Capturing The Burroo's Beauty: Scuba Diving & Photography under the Isle of Man"

In the British Isles 🇬🇧 🇮🇲 we have been enjoying a long bank holiday weekend. One of my favourite ways to spend my free time is scuba diving around the Isle of Man.

When most of the island's 🇮🇲 territory is underwater, and it's not possible to see what's underwater without actually being underwater, that means most of the island's people don't get to see what lives on most of the Isle of Man's territory.

This is why I've put together a YouTube video showing a selection of highlights from an hour-long dive at one of the islands' most biodiverse locations. 'The Burroo.'

I treasure the brief time that I get to spend underwater, away from the technology and relentless notifications that are typical of my work and personal life on land. An inverse-mermaid, if you will...

It seems like a good time since my last scuba video to share with you all a photographic adventure through one of the Isle of Man's most popular dive locations. The camera I'm using is an old (but still sold in most electronic stores) Canon G7x Mark II. A review of which will be coming soon!

The Burroo is a deep dive site with walls/cliffs covered in static (and sometimes mobile!) life. Free from the constraints of gravity, and able to feed on small particles of food coming up from fast-moving Irish Sea currents, there is a lot of potential for biodiverse species to flourish here.

Anemones like these Jewel Anemones below come in a variety of vivid colours. They're individual animals and they are semi-mobile, stinging their neighbours in bickering-arguments and jostling for the best position on the rock.

Small life gives way to much larger wildlife, like this grey seal. She followed us for twenty minutes of our dive, occasionally getting close enough to nibble our fins!

It's not all fun and games. Not far from these pretty creatures lies something quite disturbing. Abandoned fishing gear. It's not just polluting the sea; traps like these lobster pots are free to capture and kill lobsters and crabs continually - each victim becoming bait for the next. Abandoned rope and fishing lines can foul the props of boats and tangle divers and wildlife.

Ghost fishing links:

• Save Coastal Wildlife 🦭 https://www.savecoastalwildlife.org/stop-ghost-fishing#:~:text=Some Solutions,dumping it into the ocean.
• Ghost Fishing UK 🇬🇧 https://www.ghostfishing.co.uk/
• National Ocean Service USA 🇺🇸https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/ghostfishing.html

Thank you for reading, and I'll see you all in the following video,
Mike (Diving Developer)

Thanks to Discover Diving, Port St Mary for running a smooth dive operation and to my buddy, Dr Lara Howe for being an excellent buddy and patiently answering all my marine biology questions!