Certified Molly Carter PADI Open Water at Blue Planet Diving, diving Dibba Rock November 14-15

My logged dives #1312-1315

Certified Molly Carter in PADI o/w, also diving with Marian Slangen, working on PADI open water course; Dan Miles, PADI Master Scuba Diver; and dear Bobbi, PADI rescue

On Oct 22 I submitted my passport for visa renewal and have been without it ever since. On Nov 6 I was supposed to take Marian Slangen to Nomad Ocean Adventure but the passport was not returned by the time they needed to apply for a permit for me so I had to cancel but I tried to take her to some place on the East Coast UAE where I wouldn’t need my passport. I called around trying to arrange an alternative and found places at Scuba 2000, but in the short time it took me to get Marian’s confirmation on her willingness to go, Hassan emailed me his apologies, but the places had been already taken.

Bobbi remembered that Dro Madry had been putting photos on FB from around Dibba Rock, and he was using Blue Planet Divers (Freestyle having moved to Um Al Qawain, and Freestyle were involved in beach cleanups that weekend, and they didn’t think the weather was going to be good anyway, and they were right.)  We managed to get places at Blue Planet Diving at Holiday Beach opposite Dibba Rock, but they informed me Friday morning that the UAE Coast Guard was prohibiting small boats from leaving port, so we decided to go for Saturday, but in the end that was cancelled also, same reason, so we didn’t go anywhere that weekend.

We had reservations the following weekend at NOA too, for Molly Carter and others who wished to join us, but come Monday, same problem, still no passport, had to cancel diving for the six who were booked in with me.  I gave my students the option of going ahead with Nomad, postponing with me for a later date when I could get there, or I could try an east coast UAE alternative as I had the weekend before, only now I had the contacts. Molly wrote back that she would prefer I taught her, she didn’t care where, and her Master Scuba Diver friend Dan said he’d follow us as well, so I booked five of us into Blue Planet for Dibba Rock diving, and apologized to NOA, who were understanding about the situation.

Thu night Nov 13, Marian, Bobbi and I ended up taking an apt at the Alia Suites in Dibba for 250 a night, 125 per room with 2-baths, kitchen, and sitting room, and Molly and Dan too, one across the hall. We went shopping at Lulu’s and brought a decent meal home and washed it down with beverages we didn’t have to sneak across the border. Molly took her eLearning quick review and filled out the paperwork,  and we had a pleasant evening together in one of the sitting rooms and retired at a reasonable hour.

Blue Planet came alive at 8 a.m. and we planned to be there then to get our gear ready for the pool at 9:00. Waking up wasn’t a problem because of the pigeons and doves outside our window cooing gently at 6:30 sharp. We had coffee from a press brought from home and breakfasted on items from Lulu’s and were in the pool at 9 for Molly’s module 1 and repeat practice for Marian.

The plan was to get Molly through pool module 3 that morning, which Marian had completed in Al Ain, so that both could do two dives with BPD that day. We had some equipment issues and the usual unexpected occurrences that compounded into delay, one of them being that the pool was icy cold. We endured it for module 1 but were under-dressed in lycra, and were happy to get out of the pool and back to the sunshine at the dive center.  I tested the water off the beach and found it to be clear, calm, and warmer, so we decided to do a shore dive there, but Marian had not been totally comfortable in the pool, so I thought we should work on mask clears for Module 2 as our next move, and as time was getting on, I changed the plan to do a shore dive at our convenience that morning rather than try and make a 1:30 dive boat, and dive the 3:30 at Dibba Rock as our second dive of the day.  When things went longer than expected still, I decided to get Molly through module 3 as quickly as possible leaving just barely time to do a shore dive along the breakwater extending past our confined water area.  There wasn’t much there, just a few fish, but I managed to get a minimal dive in with the two students going out and back along the jetty, focusing on buoyancy and acclimatization in the water and on gradually increasing the depth.

We were back on shore in time for the scheduled 3:30 dive in which Bobbi and I took Molly on a PADI OWSI dive #2 for the course. She had had ear problems in the past but worked her way down the mooring line ok. It was an entertaining slow descent with schools of fusiliers near the surface and huge jacks milling about near the bottom, and as I waited for Molly on the line, a pair of large barracuda passed near the rope. At the bottom we were in the aquarium with its schools of snappers and parrot fish and sergeant majors. In the sand there I got her through the skills ok while Dan and Bobbi wandered off on their own. We caught up with them soon enough and found a puffer with one eye, and Bobbi and Dan found pipefish, morays, and a flounder in the sand. But Dan went up early, cold he said, so Bobbi and Molly and I drifted with a steady current over the shallow rocks looking for big stuff, finding plenty of small, and generally enjoying the dive. We got barely lower than 5 meters, and at the end of the safety stop, Molly and I ascended on alternate air source, as required in that module.

Overnight, and after another communal meal and civilized sipping, Marian reflected on what she would need to do to improve and emerged next morning a stronger diver than the day before. She is analytical and matter of fact, and if she surfaces prematurely, sometimes it’s to ask a question that will help her to better understand what she should be doing to correct a problem. I try to keep students underwater to the extent possible, but it’s Marian’s learning style to do it her way, and with patience, it seems to be gradually working.

So Saturday we arrived at the dive center a little after eight and when the boat left for Inchcape for the first dive of the day (to 30 meters, not for us) my group were in shallow confined water by the breakwater for Molly’s module 4. Marian decided to observe and practice the basic skills, which was the best way for her, but after helping Molly through her hover, we took the tanks back to shore and Marian succeeded in duck diving with air control through snorkel breathing at the surface. So she accomplished a good start on Module 4 training, and Molly completed hers.

Molly disassembled and reassembled her equipment and we returned to the pleasant water off the beach for her final module where she removed and replaced weights and scuba unit at the surface and again at the bottom, to complete her pool training. Marian came along for the experience and managed a mask clear competently. We exited the water in time for the scheduled noon dive at Dibba Rock.

We had to wait a while till the boat returned from Inchcape, and during this time we ate and I explained the compass to the two ladies, and they did their 200 meter swim tests out to the end of the breakwater and back. We were thinking to enter the water to do some flexible skills when the boat arrived, so we boarded instead, and went to the east of Dibba Rock where the mooring is a bit deep for concerned beginners, 8 meters, but at least there was a mooring line to descend on, and no current. Vis appeared good from the surface but at depth it was cloudy. Marian was uncomfortable with these conditions but descended part of the way with us, and when she decided to return to the surface it was in a safe and controlled manner.  Molly was working on her ears to 8 meters and on arrival at depth orally inflated her bcd. We were about to do a mask clear when Bobbi started banging her tank, shark! I instinctively focused on the shark for the seconds it took to pass us, Molly saw it and got excited (she said later, with pleasure I hope), but the change in breathing took her to the surface in no time, and we had to work through the ears again to return to the same depth. Again we managed it, and as we resumed our dive, again we saw a black tip, and again another. I got a good shot of one of the sharks and panned to Molly and Bobbi in the same segment. In all we saw 4 sharks, a real treat to see them back at Dibba Rock. And to top it off, as we passed along the reef to approach the aquarium, finding pipefish and lion fish along the way, Bobbi found a huge barracuda at just 3 meters and was trying to get our attention when a turtle came meandering toward her, again on video. Great dive

It was almost 2 p.m. when we regained shore and went back to switch our tanks to the ones we’d been using earlier with still 150 bar remaining. Acting on Alla’s suggestion that we try the jetty at the far end of the beach which had a reef extending from it to the north, we plotted our last dive there, with intent to get all our flexible skills and surface work done in the water as we snorkeled out. So the four of us, Bobbi, Molly, Marian, and I kitted up, buddy-checked, and walked down to the far end of the beach where we entered the water over the rocks. I  remember the time, because it was just an hour before high tide at 4 p.m. We did the surface exercises en route and dropped in at around 3:30 to just 3 meters of water near the point, so I led us to the north, looking for suitable depth and a place where we could set up a controlled emergency swimming ascent. On the way I found impressions in the sand of an odd-looking ray so I wasn't surprised when a cloud of sand kicked up and I saw a guitar shark shoot into the haze to scoot out of our way and vision.  We carried on and soon came on the same shark (presumably) lying in the sand – must have been the same as he hadn't had time to bury himself. I was pointing it out to the others and fumbling for my camera when he performed his quick escape trick, leaving us in a puff of silt. But now my camera was ready so when he re-appeared skimming the top of the reef to our right I got him on flash memory, I think.

The guitar shark made this dive a memorable one, and a great end to the weekend. Afterwards I had the ladies do an underwater compass heading round trip, which they did just fine, and Molly removed her mask and replaced it and hovered on the reef. Marian did great and stayed down at over 5 meters for almost 40 minutes. At that time I rigged my reel with a marker buoy to the surface and we all surfaced together, Molly in CESA mode. We came up in balmy conditions with a long swim back to the beach but everyone happy and coping well with the exertion.

Molly thanked me for pushing her and called me a legend. Marian was happy with the weekend and appears to have surmounted the hurdles that were preventing her from truly enjoying herself. Molly got certified and Marian will be back to finish the job. Thanks to Alla and Slava, personable owners of Blue Planet Diving, Dibba, Fujairah, for facilitating things with their flexible and professional services, and looking forward to diving with them again soon.

Finished PADI Advanced o/w course with Luke Ingles in Musandam with Nomad, Jan 27, 2012 - and Dibba Rock from Freestyle Jan 28

My logged dives #1107-1109

After our diving was aborted by bad weather (or expectation of bad weather) the previous week, Luke and I returned to Nomad with Nicki in tow, Bobbi stayed sick in bed. We did a multilevel dive our first dive.  We planned a 30 meter dive for 15 min, to come up to 20 meters for 10, and then finish out the dive above 16, but in actual fact we did this on our first dive at Ras Morovi:

We entered the water at 12:33

• We dove only to 75 ft (22 m) for 30  minutes to accumulate nitrogen up to PG Q
• We then came up to 50 ft (16m) for 15  minutes to  accumulate nitrogen up to PG V
• And we finished above 40 ft 12 meters for 11 minutes to emerge (after a safety stop at 5 m) in PG X

The dive wasn't phenomenal.  We were last in the water, Ivor shepherding some open water students and photographers so we had no one to guide us to the deep spot at 30 meters where the barracuda hang out.  Luke, Nicki and I plunged as far as we could but reached only 22 meters where I didn't see the tell-tale sea grasses I was supposed to be watching for. So we worked our way back up the channel where Nicki started finding stuff. First she found some neat miniature crabs in some anemonae.  Then she discovered a flounder (sole) in the sand and not long after that a scorpion fish.  We both saw the turtle at the same time.  It was Luke's first time to see a turtle, though I've seen that particular one before, a small one with barnacles on its back.  He's young and likes to move fast in the water.

The second dive was across the bay at Lulu Island. This was one where we start inside Lulu Island and round the point and then head east.  It's a cool navigation exercise since after 10 min we arrive at these looming submerged rocks, swirling with trevali and other interesting fish. We didn't see much on this one, a moray on the way over, another scorpion fish.  We came up the back side and crossing the saddle to the inside of the crescent which these islands form we hit stiff current, very stiff.  I was already coughing since it's winter here, the water is 23 degrees (5 mm wetsuit helps :-) and I'm getting over a cold.  But with the current, exertion, coughing, I was low on air at 40 min.  Luke too, the two of us came up together, though I popped back down to see what Nicki was up to at 5 m, not much from what I could see.

For the record, on this dive

• we descended at 14:45 after 1 hour 12 min surface interval as G divers
• Dived at 16 meters for 42 minutes (47 min NDL)

We were  very glad we didn't dip below 16 meters at any point during the dive because then we would have had only 34 min NDL and such a dive might have posed serious health risks.

It was a cold boat ride back to Nomad but Luke and I were prepared for it with lots of layers of wrap.  It was relaxing.  Back at Nomad's homey hostel, Luke and I went for a run up the road to the Golden Tulip and then returned on the beach, a lovely sunset run dodging waves lapping.  On arrival back at the hostel, someone handed me a welcome beverage and I never showered from the run, just sat until dinner time enjoying the company, enjoying the company after dinner, doing a round on guitar, nodding off at the table, finally going to bed just after midnight, and sleeping till 8:40 a.m.

We had booked in at Freestyle for a boat ride out to Dibba Rock at 9:00 but at our breakfast table at Nomad I checked an email from them that said they were doing an expedition south in their only boat, but we were welcome to come and shore dive, so that's what Luke and I did.  We got there at around 10:30 after espresso and croissants at Nomad, found a gorgeous day with calm clear seas, walked Luke through his last remaining advanced navigation dive on dry land, kitted up and hit the water for the long swim out on a 30 degree heading.  We were doing fine until we neared the island and picked up a noticeable current that started sweeping us west.  I told Luke we should descend and continue underwater, our only hope of not being swept off the site entirely.

We descended and found ourselves trying to tack north by facing east and keeping ourselves crabbing toward the reef to the north. It was hard work trying to insinuate ourselves onto the reef that way and not get hammered off it, as the current was trying to do.  However as I worked my way onto the reef I was rewarded by the sight of half a dozen devil rays swooping overhead.  I looked back toward Luke but there were only bubbles.  Up ahead a turtle veered off the reef, again Luke a bit too far behind.  I clawed my way onto the reef hand over hand grabbing whatever boulders I could find.  Another turtle darted overhead.  I found a sandy patch and waited for Luke. When he arrived I pulled out a slate and wrote on it, "6 devil rays, 2 turtles."

But this was not easy diving, and how were we going to do any navigation work in this current?  I thought the only way was to get into the lee of the island.  That would be to the north. I wrote on the slate and handed it to Luke "must go north."

I moved in that direction heading my body almost east, tracking to the north, just kicking myself into the current and letting the current move me north.  A shark came into view.  I turned to look for Luke, again trailing behind.  I stopped and added to the slate, "1 shark".  When Luke caught up I showed it to him.

Amazingly the shark came back.  I saw it at the edge of vision where the shark moved, difficult to see if you weren't accustomed to their movements.  Luke peered that way.  The shark kept in view, circling us.  Eventually he turned our way and I went his.  He was in plain view now, Luke saw it, his first ever in the wild.

When the shark passed we continued north and soon arrived at the Aquarium in the lee of the current, and here we were able to conduct our navigation exercises.  Luke did fine, but all the exertion had taken us below 100 bar. We still had to get back to shore, many hundred meters the way we had come.  I wrote on the slate "home = 210 degrees".

We headed back that way but I deviated to follow the reef. The entire dive we were shallower than 10 meters. Overhead a devil ray passed and Luke saw that one.  There were lots of other fish, like giant puffers, but no more really salient creatures.  We reached the end of the reef and headed out over the sand.  When Luke ran low on air we surfaced.  Up top we were caught in the sideways current and had to fin at an angle toward our destination, partly against the current.  But the closer we got to shore the more the current relented.  Our only problem here was the bloom of jelly fish, small ones, most of whom were benign.  Occasionally one would get caught in a mask strap or get trapped in our lips or neck and caused minor annoyance.  But we made it back ok, interesting diving, truly advanced.

Certified Jay Fortin as PADI Rescue Diver August 25-27, 2011 in Dibba Rock and Musandam

My logged dives #1068-1072


I know that Kathleen is seeing whale sharks and manta rays in the Maldives during these Eid holidays, before breakfast even, but meanwhile back in the UAE, someone's gotta churn out those certified divers :-)  This week it was the turn of Jay Fortin, who flew over from Doha to engage me for a one-on-one rescue course.  Bobbi had to work on Saturday to prepare her classroom for the coming school year, so I was missing her company this weekend.

I picked Jay up from Abu Dhabi airport on Thursday and we drove over to Dibba, reaching Freestyle Divers in plenty of time to kit up and enter the water for some self-rescue practice, and dealing with disoriented and distressed divers underwater and at the surface.  At one point a turtle passed by, in the shallow water just off the beach. We ended up with handling the unresponsive diver at the surface, ventilation and equipment removal, and finally experimented with effective carries to exit a victim from ocean to shore.

We then shopped for dinner at Lulu's, their Indian chat concoctions are to die for, and ate our purchases accompanied by duty free beverages at Seaside apartments, occupying just two of the three beds for only 250 dirhams in Ramadhan, very cheap.  Next morning we drove 15 minutes up the road to Freestyle Divers to knock out the rest of the rescue diver exercises in three dives there, planning the scenarios for the following day with Nomad Ocean Adventures.

Dibba Rock was a lovely dive at 9 a.m.  Jay and I started off with two exercises: simulated underwater recovery and surfacing the non-responsive diver.  I entered the water with a yellow shopping back I carry as a simulated victim and I left Jay at a place I could find again near the aquarium where we often start our Dibba Rock dives.  I then conducted a square pattern, just me, on which I concealed the 'missing victim.'  It was Jay's job then to find it.  He did this in a U pattern and speedily accomplished the goal, but focused on the task he missed spotting the large cow tail ray that was wondering what these silly divers were doing finning up and down like madmen.

Once Jay had found the victim, we conducted the exercise where we surfaced it, me in this case.  I survived so Jay passed that one, and then we descended for a fun dive.  We passed back by the aquarium and then headed over the reef where I almost immediately saw a shark cross our bow.  The schools of barracuda haven't been seen here in some time but there was one big one hanging out in that area.  Some German snorkelers on our boat asked me later what the big long fish was.  When we reached the western end of the reef and turned south on the L we found 7 or 8 turtles all together there.

We did two more dives on the reef, completing response from the boat to swimmers and unresponsive diver on one of them (saw a shark swim by a turtle right at the end of that dive!) and conducting the last one where I went down with the missing diver bag, hid it, surfaced, and called Jay to come find it using a square pattern, and then surface me to complete the scenario.  On all the dives we saw turtles and sharks.  On the last dive we hung out where the raspberry coral is coming back at the south end of the L and I saw three meaty blacktip sharks buzz by while hovering there (different ones, different sizes).  Nice diving on Dibba Rock that day, and highly productive from a Rescue Diver course perspective.

We checked out of the Seaside and took ourselves across the border into Oman where we turned up at Nomad Ocean Adventures in time to relax over cool drinks and then enjoy a beef stew buffet.  Next day we dove Lima Rock and Octopus Rock.

The dives were good ones.  We didn't see much on the sheltered north side of Lima Rock (I do recall a batfish, hovering mouth up, enjoying the administrations of a blue cleaner wrasse) but most of the divers in the group felt confident to push the currents at the east end of the island.  Jay and I went to the end and found a saddle where we hung out in the surge hoping for some devil rays or big barracuda.  There were jacks or trevally, or some kind of carangidae out there http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carangidae and lots of blue trigger fish, but nothing amazing, so I led us over the saddle to the south side of the island.  Apart from a huge honeycomb moray hiding in the saddle, again nothing amazing here, so I took us back hard against the current this time and led around the rock where I knew the current would spit us into the ocean.  Again I was hoping for schools of barracuda here but they were not there that day.  However the boat was waiting at the surface collecting all the divers who had opted for the freight train exit.

We did our remaining scenario during the surface interval, recovery of diver at the surface, getting the diver to and onto the boat, and then reviving the diver on board, during the surface interval.  Jay did well but the boat was crowded with 15 divers and most of those aboard treated the procedure as lunchtime entertainment, not doing much to help or clear space to receive the victim, so the scenario broke down at the point where in a real situation we would have thrown the bcd's overboard to make space to treat the victim (they'd have floated on the surface, but understandably no one did that, and had we pushed it we could have become a different kind of victim :-)

Rescue course out of the way, Richard requested Octopus Rock for the second dive, and since the currents were relatively benign, the request was granted.  Relatively benign but not absent, Jay had trouble following me down our first attempt at descent there and we had to meet up at the surface, then regain position for descent, which worked well the second time.  The trick was to descend into the current to where I correctly discerned that the current would be relieved near the bottom, which it was, leaving us free to wander into the valleys to the east of the rock.  We swam amid a school of big barracuda there and found clear vis, but no rays where they ought to have been in the sand at 25-30 meters. Also my compass was not rotating properly so I couldn't properly orient.  We circled one submerged rock which I realized only after coming a second time on an encrusted anchor whose boat had long departed.  I changed direction and tried to find our way on estimated compass direction but this led into the blue, so in the end I used the upwardly sloping bottom to get us back to the rock, which was swarming with fish, really beautiful, again nothing amazing for us, though others on our boat came across rays and for one lucky group, even a guitar shark.

For the record our dives on Dibba Rock lasted around an hour each and were conducted to 8 meters or so.  In Musandam we dived to about 25 meters each dive, and each lasted 50 minutes.  Water temperatures were warmer than the week before, maybe 26 degrees in Musandam, warmer at Dibba Rock.  Visibility was decent.  And Jay got certified, congratulations! my student in open water, advanced, and now rescue, well done!

Diving with Freestyle Divers July 9, 2011 - Family outing on Dibba Rock

My logged dives #1057-1058

On July 9, 2011 Bobbi and I and my two boys Glenn and Dusty awoke at a reasonable hour in the morning and by 8 a.m. we were on the road for Dibba where we turned up well before noon in time for a dive on Dibba Rock which eventually got under way at 1:00.  We did two dives there, both from the mooring on the northwest corner of the island.  They both went about the same way.  The mooring is right off the aquarium so on both dives we started there.  On the first we were in the lee of a strong westerly current which we only discovered as we were fairly carried to the reef to the west and then had to struggle to stay on it as we continued along it south.  By the time we had come to the end of the L and were turning to the east, we found we simply could not, the current was too strong against us.  So we went back to north and then back east, in the shadow of the island, to the aquarium, and then penetrated a little to the back side until we hit the thermocline there. By then we had consumed an hour and varying amounts of air, so we surfaced.

We didn't see much on that dive, and the thermocline had been uncomfortable because we were not wearing wetsuits, so I put on my 3 mm for the second dive.  This got delayed a bit due to a fuel shortage on one of the boats that had gone away for a looooong day trip.  But we didn't mind kicking back on the restful lanai at Freestyle, turtles broaching the shorebreak just off the sands of Royal Beach Hotel, and eventually we were back in the water for our second dive. This followed the same route as the first one, except we were by now at high tide, with some relief from the current, and we saw more animals.  We were just leaving the aquarium for the reef when the schooling fish overhead did an abrupt about face.  I looked around for the cause, though only Bobbi saw it and signaled shark with her hand at her forehead.  We continued on the reef to the south without seeing much, but this time we were able to turn to the east and make it as far as where the coral is coming back.  By then we were at half a tank to 150 bar so we turned and drifted back along the coral, where we saw the cuttlefish and eels that Glenn videoed.

Meanwhile I was leading back to the north and it was my good fortune to come right on top of a beefy blacktip reef shark.  He scampered alongside and ahead of me, Bobbi was a little behind and the boys behind her, so I was the only one to see it.  We continued north on the reef and then east back to the aquarium, and then went on into the sand at the back of the island without seeing anything much of note apart from big eyed puffer fish and lion fish, and the usual schooling tropicals.

Back on shore we had an off license beverage with Andy and reminisced about old times, very relaxing as the sun went down over the misty mountains and turned the sky over the blue-green sea from balmy blue to shades of orange and grey.

May 27-29, 2011 UAE East Coast - Dibba and Khor Fakkan

My logged dives #1045-1048

Godelieve and Rossane wanted to dive with Bobbi and I this weekend. Chris had booked his Nomad hostel out completely to a large French group and there was no room at the inn for us this weekend, nor space on his dive boats going to Musandam, and Godelieve had never been to Khor Fakkan, so Bobbi and I decided to revisit our favorite dive sites there and see how the fishes had survived the triple whammies of Cyclone Gonu, the months-long red tide epidemics, and more recently the spate of hotel and harbor constructions taking place all along the east coast of the UAE.

It's still a beautiful area, relaxing, moves to a rhythm all its own, and all your own if you make it so. Our rhythm is to sleep to a normal hour on Friday, our first weekend day off, which for us means waking up when the sun rises and lying around till the early sunlight tells us it's 5:30 or 6:00, then getting up and checking email, watching the news on TV while packing our dive gear and clothes for the weekend, fetching the car from overnight parking across the road, loading it up and being away by 8:30 for an 11:30 arrival in Dibba. Lulu is our first stop there, the new hypermarket that has become the focal point of Dibba cuisine. There we could get tasty tiny round pizzas for a dollar apiece, spicy chicken and prawn, watermellon and grapes for a pittance, cold fresh juices, and still arrive at the dive center at noon for their 12:30 dive.

Which turned out in typical Freestyle rhythm to be an after 1 pm dive, but ma'alesh, we had little else to do that day than kit up and wait and get on the boats, and then into the water for an hour's cool relaxation, then back on shore, repeat, add water, relax.

We were told we should have been there last weekend. Everyone was telling us vis had been 20 meters, plenty of animals around, ideal conditions. For our first dive we put in on the right side mooring south east of the island and set our course west in slack current to meander among the coral bommies in shallow water near the island. Surge was a problem and vis was disappointing, but we still enjoyed schools of fish, a lone batfish under a rock, shoals of snappers and jacks criss crossing one another as we dropped into the aquarium, big lumbering porcupine fish moving in close out of curiosity, parrotfish, fusiliers, etc.

From the aquarium I headed back west toward the loud clacking which intensified as we moved in over the coral rubble where the beautiful reef used to be with its sharks and devil rays, undoubtedly the best diving I ever did in the UAE, and certainly the most consistently best including there and Musandam. But that was back when Terry was alive. Now it's sad that Terry and the reef as it was are both gone.

But the reef is bouncing back in one place, if you follow it south from near the aquarium and if you can find where it turns east (hard to do in bad vis, just possible on our noon dive today) you come upon a patch of purple raspberry coral that's pretty like it used to be. But at noon today there were no sharks or turtles on it. When I found it I circled it looking for critters, but apart from healthy reef fish, nothing caught our attention. Eventually we reversed and retraced over the barren parts, and then our time was up and we surfaced.

The 3 pm dive, which got going at around 4 (good to see that some traditions are honored ;-), was not as easy as the first. We had planned to go around to the back side of the island on this dive but when we arrived at the south east corner mooring, conditions had changed and there was a stiff current that would prevent us getting to the back side that way. The current was so bad that when Godelieve and Rossane entered the water they got carried astern and would not have been able to reach us at the bow line except that I yelled for a line to be thrown to them, and to his credit Terry's son Andy had one tied to a buoy and tossed it astern and recovered our divers. Bobbi meantime had descended to await us out of the surface current, and shortly we joined her by pulling ourselves down the rope against the current.

We retraced our steps from morning but this time had to fin toward our right in order to avoid being swept off course. We passed the same coral, with some effort to keep our path through it (the batfish was still there :-). Vis had got worse so at the aquarium it wasn't as attractive as earlier but here at least we were in the lee of the island and had some relief from the current, so were were able to find our way to the back side that way. We entered though thermoclines of bracingly cold water. I was wearing just lycra and a rash vest, Bobbi had on her shorty, and we were cold. At depth, just 12-13 meters, we went out a little into the sand but not so far where there would be rays because the current went against us when we left the shelter of the wall of boulders. We found morays in the wall but turned back when the current started to push us back even there.

We were picking our way back over these boulders when I saw a flash of grey and black streak and realized a black tip reef shark was passing. I wheeled after it, and Rossana just 12 years old, was right at my shoulder trying to keep up with it. Recharged now, we resumed our heading back to the aquarium, but Godelieve had put weight in her pocket and it had slipped out. I saw her and Rossana suface, nothing we could do, so Bobbi and I carried on and saw a second shark as we were coming back on the aquarium. Pushing up against our allotted hour we passed over the clacking reef rubble and I saw a third shark right about where it should be. Bobbi missed that one, and our time was now up, but we surfaced thinking that a mundane and almost unpleasant dive had been rendered almost exciting simply with the appearance of our favorite inhabitants of our once favorite reef.

Back on shore Andy and his staff were offering beer and making the motions of preparing barbeque, but the Royal Beach Hotel where the shop is prefers to keep prices high (800 for a single bedroom) and endure less than full occupancy rather than offer dive packages that would allow divers to stay on the premises, so it's hard to accept hospitality from the dive shop when we have to not only drive into Dibba, but check into our accommodation there as well. Two bedrooms at Seaside Apts where we stay (not by the sea, they always remind us, when we call there), with kitchen with microwave for heating up the interesting Indian dishes we can buy at Lulu's, is only 330 in May, or 82.50 each for four people. I hope Andy can restore the social scene at Freestyle though. We would like to have stayed with them, but logistically it was too difficult, with Godelieve having to cook special pasta to feed Rosanna, and everyone being tired and not wishing to drive on UAE roads under the influence.

Before we departed we learned that their Musandam trip that day had encountered 2 whalesharks (they're back!) but we had arranged to dive Inchcape 2 and Martini Rock next day with Divers Down. We had selected that over a trip with Brian and Tatsiana at Neptune Divers, who were going to Musandam on Saturday, but we were going to Khor Fakkan.

So no more about that (but checking old dive logs, lots of whaleshark sightings in May and June, this one in 2003: http://prosites-vstevens.homestead.com/files/divelogs/dives2003/486-487.htm; and these just last year for example:

• http://vancesdiveblogs.blogspot.com/2010/05/ho-hum-another-whale-shark-dibba.html)
• http://vancesdiveblogs.blogspot.com/2010/06/6-whale-sharks-on-al-marsa-liveaboard.html

Anyway, we turned up at Divers Down well before we needed to be there. They were just setting up shop at the Miramar, on the same beach as the Meridien Al Aqah, from where Al Boom sends boats daily to the sites were were planning to dive. Must say Divers Down agreed to my exact requests for dive sites, which was why we chose them, and the boat was ours apart from an open water course being run from it, whose divers were not diving the same dives we were. But we still had to share those sites with the hoards from Al Boom's boats.

The dives were nice, though we were going through motions of previous dives Bobbi and I had done dozens of times before, but like everything else in the UAE, the dives were not like before. The Inchape 2 is the wreck in 22 meters near Martini Rock. It's got a lot of animals on it, writhing with morays, and surely much else, though most of the life on it today was human. We had planned a dive as in the old days. Descend on the wreck and for Rosanna who had no computer, understand from the wheel that she could spend 30 min max at 22 meters, then ten minutes at 16, and then exhaust the tank for as long as it takes at 12 (the dive would be 37 minutes NDL at 22 meters if diving on tables). In the event we had circumnavigated the wreck in the sand, done a tour of the decks, and even investigated the holds with overhead escape access, acquainting ourselves with most of the morays in the process, in the first 20 min of the dive, at which point we headed off on phase 2, a 240 degree compass course in the sand about 5 min to the wall of boulders. The plan here was to find jawfish in the sand just short of those boulders. There were none that we could find. There were more morays in the rocks, but when we turned the corner into the bay to the north of the wall, the rust and blue corals were there, but nothing much to write home about. Nice dive, but not like in the past.

We motored over to Martini where bananas, watermellon, and oranges were laid out for us and we enjoyed a surface interval in warm but overcast May conditions. Our dive on Martini rock was again cold though. Too cold. The purple and white soft corals were there, and very beautiful. Morays were plentiful. But not much else. I scoured the rocks for scorpion fish. They used to be everywhere on this dive. We used to see turtles and honeycomb morays. On this dive today, we encountered mostly Al Boom divers and reef fish. It was pretty but pretty cold too. We're waiting now on the reports from Musandam of whale shark sightings :-(

Bobbi and I just fun diving at Dibba Rock, April 16, 2011

My logged dive #1037

I had a presentation in Ras Al Khaimah on Saturday morning.  The weather had been kind of windy and unsettled lately, and the car had been covered with dusty rain splatters the past several days despite my having it washed each day. We were thinking to go diving on Friday and then overnight in RAK for the conference, but thinking the weather might improve if we delayed, Bobbi and I ended getting up at 5 a.m. Saturday and driving up to RAK that morning to do the presentation, and dropping down to Dibba when the conference ended at noon to make the 3 pm dive with Freestyle on Dibba Rock.

It was just Bobbi and I on the dive, literally.  We had stopped by Lulu hypermarket to pick up a couple of their tasty mini-pizzas (less than $1 each piled generously with cheese and tandoori chicken chunks) and fresh fruit juice, and we were consuming those on the lanai at Freestyle and watching two crowded dive boats motor across the water full of divers just completed their noon dive, but some were in training, so when 3 pm came and they still weren’t ready for their second dive, Colin put Bobbi and I on a dive boat all by ourselves for the short excursion out to DIbba Rock.  So for most of our dive, we had the site pretty much to ourselves.

The most interesting thing about this dive is usually sharks crossing right across your bow as low down on the reef as you are.  We didn’t see any of those on this dive, but we came on several turtles, and at the southern tip of the V shaped reef, we encountered schools of devil rays, 4, 5, and 10 at a time, cruising just ahead of us in the water.  There were barracuda there as well, and large jacks, and we even found a couple of moray eels, which we rarely see in the coral on the shallow south or ‘near’ side of the island.  Also the purple raspberry coral that used to be there in abundance is coming back toward the east end of the L.  I think it makes more sense to call it an L shaped reef to show the compass headings.  When you look at it from shore, north is a little to the left, so from there it appears as a V.

Anyway it was a really nice dive.  We surfaced after 55 minutes (we were asked to keep it to 50) with 100 bar in our tanks.  I was tempted to ask if we could just go back to shore on a south heading on the bottom, we had the air for it, but I figured the boatman would, or should, not agree to that, so I didn’t suggest it.