Diving with sharks and mantas…

The Nadia Laksheva series contains a lot of diving, and as they say, write what you know… I’ve just been diving with sharks and mantas in Socorro Islands, off the western coast of Mexican Baja. These are remote uninhabited islands in the Pacific Ocean, famed for sightings of many large ocean-going fish (called pelagics), including sharks and giant mantas, as well as humpback whales and dolphins. 

 

On the menu in May were mainly sharks and mantas. For me, mantas are the most graceful creatures on the planet, and we had a LOT of contact time with them while diving, especially at a location called the Boiler.…

Countdown to 88 North…

Just a few days now until the release of 88 North, the third in the Nadia Laksheva series. So, here’s an extract involving Jake, in a rather difficult situation as he approaches 88 degrees North…

 

Jake had always wanted to be on an ice-breaker. Careful what you wish for, wasn’t that what they said? He was in a locked cabin. The single oval window opened, and in theory he could squeeze through it, but it was a sheer drop to the blue ice-water below.…

The lure of the deep

I recall my second dive quite clearly. It was at a place called Dorothea, in North Wales, a limestone quarry with a maximum depth of just over a hundred metres. Along with my buddy/instructor, we finned way from the safety of the ledge, and I stared down into the chilly waters that shifted from green to turquoise to dark blue to black. We went far deeper than we should have that day, down to thirty-two metres on what was a very early dive for me.…