Saturday, March 20, 2010
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 ;-)
Sunday, February 28, 2010
FAQ: What should I write in my logbook?
My students often ask this question, so I thought I'd blog my answer, so I can refer to this later. Also, maybe if you have any ideas about what ELSE you should put in your logbook you can leave a comment here and my students will see it.
Your logs are for you, so what you put in them is up to you. I would record
Your logs are for you, so what you put in them is up to you. I would record
- basic tables information (depth and time),
- weights and with what kind of wetsuit for future reference,
- when and where and with whom (dive providers almost always have stamps they can stamp in your logbook)
- and a description of the dive (your impressions)
- you should also have an instructor or buddy signature
Saturday, February 20, 2010
February 19-20 2010 - Diving Dibba Rock and Musandam with Freestyle and Discover Nomad
We started our weekend of diving at Dibba Rock, with Freestyle Divers, Friday February 19, 2010. Our Divers were Bobbi and I, Oliver and Susi (getting certified that weekend), Keith and January (just starting her o/w dive course), and Daniel Sobrado, whom I had certified last trip to Dibba, on January 23 (http://vancesdiveblogs.blogspot.com/2010/01/january-22-23-2010-diving-dibba-rock-my.html)
Bobbi and I participated in the Terry Fox run in Abu Dhabi on Friday morning while January and Keith were running the half marathon in RAK, so we met in Dibba for just one dive at 3:00 p.m.
January's first o/w dive and Susi's second, and my logged dive number 942
This turned out to be a nice dive, but it began oddly with our wearing 5 mm wetsuits against the cold, most for the first time, so buoyancy became an issue on the dive. Everyone checked their weight first and ascertained they could descend, but in reality, when we began our dive, people were bobbing back to the surface. I had a mix of people, including January on her first dive and Susi on her second for the course, though she had dived with me several times by then, all but one, fun dives. Bobbi was trying out her new 5 mm wetsuit for the first time so even she was slightly underweighted. And me too, I was using for the first time a 3 mm overall / longsleeve jacket combination to give me 6 mm on my body core, so though I carried 3 kilos extra for students, by the time I'd given two away I was blowing hard to stay down. Oliver and Daniel were thankfully overweighted, so we all managed to do the dive, barely.
Vis was not great, there was a bit of brown algae around. There was a slight current moving us east over the reef so I had to keep calling January back where Susi was gamely doing her o/w #2 skill set, tossing regs away, partially flooding her mask, simulating alternate air source breathing. Eventually we were ready to move out and I let us drift over the reef, hoping the certified divers among us would keep to some kind of formation. Some dvers were high in the water, some were moving ahead of me, so when the reef ran out they didn't realize it and so some were out of sight as they drifted too far into the haze overhead, and I could just see their bubbles. All became gradually aware that they needed to turn and fin into the current. January stayed right at my shoulder and we came on a turtle which everyone eventually passed over. By now people were settling better into the dive and keeping their buoyancy closer down on the reef and it got interesting as now the current was nudging us north and we could just hold position and depth and let ourselves be moved along the reef, teeming with fish.
There was nothing to see out of the ordinary until I noticed a flash of grey, a bulky blacktip shark moving at the edge of our peripheral vision. I turned and swam toward it and caught up with it just as it veered toward me. It came in close, presenting a clear view of its snout, until it realized that I was in its path, and then it turned away and headed off over the reef. Most divers in our group saw it and exclaimed as we boarded the boat how close it was, "It went right under Daniel," and yada yada. We ended our dive at about 50 minutes, me holding a rock between my knees to stay down, some divers bobbing to the surface, all lighter with loss of air, needing more weight to compensate for the extra padding against the cold.
We enjoyed the sundown on the Freestyle veranda until our gear was dry enough to pack away, Then we drove across the border and arrived at Discover Nomad where Chris had rooms for all of us, and his new manager Bonnie was fixing dinner. Chris's mom and dad were away so it wasn't the exquisite Mauritian cuisine we had come to expect, but Bonnie did a fine job of feeding the dozen or so divers settling in at the Nomad hostel for the night.
February 20, 2010 - Susi's 3rd and 4th O/W dives for CERTIFICATION and January's second (plus a fun dive)My logged dives numbers 943-944
Next morning we were up and away in one of Chris's speedboats, putting out to sea at 10 a.m. An hour after that we had arrived at Ras Morovi where I got Waleed, the boat captain, to drop anchor after some minor mis-communicaton in Arabic. With the anchor line in place Susi and I slipped into the water and she did her controlled emergency swimming ascent while Bobbi helped January and Keith kit up, buddy check, and enter the water. With that delay Susi managed to rescue me with cramp removal and tired diver tow back to the boat.
By now everyone was in the water and we all descended, January and Keith and Susi on the anchor line, Ken (Finnish doctor who'd rolled up at Nomad the day before; whom we'd dived with on a Yellow Dhow liveaboard, http://vancesdiveblogs.blogspot.com/2009/09/sept-4-and-5-2009-logged-dives-913-919.html) and Bobbi already down, and Daniel and Oliver hanging out somewhere in the gloom. My focus was on the two students in training, and I had Susi orally inflate her BCD and remove and replace her mask while January was settling in and establishing neutral buoyancy. By the time I had run January through her module 2 skill set, the other divers were milling all over the place. I had buddied Susi and January so they were with me and they were my prime (and only, really) responsibility, but I had buddied the three guys so the one who would be low on air first could ascend with the second lowest, and the third could continue diving with us (so everyone would have a buddy), so I wanted to keep them in our group. Bobbi wanted to stay with us as well but she and Ken were experienced and not a huge concern.
At the start of the dive it was a little difficult to keep the three guys together and keep track of where they were. They were at different depths, one in front and overhead, two a little out of sight but bubbles just visible following along. But soon they all settled in and we started to see animals on the rocks, and it became a really good dive after that. We started seeing morays. Then there was a cave full of beguiling batfish which we swam amongst. A lone barracuda briefly entertained Susi and January and I, and I swam up close to it. Susi led us on a compass heading west to our maximum depth of almost 16 meters and did a straight shot back to the rock she'd started from. There were lovely teddy bear purple and orange corals here. I ventured over a shoulder at around 9 or ten meters and came on a huge bull ray covered in sand. He saw me, shook the sand free, and escaped quickly in a cloud of dust. I'm not sure if anyone else saw him, though Ken and Bobbi came on a pair of bull rays lying one atop the other. Bobbi saw them clearly and tried to get Ken's attention, and he looked just as they were flying away (she reported later ;-).
Meanwhile, 35 minutes into the dive, Oliver indicated 50 bar so I led everyone to shallower depths and checked everyone's air. Only Oliver was low, so at 38 minutes I indicated to Oliver that he should surface alone, since we were at only 5 meters and the boat was nearby, but as we were shallow, and wearing those 5 mm suits, almost everyone else found themselves rising to the surface, and next thing I knew I was staring up at legs kicking from the surface overhead. Susi and January had both surfaced inadvertently so I joined them. Bobbi and Ken were fine wherever they were, and Daniel and Keith didn't appear, so I assumed they were fine. Susi was low on air and decided to join Oliver on the boat. January and I both had 100 bar left, and she was game, so we descended to resume our diving.
We were now in the cabbage coral patch where we found a couple of turtles. Further up ahead we came on Bobbi and Ken. Ken was photographing gobies as they emerged from their holes and as that takes patience January and I moved on. The area was full of fish life, though there was nothing exciting left to see in our dive. It was just pleasant and getting a little cold, so at 57 minutes I signaled a 3 min safety stop, and after an hour underwater, we surfaced. Everyone was by now back on the boat, talking about what a delightful dive it was. January was kind enough to assist me to the boat via a tired diver tow.
Waleed motored us over to the Ras Lima headland where we stopped out of the wind for lunch. Clouds were by now brewing overhead, robbing us of sun, and seas were becoming choppy though where we were, it was calm. Susi and I did her last remaining surface skills while we vented nitrogen, and when we got back on the boat I sat with the ladies to determine that we could do a next dive at 14 to 16 meters for 45 minutes (safely and with plenty of margin for error). Keith had developed ear problems and decided to simply snorkel, so it was easy to pair divers now, Daniel and Oliver, Bobbi and Ken, and Susi and January with me. We backward rolled over the side and descended using visual reference of the sloping wall and all made it to the bottom in good order, just 7 or 8 meters.
This was a fun dive for January since she hadn't completed the last two modules of the course, so it was just Susi to remove and replace her mask and then hover. There were a lot of tunicate coelenterates in the water and vis was not the greatest, divers seemed to be doing their own thing, hard to keep them all together, Susi and January and I drifted off, no one followed, we went out to some rocks in the sand and kept going to 14 meters, looking in vain for rays. We headed back into the rocks and found some boulders that invited exploration. We meandered in and out and up and down. The rocks were teeming with fusiliers over the rust colored coral carpet, and bigger jacks in the alleyways. We headed to a maximum depth of just over 14 meters, and on the way back from that foray, encountered a huge honeycomb moray that fascinated the ladies, who were seeing one for the first time (Bobbi and Ken saw one, maybe the same one, with a cleaner wrasse that entered the moray's mouth and cleaned way back in the throat - gulp! I saw a wrasse around the mouth of this one, might have been the same one).
Eventually we reached our agreed end of dive time of 45 min and I suggested a safety stop. We hung out at 5 meters enjoying our last 3 minutes and at the surface Susi declared that this was her best dive ever. For me it was just another day in paradise, though it was a comfortable, enjoyable dive, and the ladies had handled themselves like champions. And congratulations to Susi on completing her course.
Bobbi and I participated in the Terry Fox run in Abu Dhabi on Friday morning while January and Keith were running the half marathon in RAK, so we met in Dibba for just one dive at 3:00 p.m.
January's first o/w dive and Susi's second, and my logged dive number 942
This turned out to be a nice dive, but it began oddly with our wearing 5 mm wetsuits against the cold, most for the first time, so buoyancy became an issue on the dive. Everyone checked their weight first and ascertained they could descend, but in reality, when we began our dive, people were bobbing back to the surface. I had a mix of people, including January on her first dive and Susi on her second for the course, though she had dived with me several times by then, all but one, fun dives. Bobbi was trying out her new 5 mm wetsuit for the first time so even she was slightly underweighted. And me too, I was using for the first time a 3 mm overall / longsleeve jacket combination to give me 6 mm on my body core, so though I carried 3 kilos extra for students, by the time I'd given two away I was blowing hard to stay down. Oliver and Daniel were thankfully overweighted, so we all managed to do the dive, barely.
Vis was not great, there was a bit of brown algae around. There was a slight current moving us east over the reef so I had to keep calling January back where Susi was gamely doing her o/w #2 skill set, tossing regs away, partially flooding her mask, simulating alternate air source breathing. Eventually we were ready to move out and I let us drift over the reef, hoping the certified divers among us would keep to some kind of formation. Some dvers were high in the water, some were moving ahead of me, so when the reef ran out they didn't realize it and so some were out of sight as they drifted too far into the haze overhead, and I could just see their bubbles. All became gradually aware that they needed to turn and fin into the current. January stayed right at my shoulder and we came on a turtle which everyone eventually passed over. By now people were settling better into the dive and keeping their buoyancy closer down on the reef and it got interesting as now the current was nudging us north and we could just hold position and depth and let ourselves be moved along the reef, teeming with fish.
There was nothing to see out of the ordinary until I noticed a flash of grey, a bulky blacktip shark moving at the edge of our peripheral vision. I turned and swam toward it and caught up with it just as it veered toward me. It came in close, presenting a clear view of its snout, until it realized that I was in its path, and then it turned away and headed off over the reef. Most divers in our group saw it and exclaimed as we boarded the boat how close it was, "It went right under Daniel," and yada yada. We ended our dive at about 50 minutes, me holding a rock between my knees to stay down, some divers bobbing to the surface, all lighter with loss of air, needing more weight to compensate for the extra padding against the cold.
We enjoyed the sundown on the Freestyle veranda until our gear was dry enough to pack away, Then we drove across the border and arrived at Discover Nomad where Chris had rooms for all of us, and his new manager Bonnie was fixing dinner. Chris's mom and dad were away so it wasn't the exquisite Mauritian cuisine we had come to expect, but Bonnie did a fine job of feeding the dozen or so divers settling in at the Nomad hostel for the night.
February 20, 2010 - Susi's 3rd and 4th O/W dives for CERTIFICATION and January's second (plus a fun dive)My logged dives numbers 943-944
Next morning we were up and away in one of Chris's speedboats, putting out to sea at 10 a.m. An hour after that we had arrived at Ras Morovi where I got Waleed, the boat captain, to drop anchor after some minor mis-communicaton in Arabic. With the anchor line in place Susi and I slipped into the water and she did her controlled emergency swimming ascent while Bobbi helped January and Keith kit up, buddy check, and enter the water. With that delay Susi managed to rescue me with cramp removal and tired diver tow back to the boat.
By now everyone was in the water and we all descended, January and Keith and Susi on the anchor line, Ken (Finnish doctor who'd rolled up at Nomad the day before; whom we'd dived with on a Yellow Dhow liveaboard, http://vancesdiveblogs.blogspot.com/2009/09/sept-4-and-5-2009-logged-dives-913-919.html) and Bobbi already down, and Daniel and Oliver hanging out somewhere in the gloom. My focus was on the two students in training, and I had Susi orally inflate her BCD and remove and replace her mask while January was settling in and establishing neutral buoyancy. By the time I had run January through her module 2 skill set, the other divers were milling all over the place. I had buddied Susi and January so they were with me and they were my prime (and only, really) responsibility, but I had buddied the three guys so the one who would be low on air first could ascend with the second lowest, and the third could continue diving with us (so everyone would have a buddy), so I wanted to keep them in our group. Bobbi wanted to stay with us as well but she and Ken were experienced and not a huge concern.
At the start of the dive it was a little difficult to keep the three guys together and keep track of where they were. They were at different depths, one in front and overhead, two a little out of sight but bubbles just visible following along. But soon they all settled in and we started to see animals on the rocks, and it became a really good dive after that. We started seeing morays. Then there was a cave full of beguiling batfish which we swam amongst. A lone barracuda briefly entertained Susi and January and I, and I swam up close to it. Susi led us on a compass heading west to our maximum depth of almost 16 meters and did a straight shot back to the rock she'd started from. There were lovely teddy bear purple and orange corals here. I ventured over a shoulder at around 9 or ten meters and came on a huge bull ray covered in sand. He saw me, shook the sand free, and escaped quickly in a cloud of dust. I'm not sure if anyone else saw him, though Ken and Bobbi came on a pair of bull rays lying one atop the other. Bobbi saw them clearly and tried to get Ken's attention, and he looked just as they were flying away (she reported later ;-).
Meanwhile, 35 minutes into the dive, Oliver indicated 50 bar so I led everyone to shallower depths and checked everyone's air. Only Oliver was low, so at 38 minutes I indicated to Oliver that he should surface alone, since we were at only 5 meters and the boat was nearby, but as we were shallow, and wearing those 5 mm suits, almost everyone else found themselves rising to the surface, and next thing I knew I was staring up at legs kicking from the surface overhead. Susi and January had both surfaced inadvertently so I joined them. Bobbi and Ken were fine wherever they were, and Daniel and Keith didn't appear, so I assumed they were fine. Susi was low on air and decided to join Oliver on the boat. January and I both had 100 bar left, and she was game, so we descended to resume our diving.
We were now in the cabbage coral patch where we found a couple of turtles. Further up ahead we came on Bobbi and Ken. Ken was photographing gobies as they emerged from their holes and as that takes patience January and I moved on. The area was full of fish life, though there was nothing exciting left to see in our dive. It was just pleasant and getting a little cold, so at 57 minutes I signaled a 3 min safety stop, and after an hour underwater, we surfaced. Everyone was by now back on the boat, talking about what a delightful dive it was. January was kind enough to assist me to the boat via a tired diver tow.
Waleed motored us over to the Ras Lima headland where we stopped out of the wind for lunch. Clouds were by now brewing overhead, robbing us of sun, and seas were becoming choppy though where we were, it was calm. Susi and I did her last remaining surface skills while we vented nitrogen, and when we got back on the boat I sat with the ladies to determine that we could do a next dive at 14 to 16 meters for 45 minutes (safely and with plenty of margin for error). Keith had developed ear problems and decided to simply snorkel, so it was easy to pair divers now, Daniel and Oliver, Bobbi and Ken, and Susi and January with me. We backward rolled over the side and descended using visual reference of the sloping wall and all made it to the bottom in good order, just 7 or 8 meters.
This was a fun dive for January since she hadn't completed the last two modules of the course, so it was just Susi to remove and replace her mask and then hover. There were a lot of tunicate coelenterates in the water and vis was not the greatest, divers seemed to be doing their own thing, hard to keep them all together, Susi and January and I drifted off, no one followed, we went out to some rocks in the sand and kept going to 14 meters, looking in vain for rays. We headed back into the rocks and found some boulders that invited exploration. We meandered in and out and up and down. The rocks were teeming with fusiliers over the rust colored coral carpet, and bigger jacks in the alleyways. We headed to a maximum depth of just over 14 meters, and on the way back from that foray, encountered a huge honeycomb moray that fascinated the ladies, who were seeing one for the first time (Bobbi and Ken saw one, maybe the same one, with a cleaner wrasse that entered the moray's mouth and cleaned way back in the throat - gulp! I saw a wrasse around the mouth of this one, might have been the same one).
Eventually we reached our agreed end of dive time of 45 min and I suggested a safety stop. We hung out at 5 meters enjoying our last 3 minutes and at the surface Susi declared that this was her best dive ever. For me it was just another day in paradise, though it was a comfortable, enjoyable dive, and the ladies had handled themselves like champions. And congratulations to Susi on completing her course.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
January 22-23, 2010 - Diving Dibba Rock - My logged dives #938-941
January 22, 2010: My logged dives # 938-939
Dibba Rock, Freestyle Divers
Susi McGrath's first o/w dive; Daniel Sobrado's first and second
Fun divers Bobbi, Greg, and Oliver
Diving was good off Dibba Rock this weekend despite vis being pretty bad and the water temperature about 24 degrees centigrade, cold enough for a 5mm wetsuit, Neither Bobbi nor I had 5mm wetsuits and though I wore 0.5mm lycra and t-shirt, plus a thin chicken vest, for maybe 4mm on my torso, it was chilly. Air temp was pleasant, so the outside temp at least allowed us to warm up between dives. Bobbi got herself sorted but only on our way back to Abu Dhabi from Dibba, when we stopped at Scuba Dubai and Bobbi found 5mm wetsuits on sale and bought one. I want one too but the men's weren't on special.
I had two students. Daniel Sobrado was sprinting through the course and finished this weekend. Susi McGrath was more tentative, but had done fine in her first open water pool training the night before we set out for Dibba. She had brought her partner, Oliver du Toit, who had joined us in the pool for a refresher. Greg Golden joined our dive team as well (I had trained him in Advanced PADI o/w recently). With Bobbi driving, we left Abu Dhabi at 7:30 and took the new Yas Island highway to save time over the old road to Dubai. We met Oliver and Susi at the ADNOC Oasis in Taweela, Susi joined our car, and she and Danel did module 4 academics on tables and module 5 final exam in our car on our way to Dibba. We arrived at Freestyle an hour early for a noon dive as a group of six.
It was a warm calm day out with placid seas, but the drop in water temp had brought on the algae, and as we descended first time, the water was brown with suspended matter, disorienting for my first-time divers. However, reflexive claustrophobias were bravely overcome, and we landed in a shallow 6 meters of water on a new mooring that's just west of the raspberry coral. Once we'd achieved neutral buoyancy we moved onto the coral patch, very disappointed in the vis, impossible to see beyond a few meters where fish flitted in bright flashes, was it a fin? no, just a larger fish than normal, beguiling.
But there were barracuda about and we could get quite close to those, dozens in a school. We came on some turtles, several, observing us tamely for the most part as we observed back. We spotted some cuttlefish. Bobbi and Greg moved off from us and saw batfish. Susi seemed to like the big puffer fishes. The new divers were trying on weight though. I was plopping bricks in their bcds and still they were having trouble staying down. The excess vertical movement took a toll on their air consumption and our dive ended after 38 minutes, maximum depth 8 meters.
Sill, all had gone well for an initial dive. In the surface interval I took Daniel in the shallow water off the beach to complete the module 3 confined water skills we had not had time to finish last time in the pool. So he was ready for his 2nd o/w dive at 3:00 but Susi, who hadn't started module 3, would do hers as a practice dive.
For the second dive, we started at the mooring nearer to the rock and I took Daniel down for a quick controlled emergency swimming ascent. Bobbi managed to get the other divers in the water as we surfaced. On our second descent, Daniel ran through his Dive #2 skill set while everyone was adjusting their buoyancy. We then moved toward the rock and came onto the aquarium with the red corals, and lots of large fish milling about, including some good sized barracuda. We headed from there over the raspberry coral and saw the usual suspects on the second dive. All divers were starting to get comfortable by now, and the dive time was longer, 42 minutes, at 8 meters max.
January 23, 2010: My logged dives # 940-941
Dibba Rock, Freestyle Divers
Fun divers Bobbi, Greg, Oliver, and Susi (in training) - CERTIFIED Daniel Sobrado
Daniel and I had gone in the pool after diving the day before and finished off modules 4 and 5, so he was ready to complete his 3rd and 4th o/w dives on Saturday. Susi decided she'd like to take it easy the following day, and she seemed much more relaxed in the water without the stress of having to perform skills. The wind had come up and seas were slightly choppy, but vis had cleared a bit below, and we could now see 3-5 meters. We dropped in the far west buoy and i told everyone we'd head east to the coral. I was expecting a 20 meter swim but in fact we were there in a couple of fin kicks.
We saw a pair of turtles straight away and after that schools of barracuda. I'm always on the lookout for sharks when I see barracuda. Waiting for the others to catch up I saw one fade into the gloom and I finned to catch up but couldn't see him clearly more than a few moments at a time, and couldn't leave my new divers behind. But I used the standard hand signal to report the sighting and this heightened everyone's expectations. We continued off the reef past the anchor that's been embedded in it forever to explore the boulders marking the aquarium. It was clearer here, but I wheeled us around and led us back over the coral. Here I saw a pair of sharks skim across my bow and I went after them and watched them wheel in a circle right around me. Bobbi was alongside, pointing, but I'm not sure who else in my group saw them. But no matter, we got a third chance, a lone one this time, coming in close and showing off to everyone. Susi was pointing, quite chuffed. We finished off with more barracudas and sightings of schools of yellow fish hovering over the coral. Everyone was doing better on air, 46 minutes at 8 meters.
For our last dive we decided to do the back side of the rock. We were again dropped just off the raspberry coral so we got to swim ten minutes among the turtles and barracuda on the raspberry patch, and back through the big fish in the acquarium. There were a couple of Really Big Barracuda there, and on our way over the raspberry patch we saw a huge 2-meter Spanish mackerel that some other divers in the area who saw it mistook for a shark.
I swam slowly to pace myself with the beginners and it was 15 min into the dive before we started heading down toward the sand at 10 meters at the back of the island. Unfortunately this part of the reef hasn't recovered as before from the cyclone and red tide. It's rare to see eels here anymore, and the pipefish in the sand are gone. On Daniel's compass heading into the sand we saw no rays, nor did we see any when I led us out to 15 meters on a second foray. But on our return leg Bobbi pointed excitedly. She had seen a jawfish. We had all come on top of it and scared it back in its hole, but I had all the divers back off from it. They didn't know what I was pointing at but they understood to wait, and soon the little jawfish head appeared wanting to know the nature of what was stalking it. There used to be a lot of them here, but it's good to see that they are bouncing back, if tentatively.
By now my new divers were pointing at their pressure guages suggesting that it was time to end the dive, so I lead them back to the wall and up to shallow water. We hadn't made it around the rock but our boat was waiting for us where we surfaced. Despite the depth, air consumption was still improving, 49 min this time, at 15 meters maximum depth.
Dibba Rock, Freestyle Divers
Susi McGrath's first o/w dive; Daniel Sobrado's first and second
Fun divers Bobbi, Greg, and Oliver
Diving was good off Dibba Rock this weekend despite vis being pretty bad and the water temperature about 24 degrees centigrade, cold enough for a 5mm wetsuit, Neither Bobbi nor I had 5mm wetsuits and though I wore 0.5mm lycra and t-shirt, plus a thin chicken vest, for maybe 4mm on my torso, it was chilly. Air temp was pleasant, so the outside temp at least allowed us to warm up between dives. Bobbi got herself sorted but only on our way back to Abu Dhabi from Dibba, when we stopped at Scuba Dubai and Bobbi found 5mm wetsuits on sale and bought one. I want one too but the men's weren't on special.
I had two students. Daniel Sobrado was sprinting through the course and finished this weekend. Susi McGrath was more tentative, but had done fine in her first open water pool training the night before we set out for Dibba. She had brought her partner, Oliver du Toit, who had joined us in the pool for a refresher. Greg Golden joined our dive team as well (I had trained him in Advanced PADI o/w recently). With Bobbi driving, we left Abu Dhabi at 7:30 and took the new Yas Island highway to save time over the old road to Dubai. We met Oliver and Susi at the ADNOC Oasis in Taweela, Susi joined our car, and she and Danel did module 4 academics on tables and module 5 final exam in our car on our way to Dibba. We arrived at Freestyle an hour early for a noon dive as a group of six.
It was a warm calm day out with placid seas, but the drop in water temp had brought on the algae, and as we descended first time, the water was brown with suspended matter, disorienting for my first-time divers. However, reflexive claustrophobias were bravely overcome, and we landed in a shallow 6 meters of water on a new mooring that's just west of the raspberry coral. Once we'd achieved neutral buoyancy we moved onto the coral patch, very disappointed in the vis, impossible to see beyond a few meters where fish flitted in bright flashes, was it a fin? no, just a larger fish than normal, beguiling.
But there were barracuda about and we could get quite close to those, dozens in a school. We came on some turtles, several, observing us tamely for the most part as we observed back. We spotted some cuttlefish. Bobbi and Greg moved off from us and saw batfish. Susi seemed to like the big puffer fishes. The new divers were trying on weight though. I was plopping bricks in their bcds and still they were having trouble staying down. The excess vertical movement took a toll on their air consumption and our dive ended after 38 minutes, maximum depth 8 meters.
Sill, all had gone well for an initial dive. In the surface interval I took Daniel in the shallow water off the beach to complete the module 3 confined water skills we had not had time to finish last time in the pool. So he was ready for his 2nd o/w dive at 3:00 but Susi, who hadn't started module 3, would do hers as a practice dive.
For the second dive, we started at the mooring nearer to the rock and I took Daniel down for a quick controlled emergency swimming ascent. Bobbi managed to get the other divers in the water as we surfaced. On our second descent, Daniel ran through his Dive #2 skill set while everyone was adjusting their buoyancy. We then moved toward the rock and came onto the aquarium with the red corals, and lots of large fish milling about, including some good sized barracuda. We headed from there over the raspberry coral and saw the usual suspects on the second dive. All divers were starting to get comfortable by now, and the dive time was longer, 42 minutes, at 8 meters max.
January 23, 2010: My logged dives # 940-941
Dibba Rock, Freestyle Divers
Fun divers Bobbi, Greg, Oliver, and Susi (in training) - CERTIFIED Daniel Sobrado
Daniel and I had gone in the pool after diving the day before and finished off modules 4 and 5, so he was ready to complete his 3rd and 4th o/w dives on Saturday. Susi decided she'd like to take it easy the following day, and she seemed much more relaxed in the water without the stress of having to perform skills. The wind had come up and seas were slightly choppy, but vis had cleared a bit below, and we could now see 3-5 meters. We dropped in the far west buoy and i told everyone we'd head east to the coral. I was expecting a 20 meter swim but in fact we were there in a couple of fin kicks.
We saw a pair of turtles straight away and after that schools of barracuda. I'm always on the lookout for sharks when I see barracuda. Waiting for the others to catch up I saw one fade into the gloom and I finned to catch up but couldn't see him clearly more than a few moments at a time, and couldn't leave my new divers behind. But I used the standard hand signal to report the sighting and this heightened everyone's expectations. We continued off the reef past the anchor that's been embedded in it forever to explore the boulders marking the aquarium. It was clearer here, but I wheeled us around and led us back over the coral. Here I saw a pair of sharks skim across my bow and I went after them and watched them wheel in a circle right around me. Bobbi was alongside, pointing, but I'm not sure who else in my group saw them. But no matter, we got a third chance, a lone one this time, coming in close and showing off to everyone. Susi was pointing, quite chuffed. We finished off with more barracudas and sightings of schools of yellow fish hovering over the coral. Everyone was doing better on air, 46 minutes at 8 meters.
For our last dive we decided to do the back side of the rock. We were again dropped just off the raspberry coral so we got to swim ten minutes among the turtles and barracuda on the raspberry patch, and back through the big fish in the acquarium. There were a couple of Really Big Barracuda there, and on our way over the raspberry patch we saw a huge 2-meter Spanish mackerel that some other divers in the area who saw it mistook for a shark.
I swam slowly to pace myself with the beginners and it was 15 min into the dive before we started heading down toward the sand at 10 meters at the back of the island. Unfortunately this part of the reef hasn't recovered as before from the cyclone and red tide. It's rare to see eels here anymore, and the pipefish in the sand are gone. On Daniel's compass heading into the sand we saw no rays, nor did we see any when I led us out to 15 meters on a second foray. But on our return leg Bobbi pointed excitedly. She had seen a jawfish. We had all come on top of it and scared it back in its hole, but I had all the divers back off from it. They didn't know what I was pointing at but they understood to wait, and soon the little jawfish head appeared wanting to know the nature of what was stalking it. There used to be a lot of them here, but it's good to see that they are bouncing back, if tentatively.
By now my new divers were pointing at their pressure guages suggesting that it was time to end the dive, so I lead them back to the wall and up to shallow water. We hadn't made it around the rock but our boat was waiting for us where we surfaced. Despite the depth, air consumption was still improving, 49 min this time, at 15 meters maximum depth.
Friday, December 4, 2009
December 1, 2009 – Vance, Bobbi, and Glenn off Flic en Flac, Mauritius, my dives #937-938
After driving down from Trou aux Biches and Grand Baie, we ended up in Flic en Flac, a town off the west coast with tacky beach scene appeal. All the coastal areas had public beaches with dirt roads and parking lots and ubiquitous Italian ice cream trucks playing snippets of familiar tunes over and over again that must have driven the drivers bonkers. My memories of Mauritius are permeated by the jingling tunes from these trucks, plus the sounds of birds sweetly singing. The beaches had sparse lawn patches above the sand and a variety of trees, including baobabs and cedar pines.
We parked at one of the beaches and went on foot in search of accommodation. One hotel apartment complex recommended in LPG was full but the landlady suggested we try in the recently built villas in the grid of streets just back of her hotel. We found plenty of choices there but declined the first ones because there were still clients in some of them or the owners had brought their kids down for the day to let them splash in the pool and the villa was over-run by kids who had to be removed so it could be cleaned. Eventually we got a villa just a block off the beach and liked it so much we stayed three days.
The villa cost 2500 rupees a night, about $75, and had 4 bedrooms on two upstairs floors. It was quiet and spacious, fully equipped kitchen, two baths, and had a nice pool outside. Other guests seemed to spend all of their time eating and drinking at tables on the lanais off their apartments. Where Glenn slept the first night the sun woke him up at 5 a.m. so he simply moved upstairs and had the whole floor to himself, with a big double bed in the bed room facing west over the courtyard. So he had one floor with two bedrooms and Bobbi and I had the other, nice.
We used this abode as a base for hiking one day in the Black River park, and the next day we dived two dives with the nearby Ti-Cabo divers. The instructor there, Fadi, had lived in Oman and took a liking to us, and showed us the best diving possible there. Our morning dive was at Serpent Reef. Unfortunately vis was not great, and the underwater scenery was essentially boulders, but the life in the rocks made for interesting diving. There were leaf fish for example, sea snakes, many kinds of eels, several really large scorpion fish, a small torpedo ray, sea slugs, and other things we would not have spotted had we gone there unguided, but Fadi seemed to know where each animal lived. The second dive at Aquarium was more of the same, and the two dives we did there we simply let our eyes follow where Fadi pointed.
Impressions of Mauritius
We were not so enthused to want to spend a second day diving there, so we moved over to the east coast, Trou d’Eau Douce, and then down to Mahebourg for our flight home. Overall we were quite pleased with our Mauritius holiday. It was easy to go without bookings, except we had arranged for a car and a first night in Mahebourg (to facilitate hook up with Glenn, but we could have done without that and just selected what appealed to us when we arrived in town). Accommodation was plentiful in all price ranges and excellent value, food was delicious with creole accent, beer was cheap, the islanders were relaxed and unhurried, it seemed to be a safe place, small enough to get around the island on a single tank of gas ($40, but we only needed the one fill). The weather was great, mostly sunny, sometimes windy, and the misty rains that came occasionally were short and welcome. The scenery was strikingly reminiscent of Hawaii, we enjoyed all the diving we did, and we’d like to go again to Rodrigues next time, and after that to Reunion.
Like a certain Captain Flinders who sailed his British ship to Mauritius at a time, unbeknownst to him, England and France had gone to war, so he was detained on arrival and spent six years in a French gaol, we were captivated by the charm of the island (though put off where traffic was too much for its narrow roads, which compromised the ambience of many small villages). Driving there was like playing a computer game, anything could be walking, pedaling, stopping, or crossing in the narrow roads, where lanes often dropped without shoulder into the sea, and cars coming at you were swerving into your lane to avoid their own obstacles, plus driving on the left, all combine to keep drivers on their toes there. But I was talking about diving, how did driving come up?
We parked at one of the beaches and went on foot in search of accommodation. One hotel apartment complex recommended in LPG was full but the landlady suggested we try in the recently built villas in the grid of streets just back of her hotel. We found plenty of choices there but declined the first ones because there were still clients in some of them or the owners had brought their kids down for the day to let them splash in the pool and the villa was over-run by kids who had to be removed so it could be cleaned. Eventually we got a villa just a block off the beach and liked it so much we stayed three days.
The villa cost 2500 rupees a night, about $75, and had 4 bedrooms on two upstairs floors. It was quiet and spacious, fully equipped kitchen, two baths, and had a nice pool outside. Other guests seemed to spend all of their time eating and drinking at tables on the lanais off their apartments. Where Glenn slept the first night the sun woke him up at 5 a.m. so he simply moved upstairs and had the whole floor to himself, with a big double bed in the bed room facing west over the courtyard. So he had one floor with two bedrooms and Bobbi and I had the other, nice.
We used this abode as a base for hiking one day in the Black River park, and the next day we dived two dives with the nearby Ti-Cabo divers. The instructor there, Fadi, had lived in Oman and took a liking to us, and showed us the best diving possible there. Our morning dive was at Serpent Reef. Unfortunately vis was not great, and the underwater scenery was essentially boulders, but the life in the rocks made for interesting diving. There were leaf fish for example, sea snakes, many kinds of eels, several really large scorpion fish, a small torpedo ray, sea slugs, and other things we would not have spotted had we gone there unguided, but Fadi seemed to know where each animal lived. The second dive at Aquarium was more of the same, and the two dives we did there we simply let our eyes follow where Fadi pointed.
Impressions of Mauritius
We were not so enthused to want to spend a second day diving there, so we moved over to the east coast, Trou d’Eau Douce, and then down to Mahebourg for our flight home. Overall we were quite pleased with our Mauritius holiday. It was easy to go without bookings, except we had arranged for a car and a first night in Mahebourg (to facilitate hook up with Glenn, but we could have done without that and just selected what appealed to us when we arrived in town). Accommodation was plentiful in all price ranges and excellent value, food was delicious with creole accent, beer was cheap, the islanders were relaxed and unhurried, it seemed to be a safe place, small enough to get around the island on a single tank of gas ($40, but we only needed the one fill). The weather was great, mostly sunny, sometimes windy, and the misty rains that came occasionally were short and welcome. The scenery was strikingly reminiscent of Hawaii, we enjoyed all the diving we did, and we’d like to go again to Rodrigues next time, and after that to Reunion.
Like a certain Captain Flinders who sailed his British ship to Mauritius at a time, unbeknownst to him, England and France had gone to war, so he was detained on arrival and spent six years in a French gaol, we were captivated by the charm of the island (though put off where traffic was too much for its narrow roads, which compromised the ambience of many small villages). Driving there was like playing a computer game, anything could be walking, pedaling, stopping, or crossing in the narrow roads, where lanes often dropped without shoulder into the sea, and cars coming at you were swerving into your lane to avoid their own obstacles, plus driving on the left, all combine to keep drivers on their toes there. But I was talking about diving, how did driving come up?
November 28-29, 2009 – Vance, Bobbi, and Glenn off Trou aux Biches, Mauritius, my dives #934-936
We weren’t sure what to expect about diving in Mauritius. We had the impression from reading up that the best diving would be off the islands in the far north and we could have gone there if we had left Mahebourg early after sleeping over there our first night on the island, where our son Glenn flew in from Qatar and joined us at Le Bambou Guest House. It’s a small island, and if you rent a car you can reach almost anywhere in an hour, unless you get behind a cane truck, in which case allow an hour and a half (you’ll likely encounter several cane trucks, so better allow two hours).
But we lingered the following morning in Mahebourg and had crossed the island on the trunk road to Port Louis but had only reached Grand Baie by 11:00 next day. That was a tourist town in the north with lots of dive centers. Our Lonely Planet said the dive centers had moved a few kilometers away to Trou aux Biches at the northwest corner of the island so we gravitated there. Somehow we ended at Pro Dive where the aging owner Kevin, with luxury boat and frizzy blond hairdo, convinced us there hadn’t been sharks on the north islands since the last tsunami and the best diving was right there off Trou aux Biches. To top it off he got us a remarkable deal at the Casuarina resort where he was based. He quoted us a price so low we had to argue it with the manager, since Kevin had mentioned a very special group rate, but eventually the hotel honored the quoted price, which included breakfast and dinner plus free use of kayaks, paddleboats, windsurfers, and laser sailboats at times we weren’t diving. So we got to stay a couple of days at a luxury resort at a price so low I had to promise the manager I would not divulge it, and because we were guests at the resort we got discounted diving as well, $400 for the nine dives Bobbi, Glenn, and I ended up doing, fully equipped (with new 5 mm wetsuits, much appreciated, since the water temperature was 24 degrees at depth).
The diving was decent. We really liked the viz off Trou aux Biches. Our first dive was a little odd simply because we had been briefed for a wreck dive between 21 and 25 meters but ended up with a divemaster and a beginner and told to follow them, so we dived a shallow reef called Japanese Gardens, in the vicinity of the wreck that everyone else was diving. It wasn’t a bad site. We saw a cowtail ray in the sand and garden eels, and lots of the usual reef fishes. The beginner had trouble descending (ear problems) and the divemaster, Vivian, was testing a mask with a camera mounted on it, and both of these caused some delays as we meandered on the same part of the reef waiting for the student to join us, and for Vivian to take test photos.
Twenty minutes into the dive we had only reached 11 or 12 meters, far short of the 25 meter depth we were expecting, so we were a little confused. No telling what was happening exactly, but I had mentioned the day before when we were discussing possible dive sites that I was not impressed by wrecks per se, and I guess they wanted to check us out and needed someone who wasn’t that keen on wrecks to dive with the beginner. In any event, because of the odd outcome of our morning dive, for the afternoon, they reversed their groupings and took Bobbi and Glenn and I to the wreck while the others did their second dive of the day on the shallower Japanese Gardens where we had dived in the morning.
The wreck 'Japanese Trawler' was a nice one. Due to the great vis the wreck loomed at us as we approached, about 8 meters tall at the bow. At the stern we found another cow-tail ray, and in one of the funnels there was a green moray we were all encouraged to pet. The cargo holds were open, I dropped in to one (being sure to keep overhead clear so as not to technically penetrate) and the engine room was similarly exposed. Again it was full of fish and made a very pleasant dive. Glenn was somehow unable to switch his underwater camera from video to still photo mode and so videoed the entire dive, which we he's finally put up at YouTube.
The following day was a Sunday but because there were others who wanted to dive Kevin opened his shop for a morning trip to Coral Gardens, a site with gorgon fan corals off Club Med. The dive here was interesting at first, there was a big green momma moray we could stroke, being careful not to disturb her baby in the process, just as toothy as her momma. There were lots of scorpion fish and other small things hidden in the boulders, but eventually it became cold and redundant, and I was glad to surface and be on our way.
Monday, November 2, 2009
October 30-31, 2009 - Vance, Bobbi, and Nicki at Ras Morovi, Lima Rock, and next day Dibba, my logged dives #930-933
Diving Oct 30, 2009, Discover Nomad
Christophe set the depart time a bit early at the last minute so we had to wake up at 5 in Abu Dhabi and be out the door with our tanks weighting down a shopping cart at 6, and we managed to get Nicki from curbside (kerbside to her) at 6:10. Plus I had to stop off at my office to get a memory stick I'd left there so that when we arrived at discover nomad about 20 after ten I had got most of my grade reports done. Chris was still kitting up his divers at the dive hostel so our late arrival wasn't hanging up the show. Still Belinda, diving with us in our group, pointed out to us that she had got up at 5 in Dubai and had been waiting for us for some time. She had kids to organize as well, but 2 hours less driving. Anyway, somehow it all seemed perfectly timed (apart from the early wakeups) and we were on the speedboat and on our way toward Lima Rock at 11, feeling great, weather not too hot, and mountains rising up from the blue sea as we motored past the familiar fijords.
There were just 7 divers on our boat plus the local driver and Christophe: Bobbi and I, Belinda, a Canadian named Ryan, and a couple of French guys, Christophe's open water students, who took a lot of photos and conversed among themselves and with Christophe in French, and who seemed like decent blokes but didn't cross over their language barrier. I spoke to them in French a couple of times but anyone whose native language is French quickly detects that mine isn't ;-)
Anyway we were there to dive. Christophe took us first past Lima Rock to to Octopus Rock, what we used to call the Stack, but the vis looked bad there so Chris recommended we move a little few hundred meters south to Ras Morovi. The ras (headland) is a dragon's back of a mountain ridge that dips under water and comes up in a dragon's head across a narrow channel so it forms a narrow peninsula with an island at its point. There are many dives possible here, starting inside the channel or depending on current, at the ocean side of the island, but today we took a third way, one I hadn't done since diving here with Godelieve and her kids, and that is starting inside the first bay back from the dragon's back and following the wall around in a big U to end up in the channel.
My logged dive #930 - Only today we made a circle at the bottom end of the U. Starting on a south heading at the left point of the U inside the bay we went increasingly deep to about 25 meters or so keeping an eye out for seahorses in the green whip coral or seagrass or whatever that stuff is. It looks like a forest of green underwater swarming with fishes as far as the eye can see which on this day was about 7 to 10 meters I guess, not bad vis, not great. We found no seahorses nor anything much of interest really apart from some hovering lion fish, fierce-looking morays, and scrappy crawfish looking delicious in their lairs.
As we rounded the underwater mountain at the bottom of the U, I carried on along the wall and unbeknownst to me at the time completed a circle without checking my compass, thinking I was heading north the whole time. No wonder that part of the dive seemed repetitive (except that to compensate for depth, everyone was diving higher now ;-) But I realized it when I was heading north again back at the bottom of the U, 50 min into the dive, and Bobbi and I with about 80 bar still to go. I recognized it because there was an alternate route to the north which I hadn't taken my last time here, but which I took now. This one progressed up the channel and led us into a area of cabbage coral interspersed with pretty blue tufts of soft coral, and this area was full of turtles. We found a half dozen of those before we had to surface, Ryan hovering just overhead, air holding out well in a 65 minute dive.
All back aboard the boat and we motored over to Ras Lima, the east-west wall extending well off the small village on the beach, and scarfed down a few of Sylvienne's (Chris's mom's) sandwich wraps, interesting combinations of chicken and wieners, eliciting even more 'sausage' jokes from Nicki. Chris was planning to have us dive that wall but I made some murmurings of preferring to dive Lima Rock, a popular choice, and Chris said sure, why not.
My logged dive #931 - Chris put us in at the eastern point on the north side of the island and the plan was to dive the north side heading west. By the time all the divers were in the water, we were getting swept at an accelerating pace to the east, caught in a current we couldn't fight. Chris saw what was happening and hand signalled me to round the rock at its eastern point and dive the south side, so I had everyone descend, and from then on it was a drift dive. We went down to what I thought was the gap leading to the other side, but it kept descending and we were at 35 meters before I decided to level off, Bobbi clinging to me less in anxiety than for safety. We were getting swept in a direction I thought was west trying to stay on the wall, and coming alongside some very large meter-long barracuda, wow. Here I realized we were heading east, we'd somehow disoriented 180 degrees. By now we were midwater, no point in diving here, so I signaled up. Everyone stayed together. We came up to 5 meters and I signaled a safety stop. Everyone hung together, but in exactly three minutes I signaled up because I wanted to get picked up and taken back to the rock. At the surface I saw we'd been swept well off the wall, halfway to Iran :-) Ryan and Bobbi and I met at the surface where the boatman eventually saw us and came out to pick us up. Nicki and Belinda remained down till we revved our engines to call them up. They’d had had some sort of miscommunication, each thinking the other needed to remain under, but as a reward they had ended up in the middle of a circling funnel of barracuda.
We all had over 100 bar, but we’d had enough excitement for one dive, so we got the boatman to take us to the middle of the north wall, the sheltered side, where some live-aboard dhows were anchored. Here we finished off our air in the shallows, basically trying to avoid any further trouble. It was nice diving. Bobbi and I separated from the group and found half a dozen blue spotted rays under as many different rocks. We saw at least that many morays, including one large honeycomb, and some nice tableaux of lion fish. It was a relaxing end to an unusual dive.
We spent the night at Discover Nomad chez Christophe, but because beverage supply there cannot be counted on we slipped over the border to the hole in the wall at Royal Beach and dropped in on Terry and the other Freestyle divers to enjoy a cool one before driving back to Oman. Terry was overseeing the barbeque of a huge yellowfin tuna and he offered us a taste. We only tasted because we were heading back to Christophe’s for un repas a la Mauritius coutesy of Sylvienne’s kitchen, which deserved more than one etoille Michelin. There we were soon tucking into exquisite quiche, tender steak, succulent kabobs, and deliciously grilled shrimp, plus a fresh green salad, great complements to our two bottles of red wine, which we shared of course.
Somehow we got sleepy and found ourselves waking up a few hours later to another great day on the UAE seacoast. We moved off to return to Freestyle at 9 where we found we could get on a dive to the Inchcape.
My logged dive #932 - Nicki wasn’t in the mood but Bobbi and I joined a boatload and we were soon heading down the mooring line in a stiff current to the wreck at 30 meters. We had wisely worn lycra underneath our 3 mm wetsuits because it was cold down there, perhaps 24 degrees. Due to the depth it’s only a 20 min dive anyway, but the temperature was a shock after the warm summer. The wreck was beautiful as usual, swarming with schools of snappers and bigger fish. There were no rays there at the time but the two honeycombs to replace the ones who succumbed to the red tide were in their predictable places, easily spotted by all the divers. For Bobbi and I who have been here many times, it’s a treat to be diving it just the two of us, without having to monitor students, so we let ourselves slip into a minute of deco and we were last up the rope. We made an unhurried descent, our deco cleared at 9 meters, and we spent 3 full minutes at 5 meters even though we had been just below the other divers waiting for them to complete their safety stops. The current had disappeared at the bottom, but now we were being pulled to the side like pennants. We could see the other divers at the ladder climbing up onto the boat and when the last bum disappeared from the water we let go the mooring line and caught the ladder as we were swept beneath it.
My logged dive #933 - We did one more dive, at noon on Dibba Rock. Nicki had finally got her hair just right so she joined us. The sea and sky were bright and the water looked clear and promising, but it was a promise not kept. The viz was silty. We were dropped on the mooring at the north corner of the rock. We made our way back through the aquarium and onto the reef. I hadn't brought a compass because mine was on a console whose pressure guage had malfunctioned, but I could tell we had hit it right when I heard the clacking and saw a school of young barracuda overhead. Then a large black tipped shark appeared swimming nonchalantly across our bow. Bobbi and I watched it go by, but Nicki was lagging a bit and missed it. Too bad as it was our only shark sighting that dive. Due to the milky conditions I missed a turn in the reef and had trouble getting out to the end of it. I had to retrace my steps on the reef and didn’t know where I was exactly until we came on an anchor that’s been in the reef for some time. Orienting on that I managed to find the right way, and brought us onto a number of turtles in the process. There were frequent sightings of barracuda overhead, shoals of snapper, puffer fish meandering across our paths, and some cuttlefish occasionally, but all in all it was a slightly disappointing dive (what am I saying?! I must be getting jaded ;-)
Christophe set the depart time a bit early at the last minute so we had to wake up at 5 in Abu Dhabi and be out the door with our tanks weighting down a shopping cart at 6, and we managed to get Nicki from curbside (kerbside to her) at 6:10. Plus I had to stop off at my office to get a memory stick I'd left there so that when we arrived at discover nomad about 20 after ten I had got most of my grade reports done. Chris was still kitting up his divers at the dive hostel so our late arrival wasn't hanging up the show. Still Belinda, diving with us in our group, pointed out to us that she had got up at 5 in Dubai and had been waiting for us for some time. She had kids to organize as well, but 2 hours less driving. Anyway, somehow it all seemed perfectly timed (apart from the early wakeups) and we were on the speedboat and on our way toward Lima Rock at 11, feeling great, weather not too hot, and mountains rising up from the blue sea as we motored past the familiar fijords.
There were just 7 divers on our boat plus the local driver and Christophe: Bobbi and I, Belinda, a Canadian named Ryan, and a couple of French guys, Christophe's open water students, who took a lot of photos and conversed among themselves and with Christophe in French, and who seemed like decent blokes but didn't cross over their language barrier. I spoke to them in French a couple of times but anyone whose native language is French quickly detects that mine isn't ;-)
Anyway we were there to dive. Christophe took us first past Lima Rock to to Octopus Rock, what we used to call the Stack, but the vis looked bad there so Chris recommended we move a little few hundred meters south to Ras Morovi. The ras (headland) is a dragon's back of a mountain ridge that dips under water and comes up in a dragon's head across a narrow channel so it forms a narrow peninsula with an island at its point. There are many dives possible here, starting inside the channel or depending on current, at the ocean side of the island, but today we took a third way, one I hadn't done since diving here with Godelieve and her kids, and that is starting inside the first bay back from the dragon's back and following the wall around in a big U to end up in the channel.
My logged dive #930 - Only today we made a circle at the bottom end of the U. Starting on a south heading at the left point of the U inside the bay we went increasingly deep to about 25 meters or so keeping an eye out for seahorses in the green whip coral or seagrass or whatever that stuff is. It looks like a forest of green underwater swarming with fishes as far as the eye can see which on this day was about 7 to 10 meters I guess, not bad vis, not great. We found no seahorses nor anything much of interest really apart from some hovering lion fish, fierce-looking morays, and scrappy crawfish looking delicious in their lairs.
As we rounded the underwater mountain at the bottom of the U, I carried on along the wall and unbeknownst to me at the time completed a circle without checking my compass, thinking I was heading north the whole time. No wonder that part of the dive seemed repetitive (except that to compensate for depth, everyone was diving higher now ;-) But I realized it when I was heading north again back at the bottom of the U, 50 min into the dive, and Bobbi and I with about 80 bar still to go. I recognized it because there was an alternate route to the north which I hadn't taken my last time here, but which I took now. This one progressed up the channel and led us into a area of cabbage coral interspersed with pretty blue tufts of soft coral, and this area was full of turtles. We found a half dozen of those before we had to surface, Ryan hovering just overhead, air holding out well in a 65 minute dive.
All back aboard the boat and we motored over to Ras Lima, the east-west wall extending well off the small village on the beach, and scarfed down a few of Sylvienne's (Chris's mom's) sandwich wraps, interesting combinations of chicken and wieners, eliciting even more 'sausage' jokes from Nicki. Chris was planning to have us dive that wall but I made some murmurings of preferring to dive Lima Rock, a popular choice, and Chris said sure, why not.
My logged dive #931 - Chris put us in at the eastern point on the north side of the island and the plan was to dive the north side heading west. By the time all the divers were in the water, we were getting swept at an accelerating pace to the east, caught in a current we couldn't fight. Chris saw what was happening and hand signalled me to round the rock at its eastern point and dive the south side, so I had everyone descend, and from then on it was a drift dive. We went down to what I thought was the gap leading to the other side, but it kept descending and we were at 35 meters before I decided to level off, Bobbi clinging to me less in anxiety than for safety. We were getting swept in a direction I thought was west trying to stay on the wall, and coming alongside some very large meter-long barracuda, wow. Here I realized we were heading east, we'd somehow disoriented 180 degrees. By now we were midwater, no point in diving here, so I signaled up. Everyone stayed together. We came up to 5 meters and I signaled a safety stop. Everyone hung together, but in exactly three minutes I signaled up because I wanted to get picked up and taken back to the rock. At the surface I saw we'd been swept well off the wall, halfway to Iran :-) Ryan and Bobbi and I met at the surface where the boatman eventually saw us and came out to pick us up. Nicki and Belinda remained down till we revved our engines to call them up. They’d had had some sort of miscommunication, each thinking the other needed to remain under, but as a reward they had ended up in the middle of a circling funnel of barracuda.
We all had over 100 bar, but we’d had enough excitement for one dive, so we got the boatman to take us to the middle of the north wall, the sheltered side, where some live-aboard dhows were anchored. Here we finished off our air in the shallows, basically trying to avoid any further trouble. It was nice diving. Bobbi and I separated from the group and found half a dozen blue spotted rays under as many different rocks. We saw at least that many morays, including one large honeycomb, and some nice tableaux of lion fish. It was a relaxing end to an unusual dive.
We spent the night at Discover Nomad chez Christophe, but because beverage supply there cannot be counted on we slipped over the border to the hole in the wall at Royal Beach and dropped in on Terry and the other Freestyle divers to enjoy a cool one before driving back to Oman. Terry was overseeing the barbeque of a huge yellowfin tuna and he offered us a taste. We only tasted because we were heading back to Christophe’s for un repas a la Mauritius coutesy of Sylvienne’s kitchen, which deserved more than one etoille Michelin. There we were soon tucking into exquisite quiche, tender steak, succulent kabobs, and deliciously grilled shrimp, plus a fresh green salad, great complements to our two bottles of red wine, which we shared of course.
Somehow we got sleepy and found ourselves waking up a few hours later to another great day on the UAE seacoast. We moved off to return to Freestyle at 9 where we found we could get on a dive to the Inchcape.
My logged dive #932 - Nicki wasn’t in the mood but Bobbi and I joined a boatload and we were soon heading down the mooring line in a stiff current to the wreck at 30 meters. We had wisely worn lycra underneath our 3 mm wetsuits because it was cold down there, perhaps 24 degrees. Due to the depth it’s only a 20 min dive anyway, but the temperature was a shock after the warm summer. The wreck was beautiful as usual, swarming with schools of snappers and bigger fish. There were no rays there at the time but the two honeycombs to replace the ones who succumbed to the red tide were in their predictable places, easily spotted by all the divers. For Bobbi and I who have been here many times, it’s a treat to be diving it just the two of us, without having to monitor students, so we let ourselves slip into a minute of deco and we were last up the rope. We made an unhurried descent, our deco cleared at 9 meters, and we spent 3 full minutes at 5 meters even though we had been just below the other divers waiting for them to complete their safety stops. The current had disappeared at the bottom, but now we were being pulled to the side like pennants. We could see the other divers at the ladder climbing up onto the boat and when the last bum disappeared from the water we let go the mooring line and caught the ladder as we were swept beneath it.
My logged dive #933 - We did one more dive, at noon on Dibba Rock. Nicki had finally got her hair just right so she joined us. The sea and sky were bright and the water looked clear and promising, but it was a promise not kept. The viz was silty. We were dropped on the mooring at the north corner of the rock. We made our way back through the aquarium and onto the reef. I hadn't brought a compass because mine was on a console whose pressure guage had malfunctioned, but I could tell we had hit it right when I heard the clacking and saw a school of young barracuda overhead. Then a large black tipped shark appeared swimming nonchalantly across our bow. Bobbi and I watched it go by, but Nicki was lagging a bit and missed it. Too bad as it was our only shark sighting that dive. Due to the milky conditions I missed a turn in the reef and had trouble getting out to the end of it. I had to retrace my steps on the reef and didn’t know where I was exactly until we came on an anchor that’s been in the reef for some time. Orienting on that I managed to find the right way, and brought us onto a number of turtles in the process. There were frequent sightings of barracuda overhead, shoals of snapper, puffer fish meandering across our paths, and some cuttlefish occasionally, but all in all it was a slightly disappointing dive (what am I saying?! I must be getting jaded ;-)
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