May 28-29, 2010 - certified 3 advanced open water divers: Borja, January and Keith and 3 open water divers Tammy, Roger, and Mila

My logged dives number 979-981 Friday and 982-984 Saturday

Daniel Sobrado took pictures and posted them to his Picassa account here: http://tinyurl.com/daniel-divepics. Thanks Daniel for permission to post some of these here.

My running friend and o/w and advanced dive student Graeme put some of his friends from Dubai on to me and they agreed to do their academics through PADI eLearning and meet me at Discover Nomad on Thu May 27. So I met Tammy, Mila, and Roger for the first time at the dive center in Dibba and took them through confined water pool dives 1 and 2 at the pool there before dinner and bedtime.

On Friday May 28, we got up early for confined water dive 3 which qualified the three for two open water dives that day. By 10:00 the rest of those diving with us had arrived for our dive trip up to Musandam. At 1:20 we descended at Lima Rock in what I was conducting as an advanced boat dive for Borja, January, and Keith, and O/W dive 1 for Roger, Mila, and Tammy. We were a large group. Besides Bobbi and I, Bruno, January's colleague from Brazil, and also Renato and his wife Kelly (snorkeling) were on board. Leslie and Caroline had also joined us for fun diving, and they saw the whale shark on their dive (but the rest of us didn't :-(

We had the boatman take us to Ras Morovi where at 15:00 we were heading down for one of my complex combined open water and advanced navigation dives, advanced for Borja, January and Keith, and dive #2 for Roger, Mila, and Tammy. After our exercises in the cove we moved out the tongue as we had the week before. Vis had improved since then but it was still milky there. We got the boatman to drop us by the Cave on the way home, which we started diving at around 17:30. I had proposed this as a third elective dive for January and Keith (either underwater naturalist or peak buoyancy). Funny we couldn't actually find the entrance to the cave, very puzzling as I'd been there many times before, but we found huge crayfish wandering around in the rocks just outside the alcove. Due to the waning light, we kept it to a shallow dive for just 30 minutes.

It was at this site that we found a bird in the water, nearly immobilized and struggling to stay afloat with wings caked with oil. While Keith and January and I were diving the others rescued it and we took it back to the dive center with us where it was bathed by dive center staff as often as they could get around to it. Despite frequent cleansings the oil could be only partially removed, and on Saturday the bird died, just a glimpse to us of what's being wreaked on wildlife on the shores ringing the Gulf of Mexico right now.

Sat May 29, Tammy, Mila, and Roger completed confined water dives 4 and 5 in the pool next morning and at 10:00 we again departed for another dive trip up to Musandam. At noon we were diving Lima Rock south side on a deep dive with multilevel profile for Borja, January and Keith. The other qualified divers dived on their own. We saw the usual fish there but again no whalesharks. After collecting everyone back on board, we puttered around to the sheltered north side of the rock where Roger, Mila, and Tammy finished their flexible (mostly surface) skills in shallow mooring area. At 14:00 we went down for Dive #3 for Roger, Mila, and Tammy and an advanced underwater naturalist dive for Borja. Everyone else remained at the surface, including Keith and January who worked on their decent surface interval while plotting out their last advanced dive, a multilevel one we planned for 15:30 off Wonder Wall.

Since Borja had done two dives already, I had him join Tammy, Mila, and Roger and I for a shallow advanced peak buoyancy dive (hovering for everyone). Bobbi joined January and Keith for their multilevel dive. Wonder Wall was a place we hadn't been to lately but it was a lovely spot. The fish life was very attractive but the highlight of the trip was a ray that glided casually ahead of us as we shadowed it in the sand, then turned to check us out, then headed up the reef and back down to the sand, putting on a nice show for us. Bobbi and Keith and January saw the same ray. At the end of the dive as we neared the point the current picked up and divers were being collected even out to sea, but all re-boarded safely and we made it back to harbor and home late, exhausted, but happy.

May 21-22, 2010 - certified 4 advanced open water divers: Ianthe, Rosanna, Johan, and Daniel and 1 open water diver Camille

My logged dives number 973-975 Friday and 976-978 Saturday

See more pictures from Dibba reef and Musandam (whale shark), thanks to Advanced Diver Daniel Sobrado! And thanks to Daniel for permission to post these:

On Friday, we all met at Freestyle Divers at Dibba Rock and did three dives from the same location, the mooring on the west side of the island, with the current sweeping to the east. We did the noon, 3 pm and night dives. Divers with us besides Bobbi and I were Godelieve, her kids Ianthe and Rosanna, and their friend Johan; plus Daniel and Camille.

The first dive was Camille's first and for the others a refresher and advanced boat dive conducted with some difficulty due to the current. Since the mooring at Freestyle was new to me I had trouble finding the reef but eventually found it for the last third of our dive, and with it calm water, and I managed to get Camille pretty much right next to a prowling black tip. The second dive was centered around an advanced navigation dive, where square patterns were difficult in the current. Johan and Daniel managed one, disappearing and reappearing near a large coral bommie while I took Camille through the PADI o/w dive #2 skill set. Ianthe had to surface accompanied by her mom, due to stomache problems after stress descending in the current at the mooring, but Rosanna managed her square once we got her into calmer water in the reef at the western edge of the rock, where we swam with turtles. The final dive of the day was the night dive for all the advanced candidates. I followed bright eyes to find the glass shrimp behind them and we found interesting crustacians in the sea bed, and hopped over the border afterwards for a warm reception and good food and beverage at Discover Nomad.

Saturday we got a late start, quarter past 11 departure. Things had gone well up to the point where we were told our boat was waiting for us. I'd got up at 7:30 and met Camille and Daniel at breakfast, and Camille and I got in the pool and got our confined water dives out of the way, and 8 divers and six snorkelers were told they could go down to the harbor any time after ten. But our food with our name on it was missing, and that gave us one more thing to disorganize on top of getting our gear ready etc. It turned out Michael had taken the food down to the harbor where he was waiting with our 20 tanks. That was the good news, the bad was that the boats had buggered off. The boatmen had said 20 minutes. My divers were at least given shaded seating on a nearby dhow and I took the opportunity to brief them on multilevel and deep diving. We worked out profiles for Rosanne, my 12 year old jr advanced o/w water candidate who was going just to 21 meters. For the others, I recommended no more that 24 meters, and we worked out a 26 meter profile that in the end gave everyone 21 meters at depth, ascent to 16 meters for another 20 minutes, and both profiles allowed 45 minutes to an hour and ten at 12 meters, in case anyone had that much air left, not likely on a deep dive.

So despite the late start we were at least at the rock an hour later where we joined several other dive boats following bubbles. We were told a whale shark had been spotted, and my divers excitedly kitted up. We were planning the advanced deep dive and everyone had been briefed. I tested current, found it slightly to the west toward the mountains, but it was essentially slack. Still the boats were all drifting west, perhaps wind blown, as the divers entered the water, instructed to remain near a large rock. They held position well, Cami was disappointed she wouldn't be able to join us as she was only two dives into her o/w training and couldn't go to our depth, even though it was only 3 meters below her limit. We have to keep to the standards, which require me to directly supervise o/w students as well as deep divers in training.

Eventually we got the divers in the water and heading down. Rosanne was having slight ear problems so I moved her over to the rock wall where she could come down with visual reference (this is probably how I missed the big honeycomb moray Daniel was snapping pictures of :-), and soon I had 7 divers with me on the sand bottom in 21 meters of water. We ran through our exercises smoothly, we had enough tables to go around for calculation of minimum surface interval (at depth), we found some discrepancies in gauges reporting how deep we were, and then we were on our way to enjoy the dive.

We had excellent vis, the fish life was abundant, fish pouring over the rocks and coral, moray eels, and big batfish enjoying their full wrasse makeovers at the numerous cleaning stations, and I was taking it all in while keeping a half dozen advanced divers on task, when my buddy Ianthe reached over and grabbed my slate. “Aren't we supposed to go to 16 meters?” she wrote. I checked my computer, 19 minutes. Yep, good thing she was watching the time. I started to lead us up to the next level. Plan your dive, dive your plan.

Unless of course you happen to see a sting ray in the sand at 20 meters, a big one, and you think there's flexibility in this profile, we didn't go to the calculated depth of 26 meters, none of us, my computer is showing double digit no deco time, and after we dropped down to check the big guy out, I took us up to 16 meters, where for the next several minutes we saw shoals of barracuda sweeping in from the deep water off the wall.

What could top that? The next thing to appear out of the blue was a growing baby 5 meter whale-shark. These things are massive compared to anything else on the reef and they are curious about the next massive thing, us.

When whalesharks appear to a group of trainee divers, diver decorum sort of goes out the window. I was of course out there with it swimming around me but I was also looking out for my buddy and keeping track of how far off the wall I was. I watched my divers chase after it (except for Johan, playing it cool like me, hanging back, staying aware of all his surroundings). Actually I lost sight of my divers momentarily until I could get around an outcrop they'd all gone behind, and then I was pleased so see the whale shark coming back towards me surrounded by a cloud of divers and bubbles, so it was nice of him to bring them back to me.

But the cloud of bubbles and whaleshark headed back into the blue, and my divers with it. I tried to get Bobbi's attention to bring them back into the reef, currents can be bad here, but there was nothing she could do. And then we were at the flat featureless wall leading out to the point. I felt the current pick up. This would have been my turn-around point, but my divers were now caught in it. I watched them disappear around the next outcrop like cards being spewed from a squeezed deck.

I finned fast ahead of them. They now realized they should check for instructions and I motioned them to get near the wall and stay low in the water as we were swept along involuntarily. They all did very well staying together and managing the situation. It wasn't dangerous, but we were clearly coming to the end of the dive, whereas had we gone the other way at the turning point we might have had longer. On the new course, I would have directed them around the gap to the other side but we hit a bit of back wash and were able to stay in one place for a moment, so we paused to collect ourselves.

The whale shark reappeared at that moment. I noticed him just off the rock pointed into the current, scarfing up plankton, facing us, as if he planned to watch us and see what we would do. I thought we might have held that standoff and happily watched one another for a few minutes, but some of our divers swam over to him, this seemed to surprise him, and so he flicked his tail and took off upcurrent and that was the last we saw of him, until next time of course, but we had to do our safety stop without him :-).  Daniel got some great pics: http://tinyurl.com/daniel-divepics

I decided I'd take Camille on a shallow dive to see if we could see the whale shark again. I had 100 bar and I didn't change my tank, I expected conditions to be much the same as the dive before, and I'd keep the diver short but conditions had changed. We put in at the same rock we had started at an hour before, and at first we just slowly settled to the bottom as before, except I noticed that the vis had gone cloudy. It was feeling strange, the current even started to grab us and carry us along so this would be a one-way dive, not like the one before. I kept to 10 meters. We passed the big batfish and schools of jacks, but apart from the phenomenal schools of fish, nothing really big in evidence. We were really trucking along with the current and I was down to 70 bar when I noticed Daniel overhead snorkeling. I decided it wasn't wise to continue diving there with a beginner so we ascended to meet him. He reported that the boat was just downcurrent, out of sight around the corner. I could see the water rippling at the surface at that corner where the current was in turbo mode. I wouldn't have gone for it had Daniel not said the boat was just on the other side, so with a grip on Camille's bcd we went into it like long swimmers in a rapids. It was like river current, fun, and took us right to the boat, where we were rescued aboard.

That was the last of the great diving we would have that day, though in the calm bay at Ras Morovi, there was a devil ray that entertained us with arial acrobatics, doing several somersaults out of the water, and then entertained our snorkelers. Cami and I saw it as we finished off our surface skills for her o/w course (and I bounced down briefly to see the mottled brown markings on its back).

Ianthe had asked to complete her navigation work in the calm shallow waters of Ras Morovi and I could take Camille there and have her do the skills for her o/w dive #3 at the same time. In order that she could do her o/w compass work there I devised a cunning plan. For this I would need two plastic drinks cups from the boat trash. Starting at the alcove in the corner of the bay, Ianthe would lead us west her calibrated 30 meters, where I left the 1st cup wedged in the coral, hopefully not in such as way as to damage it. She then led us back to our starting point, a rock on which I'd placed a sea cucumber. Now it was Cami's turn. I instructed her to lead us south 30 meters, but the metric I used was the number of kick cycles I'd counted for Iante's leg, so the distance would be the same, see? Cami then led us back to the north to the rock where the sea cucumber still held vigil. Ianthe then led us west again where we recovered the first cup from the coral. But now she headed south the requisite number of kicks, stopping exactly where I thought she should. She was actually doing an excellent job. I was following, letting her lead, but double checking her direction, which was spot on. She also looked back now and then to be sure her buddies were with her, helping her avoid rising up in the water by checking she was still at the level of her buddies, another excellent habit I may have taught her :-). In any event, the test was on the next leg, where we expected to find Cami's cup. Ianthe stopped at the right distance as did I but we didn't see the cup right away. But the terrain looked right so we scoured that area and found it. From there it was a simple matter to return to the rock where I in turn returned the sea cucumber to his proper bed of sand.

There's something very satisfying about navigation. It's reassuring when theory is corroborated by reality. It's nice to see students appreciate their accomplishments in navigating a course successfully, doing something that's challenging, and that they could not have done when I started training them as open water divers when they were even younger kids a couple years back.

We finished the day with everyone diving the tongue extending from the protected cove at Ras Morovi. It was the most convenient spot and is usually a lovely dive, but on this day it was brown and murky with cold thermoclines that kept us above 10 meters most of the dive.  Still the squid were there and the lovely fish, nice way to end a great weekend.

Coda: Some of my advanced diver candidates have vowed to never again touch whale sharks, and I have made it a part of my dive briefing since then.  It disturbs them and makes them want to leave the area. When you touch them, they visibly recoil.  Let's not do that anymore :-)

Diving Abu Dhabi with Al Mahara Diving Center, May 15, 2010, my logged dives #971-972

Congratulations to Ala Jadooa, certified as a PADI open water diver today, and also Elizabeth Peters, who successfully completed her first two dives for the course!

Al Mahara is a diving center recently started up by my long-time friends in Abu Dhabi Kathleen and Alistair Russell.  We've dived together often before but this was my first time with them under the new dive flag, http://www.divemahara.com/.

We went to Delta Buoy which I hadn't visited in some time.  Alistair moored NE of the gully I used to visit often when I would drop in between there and the buoy itself.  I would approach from just east of the buoy (west of the gulley) and I used to know pretty spot on where it was, and I left some poles propped upright there to help me find it, so I used to go there my every visit to Delta Buoy, but this time, coming from the opposite direction, I wasn't able to find the spot I was looking for, though we did find some significant ridges with angel and banner fish, black spotted yellow grunts, and a few hamour lurkng about, with snappers spilling over them in a dense rush.

It was pleasant diving.  The ladies both did very well.  Ala started off with a well-executed CESA from 9 meters, and back at the surface, after resolving minor weighting problems, we all descended together into pleasantly cool water, vis about 10 meters, 10:44 on my watch.  Ala had to hover and removed her mask and replace it, and Elizabeth's task was just to enjoy the dive.  We meandered looking for fish (me trying to locate that certain gully, in vain), 10 or 11 meters max, until at 11:25 Ala signaled low on air and we came up some distance from the boat.  This gave us a chance to run through Ala's remaining surface skills before the boat reached us and we climbed back aboard.

For the second dive Alistair dropped us at a nearby reef I'd never visited before, called Phil's Reef I think, after someone who had found several bamboo sharks hiding under a rock there (why not bamboo reef, I wonder?).  At least that was the story.  There was a stiff surface current that complicated entry though once we headed down the anchor line at around 12:30 it wasn't too bad at the bottom.  I used the anchor to fix a point for Ala's compass out and back, her last skill to complete her course.  She started into the current and then got carried by the current past the anchor on the return leg, but she was keeping track of kicks so she managed to turn and look around before she had gone far, well done for a novice.  I had Elizabeth do her module 2 skills in the same spot and then we were ready for a look around.  I tried to keep to a square but the current combined with curiosity to exam outcrops here and there blasted that away.  I tried to head us into the current more or less on the assumption that would keep us at least in the vicinity of the boat, but it didn't work, and when Ala went low on air we surfaced where we happened to be.  This time it was Elizabeth's turn to do surface skills while we waited.

That dive was 10 meters (or 11, max) for about 35 minutes.

Lovely day out in Abu Dhabi out of the heat and traffic.  I'm ready to revisit the wrecks!

Ho hum, another Whale Shark - Dibba / Musandam April 30 / May 1, 2010 - My logged dives #967-970

 Photo credit - Daniel Sobrado - Link here to more photos from this weekend by Daniel

I had been teaching a course for two of Bobbi's colleagues at work for the past couple of weeks. The ladies had borrowed the DVDs and watched them, and they'd taken the tests up to module 3 so they could go in the pool for modules 2 and 3 on Thursday night so they could do dives 1 and 2 in the ocean on Dibba Rock with Freestyle Divers on Friday.

It had been hectic and not entirely smooth going but two very keen ladies had persevered and turned up outside our flat at 7:30 Friday for the 3.5 hour drive across the UAE to Dibba. We arrived at the east coast at 11 and had plenty of time to get the newbies kitted and sorted for their very first ocean dive at noon-ish, as it said on the schedule of who's on what boat at Freestyle, which in the event turned out to be about 12:30 departure, which fazed not one of the laid-back customers enjoying their day at the beach with the relaxed boys at Freestyle Divers (Hayley wasn't there, so it was just the boys).

Although the shore-facing side of Dibba Rock is a forgiving 8 meters maximum, and therefore suitable for beginners, there are sometimes currents, and today it was a stiff one pumping to the east. Fortunately this carried us on to the reef from the western mooring, but of course i had to be careful that the ladies turned with me to zig zag on the reef. They were controlling buoyancy well and accomplished this manoeuver well enough, and we were rewarded with a turtle resting on the reef. We didn't see much beyond the schools of tropical reef fish after that. I recall a pleasant dive, some parts of the reef thick with snappers, 26 degree termperatures, mediocre visibility (better than 'bad'), and the first diver low on air at 31 minutes, not unusual for first-time divers adjusting to the changing buoyancies and current pressure in an unfamiliar underwater environment, so we surfaced.

We signalled the boat to pick us up and while waiting we drifted off the reef. When our low-on-air diver got picked up, three of us still had 100 bar so we decided to descend and go on compass to the Rock where Bobbi had seen sharks playing last time she was there with Daniel Sobrado. We were fighting the current to do this but Channin managed it well for a first time diver. We arrived in the shallows and found improved visibility but no sharks cavorting, so we moved into an area of red corals teeming again with fish, even some small bat fish, and got some relief from the current there. It was pretty here but we'd been down an hour by my wrist watch (my computer had restarted timing while we waited at the surface), so at 13:55 I signalled up.

My divers had to complete a couple of module 3 confined water skills we hadn't quite got to the evening before when they ran us out of the pool at nine, so as soon as the boat tied up to discharge the other divers my students and I re-entered the water to get through our confined water oral inflation of BCD underwater, emergency swimming ascent siimulations, and breathing from a free flowing regulator. This non-stop activity was a bit demanding on a hot day on first time divers, who had to then exit onto the shore and immediately replace their tanks with full ones and get out to where a boat load of divers and snorkelers were patiently waiting for us. Therefore it was understandable when Ala opted not to do the skill set for dive number 2: mask clear, regulator recovery, and alternate air source breathing, but rather to make it a fun dive for experience instead.

A fun dive it was. We saw some of the best Dibba Rock has recently had to offer after the subsequent eco-disasters of Cyclone Gonu and the prolonged Red Tide. We found a couple of turtles and a school of barracuda that we could swim among (and one of the turtles was swimming alongside the barracuda, serene). We found some cuttlefish and squid, and at the end of the dive, a big blacktip shark that prowled in close across our path. Ala, right at my shoulder, pointed excitedly and flashed the very OK sign. Channin didn't see the shark but she had passed her first two dives plus all the diving skills for modules 1-3, and Ala had done the same, up through the first o/w dive.

The evening had only begun. We washed and packed our gear and headed over the border into Oman to be welcomed by Chris and his family and staff at the Discover Nomad hostel, bed and breakfast plus the best meal deal in Dibba. Ala and Channin busied themselves with the academic portions of the final two modules and after dinner I helped them understand the tables and then waited while they took their final exam. It was after midnight by the time we had gone over the 50 question final exam and signed off on their papers. Bobbi was already asleep, and I was too as soon as my head hit the pillow.

I was disoriented in the morning when the knock came on the door that it was time to get up and prepare to go in the pool at 7:00. It didn't seem enough sleep, but the girls were getting ready and Daniel's friend Borja joined us as well. The boys had driven down the evening before. Borja's PADI certification was back home in Spain and we couldn't find in PADI's online database what combination of Francisco de Borja etc could possibly constitute a first name, middle initial, last name, and birthday that PADI requires be entered exactly as it is in the dbase before the system will return you a hit. So I checked him out in the pool and he was fine in the water, had obviously done the course and was well trained, The ladies too soldiered through the last two pool modules of the course, and we were out of the pool and into the croissants and coffee by around 9 a.m.

Chris's staff were sending everyone to the dive boats. I was designated 'guide' on one and I was assigned in addition to Channin and Ala and Daniel and Borja (and Bobbi and I) Robert from Munich and his team of divers Karsten and another Daniel, with Robert's Phillipina 'buddy' Ashley along as a snorkeler.

My job now was to ensure that all of these folks got their equipment and weights etc on board, and that I didn't forget the food, and that we had enough tanks. These small tasks having been handled mainly by others, and the personable Captain Mohamed having appeared to conduct us north, our boat left Dibba by 11 a.m. and we set out upon choppy seas, with some overcast misting the mountains of Musandam.

Despite the rough ride I managed to squirm into my wetsuit so that on arrival at Lima Rock I could jump over the side and test the current, which I find is the only sure way of knowing what it's doing. Today I detected a strong current driving toward the Lima headland and I suggested to Robert and his group that we not dive there just then, too challenging for beginners, who could be swept from one end of the rock to the other if they had any delay in descent, or ear problems keeping them near the surface. Robert's team agreed to my call, and I suggested Ras Morovi instead. Again general agreement, and Capt Mhmd willingly motored us over. I had him pull into the calm bay one back from the channel between the headland and the island. Here my divers could kit up comfortably, and the water was smooth and clear and beckoning.

This turned out to be an excellent dive, mainly due to the clear visibility. The rocks were alive with fishes and morays, including a honeycomb (always impressive) that was curled up and hidden entirely in a hole. We found cuttlefish and squid, or perhaps young cuttlefish, not sure, but they were darting about in large numbers, and in one place they played right in front of our face masks and tried to hide in the rocks, nice try, but only inches away from us, within grabbing reach (but I'm sure they were faster than we in the water, and would have elluded our grasp; in any event we observe, do not disturb). We again found turtles swimming, and in the tall alcove just after where we had turned north into the channel and passed over the cabbage coral, we found a cloud of fish fry almost stationary in the water in the back of the cave, and beneath them an electric ray resting. Nearby under another ledge there was a large brown sting ray resting in the sand, blinking at us to please go away.

No rest for the weary, after an hour down for Bobbi, Channin, Daniel and Borja, we collected all divers and motored back across the chop to Lima headline where we could eat lunch out of the weather, again in calm waters. After a short break to do that, it was back in the water for Ala and Channin and I for dive flexible skills for both ladies. We worked on compass and on breathing through snorkels, and tired diver tows, and cramp removal, and then I Ala exited the water and I took Channin down for her controlled emergency swimming ascent, the rehearsal and then the real thing. While we were waiting for the boat, Channin removed and replaced weights and BCD, completing all but the final dive to complete her course.

And what a dive that was. Our German friends were amenable to whatever I decided for our group but Robert asked if we could try the calmer lee or north side of Lima Rock, and that was fine with me, as long as the current was ok for my students, but in negotiating this we decided I should check out the current again on the weather south side, and I felt there was no harm in that. On the way over I asked Mhmd what he thought the current might be doing on Lima Rock and he said in fact he wasn't familiiar with the currents here, but he was happy to take me to check it out.

The seas were choppy still but I found no current so we decided to go in at the middle of Lima Rock. In retrospect we should have gone to the lee side to kit up. It wasn't long before someone started getting ill. Another lost his mask over the side and jumped in the water to rescue it, to no avail, it was adding to the confusion, and I suggested he reboard, kit up, and try and find it on scuba. The Germans kitted themselves in good order and rolled over backwards. Our team was more affected by the unsteady conditions and taking more time. Then the German Daniel shouted from the surface that a whale shark was directly below. Channin was already in the water, where she had gone for some relief from boat sickness. Some of the others decided the best bet was to go in the water on snorkel. I was among those but I couldn't find my mask. I soon spotted it on one of my divers in the water who had grabbed it in his haste to jump in to try and see the whale shark. By the time I managed to find a mask one of the snorkelers wasn't using and get in the water myself the whale shark had passed and all we could see of the Germans was their bubbles. Knowing that whale sharks like to hang around divers I tried to reassure my divers they might see it later and get them back in the boat and get them kitting systematically and taking their time and not hurrying and missing out essential steps of the buddy check system. This plus the pitching of the boat plus divers wanting to get off the boat and into the relatively calmer water made this something less than a military operation but my divers had at least all been well trained :-) and they were waiting for me in a group and resisting the dispersal tendencies of the slight current when I finally managed to enter the water myself.

The visibility on the rock was quite nice and I found that if I kept at about ten meters I could see the surface and also the sand below at 25 meters, so I led us on a comfortable up-current fin where we admired the fishes, finding some moray eels and lots of huge batfish enjoying the wrasse at their cleaning stations. Hoping to allow everyone the best air time I kept the group shallow and didn't even drop in the sand for exercises. Eventually I found a rock we could rest on and had my divers do their mask exercises and hovering on it. Channin had the technique down by then and Ala was making consistent progress. When the current became more noticeable near the point I wheeled us around and revisited the way we had come. 35 minutes into the dive Ala needed to surface so I brought her up and got Bobbi and Channin to stay just below where I could keep an eye on them. When the boat came for Ala I descended and continued the dive. Daniel was next up (he'd gone deep in search of the missing mask), and I let his buddy Borja accompany us until he too got too low on air, so I kept my eye on him as he surfaced proficiently.

Bobbi said later that she knew what I was doing. I was keeping us underwater and at just the right depth for as long as possible in hopes that maybe, just maybe, the whale shark would return. Channin's air was holding out as well as Bobbi's and mine. We all had 100 bar when Borja went up, and no one had told us 50 minutes or 50 bar. So we continued around the rock to the north side, and found some blue crayfish in their lairs in the rock wall. We were comfortably maintaining ten meters depth, just cruising slowly and methodically, when Bobbi noticed we had been joined by a 4th buddy, a whale shark that came right along beside her. So she got the best view and I saw it as it turned in front of us, showing off its remorahs. It was small for a whale shark, maybe 3 or 4 meters, but an impressive fish, docile, and just the thing you want to show your open water student who has just completed her final dive for certification. Bobbi, who had been down the whole time of that dive, had 64 minutes on her computer, and I had 59 (5 min on the surface waiting for a boat). So my strategy paid off with yet another whale shark experience on Lima Rock. The boat ride home was a joyous one for the three of us and the Germans, who had seen it first, and everyone had a great weekend out of the capital, so there were no complaints as we motored back to Dibba Oman harbor, home port :-))

Reactions from my two students this weekend: http://screencast.com/t/NWY1MjhiZ (Thanks!)

Lima / Musandam Oman April 16-17 2010 - My logged dives #963-966

This is just a quick recap of events last weekend. I booked in 8 divers for Discover Nomad, all keen to go in search of whale sharks. Bobbi and I saw one last time we were at Lima Rock March 19, and they'd been sighted off Lima the previous weekend. So the divers on the trip were keen to go. But the weekend before we were due to head out, two dropped out called away to South Africa, one got sick and couldn't dive, and Glenn and Gwen and Gulya descended on Abu Dhabi, Glenn recovering from knee surgery and couldn't dive, so Bobbi bailed too.

Jay Fortin, Bill Nash, and Greg Golden left Abu Dhabi Friday morning about the same time I did and we all rolled up at Discover Nomad, Dibba, Oman by ten in the Morning. The four of us were on a boat with two French guys using re-breathers, and two personable ladies Zana from Brazil and Laura from Lima (Peru, not the Rock). Zana, a rescue diver, turned out to be an artist with a blog: http://calligraphybyzana.blogspot.com/.

I was the "guide" for the boat so I got to tell the boatman where to take us, subject to negotiation with all on board, of course :-). First destinations both days were Lima Rock and the elusive whale sharks. To make a long story short, they eluded us all weekend. The baby was spotted off Dibba Rock on Friday, and when I stopped by Scuba Dubai on my way home Saturday, I spoke with someone who had seen one off Martini Rock, south of Khor Fakkan. None sighted off Lima by any of the divers there this weekend.

There were plenty around attracted to the prospect. I had never seen Lima Rock so crowded. On the first day there was a dhow moored off the south side chartered by the Al Ain Dive Club. I knew this because my friend Ali Bushnaq was on board. They put their divers in the water and strew over a dozen snorkelers in the water just as we were going down, and there were other dive boats at the spot as well. It seemed there was little chance of finding big game with so many people around, but we weren't entirely blameless for being there ourselves.

One nice thing was the current was slack. I went in with mask, fins, and snorkel and tested the water before every dive. So we got to pick our spot and meander over the reef at will. We found a couple of large honeycomb morays and I found a small sting ray under a rock, on both our first and second dives that day. But apart from that we didn't see much of great interest. Lots of morays, trigger fish, batfish at the cleaning stations getting their extreme makeovers courtesy of the tiny blue wrasses. Nice diving, cool temperatures, sunny but not too hot out, seas mild apart from a bit of a blow causing whitecaps on our way home the first day, dissipated by day 2.

The French divers, nice guys, had an unusual dive profile with their re-breathers. They started diving at 12:33 and were not due back for two hours, so after our dive, we had lunch on the boat while waiting for them. When they resurfaced, we headed over to Octopus Rock. We had two novice divers on board, Bill who was doing his 5th dive after completing his o/w course with me, and Laura, who had done about 25. So Octopus Rock was a bit of a gamble due to currents there. But I tested the water and found it fairly benign. There was another Nomad boat there and I noticed when their divers went down they were moved downcurrent, so with 4 in the water and Jay discovering a leaky o-ring as he was about to roll backwards, I told him to go in anyway, needed to get down while all were grouped near the rock. It worked well, we descended, Jay's air held out fine, and though we hit hard current each time we rounded the rock spiraling upwards, we had a fairly pleasant and successful dive.

Next day Jay developed ear problems and couldn't go so it was just Greg and Bill and Laura and Zana on our boat. By then we were a compatible dive team. Again Lima Rock was packed with divers from at least half dozen boats, and a bit crowded below, plus the current was back moving in from the east, so I had us dropped at that end of the rock and we swept along the entire south side. Greg had weighting problems and couldn't come down right away. Bill, impeccibly trained, joined him at the surface, so Laura and Zana and I were forced to dive without them (or resurface, and be carried to the middle of the rock). Greg and Bill continued their dive independently and did very well, ending up not far bahind the ladies and I. We didn't see much to blog home about, though Zana found us an electric ray.

The boats on the south side of Lima were picking up their divers and all moving to the north side, so I decided to heck with whale sharks, not likely to see them in the crowd, so with permission from our team I asked the boatman to take us to Ras Morovi. There, Bonita was diving with her group on the north side of the eastmost island, and Al Boom was diving there as well. I was thinking to have our boatman take us into the cove I like but another dive boat snuck in while I was pondering so there were divers there as well. We opted to have lunch and think about it. Meanwhile the divers had moved off. I wasn't familiar with that particular spot but it seemed to be popular with those who should know, my group were game, so we dropped in there.

Nice dive, one of the best of he weekend. We dropped to 25 meters in the sand. Vis there was a clear 20 meters. Again we didn't see much apart from beautiful flow of reef fish moving up and down the wall, but the dive was very pleasant, sweet, as one of the ladies put it afterwards. When we rounded the island (compass showed going north) we entered a murky patch on that side, so just as well we didn't dive the cove. Here we encountered some current so I reversed back to the south and returned us to the clear water on the east wall, and we ended our dive there.

It was a great weekend, compatible people, and nice to be diving with divers Greg, Bill, and Jay, all of whom I'd trained as advance and / or open water divers.

Tubbataha Reef, Palawan, my logged dives #949-962 - March 29-April 1, 2010

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I've wanted to go to Tubbataha Reef for such a long long time. The first time I came near the place I landed in Manila Airport in February 1995 with an 8 year old Dusty in tow, found a yellow pages, called some dive shops from the airport, discovered that no boats were going to Tubbataha that time of year (couldn't just look it up on the Internet back then) so Dusty and I ended up at the Ati Atlan carnival in Kalibo and I went diving in Boracay that trip instead.

Now it looks as though we've got our chance. Puerto Princesa is pleasant, cheap, easy to get around in with tuk tuks buzzing like hornets, the Philippines seems to never change, perennially southeast Asia even when the old classic haunts like Thailand are developing both tourism and infrastructure so the really laid back places are no longer the famous ones. Philippines remains crowded, noisy, teeming with traffic in the cities, but friendly and pleasant.

We're diving with Sakura Charters.  They have pictures of their boat and some of the wildlife visible at Tubbataha here: http://www.sakuracharter.com/?page_id=5. We chose this boat because it had space (a premium on short notice!) and it was sailing at times convenient to our brief holidays.  It happened to charge a lot less than the other boats that conduct liveaboards to Tubbataha reef.  There were compromises in comfort accordingly but for what Bobbi and I like in a dive trip (the DIVING!), we found very compatible people and friendly crew, diving in small groups, able to avoid the crowds on the huge group charters.  We got wet sleeping (trying to ;-) our first night and lost a few dives our first day because the boat was susceptible to adverse sea conditions, and we couldn't stay long at the south atoll for similar reasons, but on one of our dives last day we were cruising along a reef and found ourselves descended upon by dozens of divers from the cruise ships, some carrying big video cameras, and we felt like we were drifting through a star wars set, it was so odd to be surrounded by locusts trailing bubbles, as it were. I really liked the small scale diving we did, the humor and care of the crew, and the companionship with others who had chosen that boat for economic reasons, or whatever.  The divers were all quite experienced, we learned a lot from one another, and the diving was excellent.

(14 logged dives numbers #949-962, 11 for Bobbi, she didn't do the night dives)

 ... starting with my logs from Wed March 31, we started with a cracker of a dive on the southern atoll.  The boat moved in the night so we slept fitfully to dawn, then up for coffee and cereal before getting in the small boats just opposite the lighthouse shoal.  We motored to the NE corner of the atoll to where there was a wreck and entered there, a site called Dinsan Wreck or thereabouts, descended to 30 meters, and came out on a swirl of white tip sharks, huge tuna and some bigger sharks, perhaps bull sharks, and even a large marble ray, icing on the cake. The place had the look and feel of Blue Corner in Palau, teeming with big animals.  We held on to rocks into the current and watched the circus, perhaps two dozen animals in evidence cruising just off the reef.  Then our guide Johan signalled we should move, so we rose to 25 meters and stopped just under a silvery cloud of barracuda.  We watched those and then moved off along the reef.  Chunky white tips cruised by frequently, but not with the same intensity and frequency as at the start of the dive.  At the end we found a turtle, a bonus, but nothing exciting for Bobbi and I (we see them all the time at Dibba Rock ;-).  Still what a dive!

We returned to the boat for breakfast on board. The tuna omelettes were good, and then we chilled out over 3 in 1 coffee for the the 10 o'clock dive.  By now the weather was grey and overcast, the wind had come up, and the waves were choppy.  Florin the novice joined us for the Southwest Wall and had trouble getting down so Bobbi and I and Suzanne and Fumi descended to depth without our guide, who drifted ahead of us in a strong surface current taking good care of Florin until we lost sight of their legs.  So I led the dive, 25 meters, and we saw a couple of sharks including one who had parked his snout in an alcove but left his tail and half his body sticking out, but that was all of note until we found Johan hanging on to Florin in the current waiting for us so he could show us a small bull ray (small, that is, for a bull ray) that he was hovering over, waiting to show us.  We let the current carry us until we got out over coral rubble and there picked up some back wash so we found we had to reverse direction.  Johan surfaced with Florin at that point so I had us fin up current into the lagoon, hard going for a minute or two, but we escaped the current there, and we ended the dive in the shallows. Apart from the sharks, not that interesting a dive (hey, just sharks, are we getting jaded or what?!!), and disorienting at first without a guide.

So we returned to the boat for more good food, chicken in coconut curry this time, tasty, and then the boat moved into the whitecaps for us to dive a site called Black Rock. It took us half an hour to motor over there.  When we got there seas were rough enough for Florin to opt out of the dive, leaving just the four in our team with Johan. We descended close on the heels of the other group and found great vis and surprisingly mild current.  We descended between 20 and 26 meters and finned along a wall with beautiful coral.  Others in the group were ahead of Bobbi and Suzanne and Fumi and I and I thought all nooks and crannies would have been peered into so imagine my pleasant surprise to look behind a rock hiding a ledge and find a 3-4 meter shark lying there.  There was some dispute if it was a nurse shark or a leopard one.  I got a good look at him and thought the latter, though I found on returning to Pto. Princesa that he was indeed a nurse shark, looking exactly like the one in the picture here: http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/fish/nurse-shark/ (long scimitar tail and two dorsal fins close together, a rounded head with catfish like processes either side of his oval mouth, and no spots).  After taking all that in, I got out of the way so others could get in and take pictures and Bobbi and I started moving slowly along the reef.  Just then someone got in too close with a camera and the shark bolted and  passed right beneath Bobbi and I and took the first sand slope up to the top of the reef, a significant animal in comparison with so many much smaller species.  I sped up and watched him head up the sand and turn right at the top of the reef and disappear.


This dive turned out to be almost as good as the first.  Bobbi and I carried on ahead of the others now aiming for a shark leading us along the reef at 20 meters.  We came into an underwater headland and it seemed there was another shark there.  We raised up to 15 meters to follow it up to the top of the reef and passed a sand spot full of garden eels.  There were a lot  of sharks here resting in the flat sandy spaces. We came on a dozen or so, seeing several at a time lift off the sand valleys to join others circling among the hilly terrain.  We found a turtle here, some barracuda, tuna, and treveli, plus the common reef fish.  Superb dive, pleasant, not stressful, sharks everywhere.  We complained to Johan though, no Mantas yet this trip.

This was our 2nd full day diving.  We had left on Sunday, March 28 (I forgot about Webheads that day, but we were on the boat at sea by then).  Our passage to Tubbataha from Pto Princesa was miserable to say the least.  We had high waves oncoming, lots of people got seasick and missed dinner (more shrimps for Bobbi and I, delicious!).  One of the guests fell on a slick ladder, bumped her head in three places, and the pain and blood combined with seasickness made us consider concussion and evacuation, but she soon recovered her balance and opted to carry on.  No one on board felt like drinking anything alcoholic, which would have compounded the vertigo, and the only recourse seemed to be to find a flat space and ride it.  We had been allocated the forward compartment, and the only access to ventilation there was via the hatch that opened at deck level.  Waves washing up on deck made sleeping there untenable, unless we closed ourselves in, which became stifling quickly, and opening the hatch, even a crack, caused water by the bucket to be poured down on us as we tried to sleep.  When our bedding became soaked, we went in search of any kind of space.  One of the guests, Steve, had abandoned his bunk in the dorm to lie out in the open air topside, so Bobbi and I grabbed that one, lying with our heads at either end squeezed into this tiny space.  But amazingly, we both slept like zombies, awakened only by alarms that kept going off to a power supply beneath the ladder leading to the dorm below decks.  Each time that happened, I had to go find a crew member to switch it off, and then I'd fall into exhausted sleep again, and some time later, more alarms. 

We were supposed to arrive at Tubbataha in time for a 6 a.m. dive the first morning, but the rough seas and mishaps caused us to take 22 hours for the journey to the Northern Atoll, not the 12-14 anticipated, so we didn't get to dive Monday March 29 until 4:00.  We dived from our shelter just off the Ranger station. I don't recall that it was a particularly great dive, though I'm sure we saw sharks - we saw them every dive at Tubbataha. 

We night dived afterward, me and Kala.  Bobbi didn't want to go, which was good because the company didn't supply torches.  I was surprised that a liveaboard diving company that provides unlimited diving including night diving (at $1200 per pax) didn't supply torches for 12 divers aboard, but that was the situation (and they mention this on their website, but I hadn't see that, and I had left my torch back home -- would have preferred to rent, assumed full supply of batteries that way) so I had to scrounge light each night,  as did others who wanted to go.  This led to bonding rituals between divers.  Some had spare torches, some had batteries, so first night I got Xenia's spare, and the second night Susanne didn't want to go so she lent me her torch in return for replacing its batteries. The third night Johan the dive guide let me lead the group (he didn't really want to go) so he let me use his torch.

The first night, we found a red crab and a small spotted sting ray but not much else.  The other group we had wandered off from got  themselves surrounded by 4 sharks plus a 5th huge one and were talking about  their dive days later. The second night was much better (for me).  I was buddied with Josh, who'd borrowed a light from Fumi, but it didn't work, so he just tagged along in other's light beams in the full moonlight ;-). We found a couple of octopuses, always entertaining when they get out of their holes, and a black-banded sea snake that led us on a meandering journey through the coral rubble.  The third night I remember finding a number of large crayfish out of their lairs, would have been an easy grab for someone with gloves.

Tuesday March 30 we did 5 dives (Bobbi did 4 but not the night dive).  We started on Amos Rock.  Second dive started on the Malayan Wreck with a  shark on it and a blue spotted ray under some jetsam. The third dive we moved back past the ranger station to a place called Staghorn and worked our way back to where the boat was moored.  I think the 4th we moved out to the corner to the right of the station. We could write about these dives as one.  Lots of grey white-tip reef sharks, a turtle, some barracudas.  Nothing special until we moved to the South Atoll over night and had the best diving of the trip.

Now we've just finished our 4th day of diving having sheltered back at the North Atoll.  We started a way back from the corner to a place called shark airport, a wall with some possibility of cruising mantas, and then the airport where the sharks come in to land and can be seen parked on the runway, so to speak, specifically resting in alcoves and sandy ledges, and in the sandy spaces between the coral outcrops.  We saw a few sharks our first dive but it was the second dive when we went further out the point that we saw the manta.  Mantas are really beautiful animals.  This was a small one, just 3 meters across (and with a crumpled tail, Dino asked later if that was the one we saw),  but he flapped gracefully along the top of the reef, where we watched for almost a minute as he approached, let us swim near and alongside, and then disappeared at the edge of visibility continuing on his merry way.  After that, we saw the usual sharks and several turtles at the end of the dive, shallow, to 26 meters only briefly, mostly at 13-20, and lasting the usual 45 minutes plus safety stop plus sightseeing an extended 3 minutes.

We were the only people on the boat to have seen a manta the whole trip, so having established that they were present, our last dive of the day and of the trip, we hoped to go to a cleaning station and wait.  Chances of sightings were diminished because several other liveaboards were parked there, keeping divers in the water almost constantly, so we had been lucky indeed, having dropped in as most others were having lunch.  For our last dive, Johan took us just a little ways down the wall and we went to token depth, only 20 meters or so, and had a look along the wall, found the usual white tips cruising or sleeping in lairs, and ended up at the cleaning station.  Here we spent half an hour exploring the crannies, finding all kinds of life there. Bobbi uncovered a flounder with eyes both on the flat side of its body and chased it across the seabed to a rock under which was a small blue-spotted ray.  There were several sharks resting here (until we disturbed them).  But one under a ledge was well wedged in and not going anywhere.  Incongruously there was a red moray resting alongside there, head jutting out from the shark's midsection.  Susanne found an octopus but couldn't entice it from its hole.  We were hoping for mantas but didn't see any more of them.  Still the dive was anything but disappointing, and a great way to end the trip.

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This post was cited in Stephanie Mayo's post on "Scuba diving in the Philippines: Top 10 dive sites" for the Mad Monkey Hostels blog on Aug 29, 2016.
https://www.madmonkeyhostels.com/h2o_blog/scuba-diving-philippines-top-10-dive-sites/

Whaleshark off Lima Rock Saturday March 19, and PADI Course at Dibba Rock on the 20th

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March 19, 2010, Lima Rock, Musandam, diving with Discover Nomad, my logged dives #945-946

We opted this weekend to start with Chris's Nomad Divers in Musandam.  All my divers were keen to go there.  Chris had posted on Facebook that the whalesharks were back.  One had been spotted the weekend before.  We could get lucky.

Bobbi and I met Daniel in the parking lot outside All Prints at 6 in the morning.  I had certified Daniel only the month before.  January, another of my students from the Philippines, texted that she and Keith were on their way.  We found Rebecca, a teacher I had certified some years ago, in the ADNOC station in Dibba, and we all met up at the Discover Nomad hostel for equipment rental. We popped from there to the nearby port, where at 11:00 we departed from Oman Dibba harbor on a speedboat Chris had assigned just to us for the trip with Waleed, sea captain, up the coast on a cool sunny day, calm seas, destination Lima Rock.

We arrived in the rock in ideal conditions, stopping right in the spot on the near south side where whale sharks, if they're around, are usually spotted.  Lima can have bad currents and my students were beginning open water so I jumped overboard to find a very slight seaward current.  Scrambling back aboard I had Waleed take me nearer to the west end and tested the water current again there.  Here it was fairly non-existent, a good place to start our dive.

It took a while to get everyone kitted up, though I allowed divers who were kitted and heating up in wetsuits on the boat to buddy check and enter the cool water.  Waleed had a bit of rope aboard and I strung this out as a trailer and made sure my divers in the water either held it or stayed near it.  Daniel was first in the water, followed by January, still in training.  There was no current, the divers enjoyed the view through mask and snorkel, and stayed near the rope.  Daniel noticed a problem with his regulator, air escaping out the high pressure hose, going from 200 bar to 180 in ten minutes, but I always bring a spare so I was able to get his tank back on board and change it over.  Bobbi helped Rebecca in the water, I helped Keith.  Then it was just me to get myself wet, Bobbi teasing from where she was keeping our group together that it was always me keeping everyone waiting ;-)  Finally I entered and as I was about to signal us down I told everyone to keep an eye out for anything large and covered with white spots.  I joked if it had a long tail it would probably be an eagle ray.  I called out the time on descent, 12:33.

All divers descended just fine.  Vis was good, I dropped down to 15 or 16 meters but kept everyone at about that level for all the dive, or shallower.  We meandered between 12 and 17, enjoying the purple soft corals, the clown fish in the anenomes, the numerous trigger fish, and especially the many really big batfish around. We found morays in the crevices, and a big honeycomb wrapped up in himself in an alcove.  I pointed out where one bat fish was getting worked on by a pair of cleaner wrasse.

Eventually, as we worked our way east, we picked up a bit of current.  It was half an hour into the dive and I turned us around and had the group fin into it the direction we had come until we returned with some effort to calm water.  I also had us rise in the water to shallower depth, as some were getting low on air. We were back in the calm water and heading at a low angle along the reef aiming in the direction of the surface when I looked up and saw the unmistakable sillouette of a whale shark about to pass overhead. It was a small one, just 6 or 7 meters, and I beckoned my divers to follow it with me.  I chased after it till it turned and came back towards us, gaping mouth scarfing up plankton.  In moments it was alongside me, so I swam alongside it, its eye on its stalk taking me in. I swam right next to it for a several seconds but then had a look around for other divers. Keith and January had almost surfaced but were coming back down.  Bobbi and Rebecca were near me.  I saw Daniel at the surface but I saw the shadow of a boat near.  I knew him to be too low on air to come back down so I figured he was ok where he was. The rest of us continued our dive near the surface, starting a safety stop 43 minutes into it.  I was buddied with January, my only trainee on this dive, and she and I ascended through a school of batfish.  Meetiing up on the surface, I asked my divers if I had mentioned the whale shark in my briefing.  All were chuffed / stoked after such a great dive.

I had the boatman take us over to Ras Morovi where we entered the cove and had our lunch.  January was keen to do her module 4 and 5 confined water skills so she could make the next dive her third for the course,  Since it was just us on the boat, and the boatman was cooperative, I had him motor to some shallow water where January and I did the no-mask swim, hovered, and ascended on buddy breathing.  We passed our tanks up onto the boat and practiced duck diving.  By now it was just past three and a group of fishermen had arrived and were arguing with the crew of the dive boats there. They wanted to lay nets across the cove.  The dive captains relented and we moved around the headland to inside the channel.  January and I rekitted and did our module 5 skills on a shallow sand ledge there.

Our actual diving here began at around 3:30 down onto a carpet of brown corals in relatively flat terrain going out to sand at 12 meters.  There we found a fish pot and January did her compass heading and return on the reciprocal.  We headed north over the coral and eventually found boulders with lots of fish and sand that ran deeper.  I decided to take us out over the sand and we were soon rewarded with brown rays scurrying to get out of our way.  One came low and inside over the sand just beneath us flying fast to join up with his mates.  This was the memorable part of that dive, down to 18 meters at that point.

I turned us around and headed us back to the rocks and up to where I was running low on air.  Ascent for me was at 59 minutes (56 not counting the last 3 minutes at 5 meters). I had promised January a controlled emergency swimming ascent so we re-descended and I used my reel and SMB sausage to make a line we could ascend on from ten meters. She tried it a couple of times until she got comfortable with the technique. 

The ride back was cool and we arrived at almost dusk. The rest of the evening was good food and grog amongst fine company.  Tanja and Richard and their kids Euan and Hana showed up in time to taste Silviennes' excellent creole shrimps.  Bobbi and I sat up till the last person left the area and we slept well till morning when Bobbi's alarms started going off, so I got up and wrote this.

March 20, 2010, Dibba Rock, diving with Freestyle Divers, my logged dives #947-948

Saturday's dives were planned with Freestyle.  Rebecca had to get back to Abu Dhabi but after breakfast Keith and January and Tanja and Euen (with her husband Richard and their daughter Hana) and with Daniel riding with us, Bobbi and I drove across the border and down the coast to Dibba.  It was a nice day, sunny with relatively cool temperatures, and calm seas, ideal for diving.

Except that the vis on Dibba Rock was not particularly good, very hazy.  Tanja and Euen were diving for the first time.  Euen is ten years old.  He's determined and fearless but has lots of issues with masks and other equipment that doesn't quite fit him, so he sometimes had to surface during the dive.  At the outset it was difficult for me to monitor my three students.  Despite this January did her module 4 mask removal, and hovered as we were about to ascend later.  The mooring had changed and so when we finned off after descent I couldn't find the reef.  There was a stiff current and as divers surfaced it became hard to orient once we re-descended. We were wandering over boulders and coral rubble for some time but the good news was that we were eventually swept onto the reef.  We saw a huge barracuda there but when one student ran low on air I had to bring all three of my students up with me, after only 40 minutes diving and ten or twelve on the reef itself.  Bright notes were that January managed to get certified as a result of it, and Euen and Tanja had a successful first dive in that they settled into the drill and acclimatized to the unusual environment, which would make their next dive much smoother.  But for me it was not my best dive on Dibba Rock.

The next was not much better unfortunately.  Daniel had so enjoyed the sting rays in the sand off Ras Morovi the day before that he was keen to do the back side, so we took him there.  But again the mooring was positioned a bit far from the lip so we had to work ten minutes to get down onto the sand at depth (12 meters).  Here we found some bat fish and schools of snappers but colorless ambience and not much else. Nor was there anything in the sand but, well, sand.  We returned to the wall and my 2 students and I managed to lose Daniel and Bobbi, so we continued around the rock, me keeping an eye on Euen's pressure guage.  He was also cold so when he reached 50 bar I had him and his mom ascend on alternate air source breathing.  We were almost at the aquarium at that point and I intended to take Tanja on with me to see the fish there and then proceed onto the reef for the last ten minutes of our dive.  But as it turned out while waiting for the boat we drifted off the spot and when we finally got Euen safely out of the water and Tanja and I resumed, I was again not able to find the reef from this new and arbitrary location, and that dive turned out to be yet another disappointment for me, and perhaps for Tanja.

But not for Bobbi and Daniel.  When we reunited with them they told of how they had left us on the back side to go see a cuttlefish.  Then they had rounded the rock as we had but they carried on to the acquarium, where vis improved and they saw many fish species.  But instead of cutting over to the reef as I would have done, they were following their own rule: Keep the rock on the left.  This took them into the shallows where I hardly ever go, but here they found even clearer water and 4 sharks all together that were swimming to and fro and playing with them in vis as clear as a swimming pool. Bobbi talked about that at length on the drive home and on into the evening and I'm sure it's on her Facebook somewhere. So SOME people enjoyed the dive (and glad to hear it ;-)