (I do wish they'd make up their minds) doing that up down up down thing they do forever up the side of a wreck.  There's always one who looks at the the camera, isn't there?