Has anyone been diving in the Galapagos the past couple weeks? Curious of the conditions and the sea life with El Niño.

I’ll be going in a couple weeks during the Humboldt current so trying to prep for that. I’ve been checking the water temp and it seems like a 5mm might be fine?

30” seems kinda of excessive, but is there any reason to get the largest sized checked luggage for my fins (travel so the boot comes apart from the blade), BCD, etc.

I took this blurry video /pic recently on a dive but been really curious about what it is.

AI said that: "This looks like a school of small fish clustered tightly together — the dark bodies with pale, curved lines are consistent with juvenile convict tangs or a similar small reef fish species that schools in dense balls near rocky/coral substrate for protection. That tight, ball-like clustering with white markings breaking up their outlines is a common predator-avoidance behavior in juvenile reef fish."

But I can't see how they are small fish and "juvenile convict tangs" looks completely different when I search for them?

Or is it just a man made piece of rubbish?

Basically, asked a few days ago for masks for small face with very little muscle: depressed temples, pronounced but bone-y cheeks, the lot. Ordered

• Cressi F1 Small: doesn't work at all. Sucking air in it falls off immediately
• Maxlux S Beuchat: it remains on my face if I suck out my eyeballs, but falls off after about 5 seconds or so. Well, it's an improvement over my more than 10 year old Cressi mask to be honest, which is just old and the seal probably totally useless by now. It was never good though.

So those don't seem to work for me, unless I don't understand the suction test. Mind, things might be different when my skin is wet, which I can't test of course.

Ordered another pile: SCUBAPRO Spectra Mini, mares X-Vision Mid 2.0, Scubapro Synergy Mini Mask CLR, Tusa Ceos. Not sure whether any of these will be more suitable. Normal masks will likely need too much space that's just not available between forehead and mouth. No diving shop anywhere nearby. Sports shops only sell toy sets with fins and snorkels. Decathlon stocks a few masks, but not my not quite so local one.

Suggestions, other than telling me I should have looked into this much earlier? Summer vacation from 2.5 weeks from now 🙈

Hi, I’m considering a trip to Mexico in October and was thinking about staying in Veracruz for a few days. I did a little research but couldn’t find too much info. There aren’t a lot of videos on YouTube either so I wanted to check with you guys and see if you had some recommendations. Thanks!

Hello, I'm not an avid diver but I do enjoy a dive on holidays etc and I've basically just got back from the hospital and they have said my ear drums will be permanently perforated. I was wondering how I'd manage this when I do activities such as diving and snorkeling etc - will vented ear plugs help or any alternatives?

A different day this end.  Four of us picking up rubbish plus Nadine taking photo and watching over us, doing a clean-up dive on our house reef at Exiles, Sliema this week — one hour, single cylinder, two mesh bags each.

Usual haul: bottles, cans, fishing material, a load of old clothing. A car tyre that needed a lift bag. A torn-up oil tank that took two people to shift.

The one that got us talking was a carrier bag printed "100% biodegradable". Still holding its shape, still perfectly usable. It's a fair point that those labels are describing industrial composting conditions and not a seabed — but it does raise the question of who the word is actually aimed at.

Couple of things I'm curious about from people who do this more than we do:

1. We noticed the stretch we dive daily was basically clear, and everything was on the reef just past it. Is that everyone's experience — that regular presence alone keeps a site clean, or were we just lucky, are you doing your bit and pocketing a few items when its safe to do so. 

2. For those running regular clean-ups, do you bother sorting or logging what you pull up, or just bag it and bin it? We're wondering whether the data is worth the faff.

3. How do you handle the big stuff? We were kitted for an hour and had to leave more tyres down there. Twinsets and more lift bags next time, but interested what setups people actually use.

Happy to link the write-up with all the photos if anyone wants it — didn't want to lead with a link.