I (Kristaps) had an exciting dive in a new place: the Blenheim Bomber, which sits off Marsaxlokk (by the way, the x is pronounced like sh in Maltese) in about 40 metres. I dove with Sarah of Divewise.

Apparently, not much is known about the provenance of this particular Bristol Blenheim Bomber. Having seen a handful of other airplane wrecks off the Maltese coast, I wasn't expecting much more than scrap metal and the usual delightful assortment of nudibranchs. I was pleasantly surprised—the bomber is laid out with all parts in place. And of course had plenty of nudibranchs!

I did learn something useful: I need a better system for lens management. I usually dive with a wide-angle lens, which works well in and out of wrecks. But when it comes to smaller wildlife, like aforementioned nudibranchs, it's awkward and difficult to focus. Hence the shots I have included are all just a bit off.

My usual take on this is to simply take off the lens—the bayonet system makes this easy. However, the lens simply hangs down at that point and gets in the way. My thought is to put a small bolt snap on the lens itself and attach it to my d-ring when shooting macro.

And as always, I need to stop chickening out and learn more about shooting manual mode! I have the bad habit of reverting to programme mode. I blame that on being a little stupid from nitrogen narcosis.

image gallery

Marine life in this article: Flabellina affinislongstriped blenny.

If you'd like print-quality versions of any image, please contact Kristaps with your request. Except where otherwise noted, content on this page is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Attribution should be to divelog·blue with a link to divelog.blue.