Big surprise at work Wednesday Aug 31. Two significant events, the new brigadier commander of our college undertook an inspection, and it was the last day of the month, also known as salary day in UAE. The result, everyone was granted the next day off Thursday, happy surprise long weekend, and thanks commander.
Bobbi and I were already planning to drive up to Dibba after work on Thursday and stay at Alia Suites on the coast, the better to be at the border at 8 a.m. to cross into Dibba Musandam and dive with Nomad Ocean Adventure there. But we decided to bring our departure forward a few hours and get in a late afternoon dive Thursday with Nomad Fujairah before checking in at Alia Suites.
It was a great day for a dive. The heat knife is coming off the edge of summer, weather is pleasant, water temperatures still warm, 27 degrees at the worst (centigrade) often warmer. We were the only customers that afternoon, so Kyle and Jess just arranged the boat and Bobbi and I were the only ones on Dibba Rock that afternoon. Diving was very relaxed and lasted over an hour at shallow depths.
Kelly Harris drove up from Abu Dhabi and met us at the border at 8 a.m. Friday morning and we crossed over to dive at Nomad Ocean Adventure Musandam that day. Brendan was our boat guide and he left it to me to choose the sites. There were a group of Japanese doing a deep dive specialty. They were looking for 40 meters so we did our first dive on Lima Rock. There was no current to speak of and we had no trouble getting out to the point and crawling all over it. No current meant that no big creatures were lurking there, but it was still a nice dive, water fairly clear and nice and warm.
The sea was slightly rough with swells rolling from the east. They had forced our diving on the north side of Lima Rock, and they precluded our diving Octopus Rock, which we were thinking to do. They made the north side of Ras Morovi rough as well so we went to the south side to the cove that is protected from the direction of the waves. Here we had a lovely dive. There were crayfish at home in the ledge at 9 meters, and I found us a nice leopard ray in the saddle. From there I turned south to find the hidden reef, which we rounded and returned up the top to avoid deco. It was covered with black coral and teeming with fish. On our way to the grotto we encountered a turtle, and other game you can see in the video.
Kelly and Bobbi and I crossed the border that evening for a second night at Alia Suites, all set to dive next morning at Nomad Fujairah. Kelly had never been on the Inchcape before so we all went there. She and Bobbi and I were the only divers on the boat, apart from Kyle Schoonraad, who came along to point out the seahorse he had seen the day before. We also were first on the wreck so had it to ourselves the first few minutes, though we were joined by a dozen divers and surfaced to find boats daisy chained back from the mooring line. It was a lovely dive, good vis, not cold, with free swimming honeycomb morays nestled in with the teddy soft coral, picturesque lion fish, a pair of puffers, a scorpion fish, and of course the sea horse which we saw just after descent, pointed out by Kyle practicing trim with his perfectly balanced twin sidemounts. The video is here https://youtu.be/P9FuxTa_Hs0
Karen Drest had found out about our trip via our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/groups/froglegs/ and drove down from Al Ain to join us on our second dive of the day on Dibba Rock. Vis was good. We found some flounders and lots of morays. We cut up the gap to the west of the rock and worked up current across the shallows coming out right on the old mooring line and from there easily found the sand flats where there were several active rays, which we captured at the end of our video.
Please view these videos using highest HD setting on YouTube
My logged dives 1478-1481 Friday August 12, 2016 Octopus Rock We had great visibility while conducting a PADI Advanced Open Water course with Nomad Ocean Adventure for Greg Raglow, accompanied by Greg's friend Mike Kelley and by my favorite dive buddy Bobbi Stevens.
Greg had earlier done his deep and night dives for his course, see http://vancesdiveblogs.blogspot.ae/2016/06/devilish-diving-in-musandam-greg-raglow.html. For his peak performance buoyancy dive we returned to Octopus Rock, which can have difficult currents but on this day they were fairly mild. With Chris out of commission due to an infection on his arm, I was in charge of the advanced boat, with three groups of three divers. I checked the current with mask, fins, and snorkel and judged it doable before pitching us all in the water, with my group of Bobbi, Greg, and I last in. By then the other two groups had left the current shadow and were drifting at the surface halfway and almost beyond the rock being carried in a mild but significant surface current. Benefiting from observing their plight, my group focused on doing better and we descended on the south point where there is often relief from current. As we were organizing ourselves on the bottom, getting buoyancy just right, the other two groups managed to join us. Current at depth was much less significant than at the surface, and I was able to lead us to the north along the ridge to the west of the rock. Here we saw masses of trigger fish and green and large honeycomb morays. Coming up the far side of the ridge and popping over the saddle to line up on the sprint to the east across the sand channel to regain the rock, we saw a turtle hiding from us. I waited till the others had caught up before edging closer, at which point the turtle rose from its hiding place and became very photogenic as s/he passed us overhead. Lima Rock
Our second dive would be an Underwater Naturalist one, and what better place to see the wonders of nature than at Lima Rock. After lunch we motored over and found the south side rough with chop, so we headed to the north side. We put in at about the middle of the rock and moseyed along till we reached the point covered in ghost fish nets. These are convenient when there is current but there was no current on this day and we pretty much had the run of the rock. Unfortunately when there is no current there are not that many fish either, relatively speaking, when we are hanging on to the nets like pennants, surrounded by barracuda, and hoping for a whale shark to come along. Still the wildlife was interesting. We had seen lion fish, rainbow wrasse, and a slipper lobster, some eels, a large puffer, and angel fish and jacks at the point. Rounding to the south side we found the current coming up that side so we turned around and headed back the way we came, all and all a safe, well executed, and pleasant dive. Saturday August 13, 2016 Ras Morovi
We set out on Saturday to complete the PADI Advanced Open Water course with an Underwater Navigation dive with Greg, joined this time by Bobbi as usual, and Greg's friend Mike Kelley. After Greg had succeeded in completing his square, we continued on along the reef and came upon the aftermath of dubious fishing practices where fish had been stunned with explosives or electricity or poison. I posted what we saw on Facebook:
Lu'lu Island On this day, the dozen or so divers at Nomad had taken a single boat out for the day, and we could have taken it anywhere for the second dive. Brandon, the newest staff member at Nomad Fujairah, had been sent up to Musandam to guide boats that weekend and wanted to learn about new dive sites, so I agreed to show him Lu'lu, just south from Ras Morovi. Lu'lu can be a so-so dive when the water is green, cold and currenty, but today vis was excellent, current only mildly to the north, and the fish were colorfully abundant.
It's a site that can be dived in various ways. The boat shelters in the shallow bay just west and behind the main island and from there you can start north and follow the rock around to the east and then do one of two things. You can keep the rock on your right and follow it east and curve back south, east, and north in a crescent along the inside of a dragon's back of islands, or you can simply head east across the sand and pick up the northern-most of that dragon's back, round that underwater, and start heading back south on the outside of the crescent. Brandon wanted to try the latter, the more challenging route, so we headed due east over sand at 14-16 meters to pick up the pleasant surprise, after 7-10 minutes, of encountering the submerged reef just as you've given up hope of doing anything more than a sand dive. That route has the added pleasure of finding clown fish stuck in pairs on lonely anemone outcrops in the sand, so bored that they rush up to see what is passing overhead and spewing bubbles, darting curiously to discern what's behind anything glass, such as a face mask or camera housing. On our trip we also came across a large cow-tail ray that decided to depart despite my hanging well back from it to let the others catch up, so not everyone in our group saw it. We continued our dive against the current around the back of the dragon's back, coming across a turtle so still I thought it might be dead. To escape the current I crossed to the inside of the crescent and followed it up the rubble, reef to the left, until we were again heading north, and came out on the fish traps where we had started our dive. From there I led back into the bay where the boat was, where we lingered over a scorpion fish in the sand. Another nice way to dive this site might be the way we did it, but maybe head slightly south-east to try and hit the northmost island more to the south than where we hit it heading due east. This would allow us to dive from there to the north point, and then round that island and come back up the south. If the current was strong we could cross to the inside of the crescent but at a point which I can recognize from blue water where rock had previously been, cross over to outside of the crescent, and keep reef to the right to reach shallow coral gardens, the perfect place to end the dive, or simply carry on until you turn north and arrive back in the channel where we started. Or if the current so dictated you could also head reef on left to see what's on the outside of the dragon's back. I've seen eagle rays on that side on a couple of occasions. Congratulations to Greg on his accomplishment, and looking forward to many more dives together in future.
Bobbi and I needed a break - from work the month of July to visit family in Katy, Texas - and from family to pop down to Belize for a week of diving on the Barrier Reef there, something you do because you can :-)
We arrived in Belize July 15, 2016 and dived the next 6 days. Our last dive was on July 20.
Bobbi had found a dive shop there using Trip Advisor that had no derogatory reviews. It was called Belize Pro Dive Center http://www.belizeprodivecenter.com/ and the manager Emeliano promptly replied to every email we sent and answered all our questions scattered throughout each mail, and often that's the shop that gets our business, because when you're planning a trip on short notice, timely information is critical. Emeliano even replied the evening when we booked a Blue Hole trip our second day there and canceled diving with Belize Pro Dive Center that day. He said no problem, and assured us we'd get a pick up at our hotel the following morning.
Belize is known for its nurse sharks, which are everywhere on the parts of the barrier reef where we were taken. Belize is starting to be infested by lion fish, which dive centers in the Caribbean are trying to control by culling them. Consequently, divemasters sometimes carry spears and when they spear a lion fish, they feed it to the nurse sharks, which delights tourists almost as much as it does the nurse sharks. It also encourages the nurse sharks to associate people with food so they follow divers around, and come quite close to them. The dive guides model how to pet them, and many divers find them cute and irresistible. Indeed they seem to enjoy contact with humans, as you can see in the video of our dive at Esmeralda Canyons. One of the nurse sharks cuddles up with dive guide Bernie's fins, and you can see Bernie instructing me to pet only the top side, not the bottom, because they might bite if they think you are feeding them.
Here is a list of dives we did. I'll upload the videos as I get around to them
Friday July 15
Borderline, my 1462nd logged dive
So named because it was the last dive site on the border of the Hol Chan game park, this is where we got introduced to and first petted nurse sharks, diving with Giovanni, whose moniker Gio was etched in ersatz diamonds on his dive suit.
B and D, my 1463rd logged dive
We saw dolphins here, making this the most phenomenal dive of the week, and my camera was out of charge, diving with Gio. However, we managed to make contact with another diver in an adjacent group who sent us this video. You can hear the dolphins clearly and see how they were chasing the hapless sharks around. They paused to check out the divers, then went on their way. The video is courtesy of Eric Teplitz, a young veterinary student at Cornell who was diving from the same boat we were with his brother. You can see them in some of the other videos we have posted on this page.
Saturday July 16, Lighthouse Lagoon with Aqua Scuba, diving with Juan
Blue Hole, my 1464th logged dive
We didn't know how else to get there, so we booked a dive to Lighthouse Reef Atoll with Aqua Scuba Center, on the beach in San Pedro. It was about a 3 hour boat ride with Aqua Scuba to Caulker Caye to pick up more divers and then travel on twin inboard engines to the atoll.
This would be a rite of passage for many of the open water and newly advanced divers among the two dozen entering the water on each of our dives. At the end of this dive my computer showed 41.2 meters, but vis was poor and there wasn't much to see until the safety stop. Apart from that, the hole was just that, green water down to some over-rated stalactites and stalagmites, nothing special,
On YouTube, https://youtu.be/2sPF4Qlpmgs
Bobbi and I are in our late 60s, but we dive and jog regularly and keep ourselves fit and tuned for scuba. My air consumption is not bad and Bobbi's is negligible. There were a pair of older couples on board, the ladies quite obese and clearly not fit, and I'm always concerned the dive crew will try to logically group us together. However, they weren't so organized. They made an attempt to say this divemaster would go in first with these people (point, point, point) and that one would take the ones over there (I think it was 3 groups of 7) but in the end it got kind of mixed around. There was one divemaster named Juan who said he'd take whoever would swim over to him, and there were 5 or 6 young people in his group, so we stuck by him and all descended together. For the second dive we made sure we kept that grouping, which was quite compatible for all concerned, and by the third dive, the groups were set.
There's not much concern with air in Belize. We were almost shocked our first day when our dives with Belize Pro Dive Center were called at 40 minutes, each of us with half tanks remaining. Apart from the Blue Hole, the dives were usually to about 25 meters, whatever that is in feet, around 80 I think. Even the heaviest breathers could usually make it 40 minutes with 50 bar left in the tank, so 40 min was the standard dive time there, 45 minutes once the divemasters got to know us, or even 50 with a safety stop, but never more than that. We got used to it, but we would have preferred longer dives.
We are fortunate where we dive regularly in UAE and Oman that we can dive unguided as long as we like as long as we're back on the surface in an hour or so before they think to declare an emergency and come searching for us. The problem with resort diving is that the best dive centers are extremely safety conscious, they can't possibly know their customers, and most of the divers they get need to be monitored, and expect to be. We understand how in the interest of safety for all they have to cater to unskilled divers. That's good if you dive infrequently on holiday and not confident of your skills. If that's you, you're in excellent hands with Belize Pro Dive Center.
Half Moon Wall, my 1465th logged dive
The video shows our best dive of the day at Half Moon Wall, Lighthouse Reef Atoll, Belize. It features a reef shark and eagle ray in one memorable tableau. I got close to a lone black barracuda, and got close to a feather-tail ray in a field of garden eels. We were stalked by a friendly, or perhaps opportunistic, grouper throughout the dive. On YouTube at https://youtu.be/iDxWibmOw78
Aquarium, my 1466th logged dive
This video shows our last dive on a long day out at the Aquarium, Lighthouse Reef Atoll, Belize, It wasn't a particularly exciting dive, but we saw a turtle, a moray, and lots of fish at the mooring at the end of the dive (presumably, the aquarium). On YouTube, https://youtu.be/vMJz0y-t-wA
This dive seems to have had a preponderance of nurse sharks, yielding interesting videography, like watching carp in a Japanese garden pool. We ended with a remora joining us on our safety stop.
Hol Chan Marine Reserve, my 1469th logged dive
and Zone D shark feeding (snorkeling) with Santiago
One of the set 'tours' on Ambergris Caye is the 'combo' dive in Hol Chan Marine Reserve, which is mainly a snorkel trip for non-scuba day trippers, combined with a shark feed experience. As a dive Hol Chan is restrictive and subdued compared to deeper dives on the barrier reef, but it still presents some mellow fish tableaux and the occasional turtle (here a loggerhead and a hawksbill). I tried to capture the flavor in these videos, including the snorkelers hovering overhead, on YouTube https://youtu.be/snQ2LL036X8
Chumming produces a shark and ray feeding frenzy in Hol Chan Marine Reserve, Zone D, Belize, Sunday July 17, 2016. We snorkel in amidst the scrum in the chum, https://youtu.be/lDJoqObiDoc
Our guide Santiago explained that the shark feeding spot was a traditional one, where fishermen often went to clean their catch, attracting dense balls of thrashing nurse sharks. Now the tourist industry was emulating the process by chumming the water while tourists don snorkels and join the fray. The result is photogenic.
One of the delights of the trip was the constant banter kept up by Santiago, our dive guide. Pulling up to Hol Chan and parking near a dozen other boats, he told us this was his secret site (it was funny at the time). He told the ladies not to worry (these were MAN eating sharks). He liked to tell people to roll over backwards on the count of three, and then he'd say THREE, and topple them in the water. He had us thinking that Victoria Canyons was called Victoria's Secret until we went there a second time and learned better.
Monday July 18
Tackle Box Canyons, my 1470th logged dive
This dive began with Luiz leading into the canyons but Bobbi and I went up to the reef top to see what the nurse sharks were up to. It appeared someone was feeding them because they were running riot up there. Gio said they chum there to attract Caribbean reef sharks. We saw one of those on our dive but too distant to get on video. Apart from that, we saw more nurse sharks, and were dogged by a disoriented ramora on our ascent, diving with Luiz, https://youtu.be/SmV8WXJ7tzw
Victoria Canyons, my 1471st logged dive
On this day we were diving with a new family, with Luiz, who took some time to help the ladies with their buoyancy. While he was distracted and I was bored, I noticed an eagle ray skimming a nearby reef top. My air went down from just below 3000 to 2000 by the time I'd recovered my breathing, but I did get the video when the ray slowed down so I could catch up, video above and on YouTube at: https://youtu.be/OlznByMgfpY
Tuesday July 19
Tackle Box again, my 1472nd logged dive
Touching encounters with nurse sharks on our second visit to Tackle Box, Ambergris Caye, Belize, Tuesday July 19, 2016, https://youtu.be/vIZQ64VD8Mw
Bobbi and I did this as an afternoon 3rd dive of the day and were accompanied by among others a father and his young son. You can see that it's an entertainment dive, with divemaster Bernie finding a mantis shrimp and enlarging its hole so we can see it better, and uncovering a sea biscuit for us. One interesting insight into the culture here is evident in the small nurse shark that followed us around and lay in the sand at our fins when the focus of the divers was on other things, such as the damsel fish in one segment. A highlight of this dive was an eagle ray that reared up off the reef and made a graceful exit with me chasing after it.
Wednesday July 20
Cypress Tunnel, my 1475th logged dive
The tunnel was a long swim through about 20 meters, diving with Gio. There are just a few shots here from Cypress Canyons, where a cowboy diver who can be seen in the video grabbing the nurse sharks, dove too deep, and ruined everyone's dive by letting his young son go into deco (I don't know how old the kid was, but depth limit for junior advanced divers is 21 meters, and they were down at 30, where his kid was actively chasing after the sharks as they passed by). The two of them can be seen in the videos of our dive to Esmeralda the day before.
Video segments after that are from D and B Canyons.
This was our 3rd trip to Victoria Canyons - where again DiMonster led deep. Bobbi and I skimmed the reef tops, and we saw the eagle ray there up close. Then I chased a lone barracuda through an amusement park ride swim-thru, and experienced a touching nurse shark farewell (bye nurse sharks, sniff sniff - see you next time) led by Luiz, https://youtu.be/IGiqkLSpLh8 Thursday July 21
boat back to Belize City and American Airlines on up to Houston
Getting there and hanging out
Briefly, about logistics, we landed in Belize on an American Airlines flight, less that $700 round trip the two of us (but we had to fly to Dallas from Houston and on to Belize from there, a hassle, but $300 off the direct flights from Houston). In Belize Emeliano had assured us we could hop a plane to San Pedro, lots going, or if we were lucky, we might make the 5:30 pm express boat. We got our bags through customs fairly quickly and were on the curbside at the airport just after 4:30, but big surprise, no taxis. The friendly Belize guy who organized cabs (they call everyone 'guys' in Belize) assured us one would come soon and we were next in line for a cab, after one lady waiting, so we gave him $25 and waited our turn. A big crowd rushed the first cab which came at a quarter till 5, the friendly cab 'guy' had a good heart but little control, so the next in line and Bobbi and I managed to board the 3rd cab though we'd paid collectively $50 for it. To boot, a young lady joined us without paying anyone. The driver shrugged and off we went for the harbor, arriving just in time for the boat. Normally they go to Caye Caulker and then to San Pedro but this one went directly to San Pedro on Ambergris Caye and arrived around sunset. A friendly cab guy approached us there and offered to take us to our hotel south of town for $10, but that was Belize dollars, so it was $5 US, and that turns out to be the standard price so no rip offs, a pretty straightforward transfer to airport to hotel a boat ride away.
About the hotel, it was called Caribbean Villas and the office closed at 7 pm which was before we arrived, but the security guard was found. He had been informed we were coming and took us to the second room back from the beach on the ground floor. The room was nice and cool, had a safe and fridge, cable TV and wifi barely working on the lanai. We had a beer at the bar, got walking directions to a good restaurant up the beach (lobster salad, yum) and walked home only to notice that the hotel was a 4 story wooden structure and people on the upper floors clomped about at all hours. So next day we scored an upper floor room, 4A, the first room nearest the beach on the topmost floor. Now WE made all the noise clomping about to use the toilet in the middle of the night. The view was lovely, it was much quieter (for us), and the wifi worked fine in our room up there. Not only that but the staff went out of their way to replace the false king with a crack in the middle with a real king bed from elsewhere in the hotel. We had booked three nights there in advance but this won us over and we ended up staying there the whole time. The only thing I noticed was this was an obviously flammable wooden structure yet there were no fire escapes. I didn't mention this to Bobbi. Anyway, a hurricane was more likely than a fire.
The best restaurant in San Pedro to our tastes was Waraguma on Middle Street downtown. Emiliano recommended it as a great place to get lobster burrito, which was $27 belize (US $13.50) and had a whole lobster tail lying upside a burrito itself stuffed with lobster chunks. It was too filling though so the next time we went there (yep, a return trip) we had the two lobster tails grilled for $45 Belizian, which Bobbi and I shared. Ladies working there had grills going and were making papusas stuffed with chicken, pork, or almost any kind of seafood, or combinations ($10 belizian for the latter, the most expensive). We also tried Hidden Treasure, Rain over the bridge in the north caye, El Fogon and Elvi's kitchen. All were good but twice the price of the exquisite simplicity and wholesome goodness of Waraguma.
According to Trip Advisor the best place to eat on the caye is Robin's Kitchen just across the street from Rico's and our dive center. This is a good place to go if you are out biking and want to stop and eat at tables on the sand, no frills whatsoever (and byob). The lady in the shack there produced good down home Jamaica Jack Chicken which was tasty and cheap, but when I went to pay I noticed a big cockroach on the wall over the preparation area, so I'm not sure if I would rate it best on the peninsula. Worth a try, but not the best.
The first video shows a compilation of 3 dives done on June 17, 2016 on a liveaboard dhow arranged by Emirates Dive center. Bobbi and I were diving with Greg Raglow, who was starting his PADI advanced open water course with his deep dive on Octopus Rock. That's where I took the cameo of a batfish being cleaned and where we found our first school of jacks, which I placed at the end of the video, which actually ends with my shots of surfacing from our 2nd dive on Ras Morovi.
That next dive was on the channel side of the island just east of Ras Morovi. Here we saw the free-swimming moray, the big marble ray, and the devil rays covorting in the channel. I video'd the fish life on the south point as we were ascending and used it at the end of the video here, where it appears we were ending one long dive.
Our third dive was on Lima headland. I had requested Lima Rock but didn't mind once I was in the water since the headland was hopping. I put the videos for this dive at the start of the compilation because they show us descending in swim-throughs, followed just 10 minutes into the dive by at least 20 devil rays swooping onto the reef from deeper water. I chased them, caught up with them at 20 meters, and got them to pose for me for a few seconds until they worked out the guy in the back with the camera wasn't one of them :-) We saw the slipper lobster (cigale, or scyllarides latus) near the point at Lima headland.
The fourth dive of the day was a night dive. On the dive, I noticed that a lion fish was using my spot light to help him find his prey so I helped him find another morsel. The first was by chance, the second was on me :-)
Then next morning we made an early morning dive on the north side of Lima Rock. Bobbi and I were first in the water on the first speedboat to reach Lima Rock on Saturday, June 18, 2016, and we found the rays undisturbed and squids playing in the water.
The video below shows our 6th and last dive on Saturday, June 18, 2016. We put in around the Fishhead Rock caves area , and found the rays undisturbed even there (and left them that way). We also came on a small turtle.
In all these dives, I'm diving with favorite dive buddy Bobbi Stevens, on a trip arranged by former students Joe Broeker, Keith Kennetz, and Jon Nichols, pictured at the end of the Lima Rock dive, and on the boat at the end of the caves one.
Friday, June 10 and Sat Jun 11, 2016 Certified divers #234-235 One of my colleagues at work, Delphino Ulysses Williams, asked if I could train him and his friend Christina Schweitzer in Open Water diving this hot Ramadhan weekend, and of course I agreed. How can I resist another opportunity to train new divers? We had many complications arranging the weekend involving others with different agendas and Nomad Ocean Adventure's new Ramadhan schedule of sending out early morning and night boats only, which makes it almost impossible to bring divers up in time Thursday to get them through 3 pool modules and ready for an early morning dive. However they promised a 9:30 a.m. boat on Saturday (and the others with different agendas postponed to the following weekend) so it would be just the 4 of us, Delphino, Christina, and Bobbi and I. The student divers had booked their eLearning through Nomad, so we decided to start at Nomad Fujairah on Friday and arranged to cross the border and finish the course in Musandam the following day.
All went well the first day. It's hard to pace these courses. You never know how the students will respond to familiarization process in training. But Delphino and Christina had no problems snorkeling and they adapted well to SCUBA, and we had confined modules 1 and 2 out of the way well before the 2 pm dive to Artificial Reef. Module 3 still remained to be done and the rental boat (the Nomad boat was under engine repair) had to be returned before we would be ready, so we rounded out the somewhat exhausting day with a shore dive off Royal Beach, focusing on compass work in addition to the usual skills for that dive. We crossed the border into Oman after dusk and ended up at Nomad Ocean Adventure there in time for dinner. The students requested an early start next morning in lieu of more pool work that night, so we met at 6 a.m. for briefing. We were at the pool at 6:30 but had to get gear together, so it was another hour before we hit the pool. Minor glitches prolonged things, and the time of the ocean dive was brought forward to 9:00 because there was not an early boat that day, and all divers were anxious to get away before we would be ready. We were done module 4 at 8:30 but were in the position of having to finish module 5 at the beach at Ras Morovi and then somehow getting in two more dives plus flexible skills including CESA, or, Bobbi's brilliant idea, return to Fujairah and finish off at Nomad there. The students elected to take things easy and not be rushed by more advanced divers. We stayed behind to finish the module 5 pool work in NoA's pool, the marvelous cook at Nomad insisted on making lunch for us (ours had gone on the boat he said) and it was only this that delayed Bobbi and my arrival at Nomad FUJ to 11 a.m. where we saw the boat just then leaving. But the kind people there, Kyle and Jess, assured us there would be another at noon, so we got on that one to Dibba Rock, where I managed to find us a sting ray, and Bobbi and I saw several sharks in the shallows, but in mediocre vis, not long enough in any one sighting to GoPro them.
Our last dive was to Sharm, what we most recently used to call Three Rocks, and before that (last century) Pinnacles. It was the location where I had certified Mohammed Chowdhury as a PADI Scuba Diver just a few weeks back (so you can see the video we made there for comparison). This day was a little more murky than that dive, but still Sharm has its charm. The video of Delphino and Christina's dive for certification there, and the subsequent selfie, round out the story.
Friday, June 3, 2016 For some reason, a lot of people have wanted to learn how to dive lately and Bobbi and I have been having a great time showing them how or upgrading their credentials from Open Water to Advanced. It seems like every weekend in May we had another group wanting to take dive courses, and it was great fun, but Bobbi and I needed a break. We were planning one the weekend of June 3-4 when we caught wind of a far north trip to Fanaku, and possibly Kachelu, the current-ridden gem rising above the waters at the edge of the Straits of Hormuz. The trip was with Nomad Ocean Adventure, and Chris Chellapermal himself would lead the dives. Brian was the only one other booked on the trip when we added our names, so we put a note out on our Froglegs Facebook group. Jean Michel "Dro" Madery answered the call and booked, plus his friend Jean Marc. Cecil drew the lucky card from the Nomad staff to join the boatload, and by 8:15 we were headed out the harbor and on our way on the scenic trip past the entire mountainous coastline of Musandam all the way through the archipelago of islands off Kassab, all the way to the Strait of Hormuz to the island of Fanaku, beyond which there were no other islands to be seen further north.
Click here for more on the incident referred to by Kevin Our first dive was on Fanaku, north to south on the west face. We'd been there before. It drops over a coral lip to a deep wall, down to sand where Chris likes to lead. Bobbi and I hung at an intermediate depth because we saw a leopard shark once in the more shallow coral beds there.
From there we moved to Kachelu to check it out, but the current seemed like madness both ends of the island, so we had lunch in Sphinx bay on Musandam Island, named after a rock Chris orients on, and dived from there into what turned out to be an air crunching current dive - for me, at any rate. I signaled Chris I was at 50 when I was actually at more like 30 (ok, 500 psi). Bobbi still had 100 (bar).
Time to head home with a stop at Temple Rock, in the vicinity of Mother of Mouse to east, which for me was the best dive of the day. We started with a ray right after descent and ended with a moray that entertained everyone with rippling gyrations. The videos tell the story.
Here's Dro Madery's take on my filming the honeycomb moray in the video above
Our good friend Jay from good old days in UAE, now in
Bahrain, flew to Dubai from there with two colleagues expressly for the purpose
of having me train them in PADI open water diving. Jay likes to stay at the Miramar so he asked
me to arrange to train through Divers Down, the dive center based there. Bobbi
and I thought what the heck we might as well stay there too. We decided to
treat ourselves despite the fact that this would consume my earnings for the
weekend. Another way of looking at it was, free stay at the Miramar for two
nights with breakfast in return for simply training two divers.
So Bobbi and I got there early Thursday, checked in at the Miramar, relaxed by the pool and beach, and had
dinner at the beachside open-air veranda Bahari restaurant, and when Jay
and Abdulhameed and Mohammed arrived around 10:30 pm we sat on our room patio
and talked about what we would do in the morning. We didn’t talk long because
our day would begin at 7 am, the earliest we could get breakfast.
I briefed the day at breakfast next morning, the students took tests and filled out forms, and then we walked beside the beach to the
dive center for more forms and equipment, which we donned and walked to the pool. The
plan was to get through as many of five pool modules as we could that morning,
make the last dive of the day at 3 pm, then wrap up the pool modules that
afternoon, and complete the course with three dives the following day.
As often happens, things don’t necessarily go to plan. It’s
not unusual for people to take time to overcome instincts when breathing
underwater, and aptitude for scuba depends to some extent on people’s prior
experience snorkeling. Mohammed and Abdulhameed had purchased new ScubaPro
snorkels with balls in the tip. I remember this design in my youth. The idea
was that the ping pong ball (which is what they used in the 50’s) would lightly
sit on the tip and prevent water getting in while allowing air through. But ScubaPro
had designed some special ball that kept getting stuck and preventing air flow.
It complicated our pool work, along with other acclimatization problems.
As a result we had to scale back our plan. By the time of the
4 pm dive both students had qualified to do their PADI o/w dive #1, but
Mohammed would need more practice in the pool to allow him to do the next two
dives. To top things off the long morning in the unshaded pool and not
anticipating how much drinking water we would need left Abdulhameed too dehydrated to go
on the Friday dive. So just Mohammed and ended up as buddies on the late-afternoon trip to Three Rocks, along with Bobbi, Jay, and Greg Raglow, who has been joining us
on some of our dives lately.
The dive on Three Rocks was at maximum depth 12 meters. This is the site we used to call the Pinnacles, and we used to drive our cars there at
night and swim east to the exposed rocks for our night dives. We’ve met some
stiff currents there in our many dives there, but today the sea was benign. A troupe
of batfish have taken residence on the south east corner, and there are schools
of other fish, pipe fish, morays, and even glass shrimp in some of the crevices.
That night over dinner (back at the easy-breezy Bahari
again) we decided the best option for Mohammed and Abdulhameed was to go for the PADI Scuba Diver certification as a plan B. It’s
60% of the o/w course, requires 3 pool modules and two dives, plus certain flexible
skills in the ocean and pool, and can be converted to PADI o/w by simply
carrying on with the course later.
We were joined at dinner by Naira, who had completed hercourse the week before, and her boyfriend Chris, also a diver, visiting from Switzerland. They had arranged to dive at Nomad, diving Dibba Rock Saturday and Sunday. Naira, who was
taking Sunday off work to dive there with Chris, reported seeing
three sharks at once there on Sunday, when there wouldn’t have been so many people
around.
Dibba Rock was where we went with Divers Down at 9 a.m.
Saturday. We put in at the east mooring and went down the rope in fairly clear
water. As we dropped on the rocks there a green moray wriggled across the plateau
looking for a hole to hide in. We circled the rock looking for one of the
snorkels which had been lost on descent (poor ScubaPro snorkel holder design as well,
what’s wrong with the old reliable rubber bands, the real snorkel ‘keepers”).
We decided it had been picked up by other divers from our boat (it had) and after completing our skills, we headed into the
valley that led to the sand flat where the rays hang out.
We were lucky. We
came across two rays. We also encountered a fish pot that had a pair of hungry
morays in it and a few stressed fish finding it difficult to maintain the eternal
game of evading the morays in such close proximity, with nowhere to shelter.
The way forward after our dive would also be stressful. The
sun was intense and hot, and the sea was salty on the throat, so it was only
Mohammed who joined me for open water flexible skills in deep water just off the beach (we had had the boat drop
us near the edge of the swim area). We got
these out of the way and returned to shore. But Mohammed still needed to
complete some confined water module 3 skills before we could officially do a
PADI o/w dive #2 and complete his PADI Scuba Diver rating. It was not easy, and he
had to complete a 200 meter swim and 10 minute float as well. But he did it.
We did our last dive at Three Rocks, as
peaceful and relaxing as the day before. Mohammed encountered problems but kept
his cool and worked through each in exactly the way that he had been trained to do over the past two days. I
was quite proud of him when he completed his last flexible skill, a snorkel –
regulator exchange on the surface, and we got him back on the boat a certified
diver.
