July 31, Wicked Divers, Sabalon Island, just outside Komodo National Park
My logged dives #1228-1229 Find Sabolan Islands on this map just northwest of Lambuanbajo http://www.komodoresort.com/page.php?page=23 We're heading for Lombok tomorrow. If bandwidth is better there I might try and upload videos; otherwise they will be forthcoming on my return to UAE soon, so stay tuned Bobbi and I booked on the 'big' (bigger than the alternative) Perama boat leaving Labuanbajo Aug 1 bound for Lombok and due to arrive there Aug 1. We got a cabin, $200 each for the trip, which includes 3 nights on the boat and stops at Rincon to see dragons and at other places in Sambawa like Mayo for snorkeling. We are due to arrive in Mataram or Singgigi the evening of Aug 3. Meanwhile we had a day to kill, and where to spend it, seeing mantas or sharks, or just a quick hop local dive to a nearby island, bet back early, and not hassle currents. Bobbi seemed happy with the latter prospect so we booked a boat just the two of us with Wicked Divers for $75 each of us for a short nearby, 45 minute distant, island that is not really in Komodo park. I suppose that's why its coral did not seem as pristine as with the other sites, and possibly because bombing has been done here, there were not so many fish as there are inside the park, or maybe if we had been there another day, we would have seen plenty. Our guide Christin said that sharks were often seen here (we didn't see any) but then again the last few boats to go to Makassar Reef didn't see manta/s either, so to describe a dive site on the basis of one day diving it is a little like a blind man describing an elephant. On the day we were joined by a couple of wholesome looking but slightly chubby Swedish girls (they'll never find my blog, right?) so we had others in our group. The girls were fun to chat with, but our diving today was on the least interesting part of the Komodo diving elephant, though it was relaxing and pleasant, exactly what we had bargained for. On the first dive I remember a green moray, garden eels and just after that some barracuda just ahead of our group. Along the reef we were bothered by the most annoying batfish that tried to swim in the way of any photos we might be taking. Apart from these highlights there were the usual critters. We got down to 26.5 meters and dive time around 58 min. Bobbi and I went snorkeling during our surface interval at an idyllic beach location, with turquoise water turning to deep blue where the sand sloped downwards. Right here we saw a hundred or so small squid aimed in a line all the same way with the youngest (smallest) at the end of the line. I continued over some coral and this is where, half an hour later, we began our dive with intent to go north, the way the captain said the current was running. But instead we were pushed to the south and drifted that way over a lengthy stretch of nothing until we finally picked up coral on the other side and continued our drift.
This dive was a little more interesting than the first one. We found a couple of blue spotted rays, always fun the way they ripple along the bottom, kicking up sand at they go, not as graceful as their cousins. Bobbi said she saw two turtles, one at the beginning of the dive and one at the end, which we followed on our safety stop. I found a scorpion fish hiding in a small cabbage coral and we saw a couple of clutches of crayfish.
July 29, diving in Komodo National Park with Komodo Dive Center My logged dives #1225-1227
Besides the manta hangouts, there were only two good dive sites in Komodo Park that we really wanted to see that the liveaboard wouldn't go to, and these were Castle Rock and Crystal Rock (and the nearby Cauldron, all three well worth a day out from Labuan Bajo). Both are near each other and we managed to arrange the trip with Moritz who manages Komodo Dive Center <http://divingkomodo.net>. So on the appointed day we pitched up at his shop in the morning and got on his decent boat and headed across the channel to the dive sites in the northeast corner of Komodo Island, a boat trip of around 2 hours.
We dived Crystal Rock first. Crystal Rock juts a little above water which must make it a shoal that's invited shipwreck, though we saw no evidence of that. We were hoping to see big creatures here but didn't really, since we hit between rising and falling tides. Crystal Rock has a saddle with another submerged hump and we spent the dive going between the two. We descended in a school of purple surgeon fish and swam around jacks and the usual reef fish while circumnavigating the rock, until near the bump past the saddle we came on a resting reef shark. He posed for pictures but then decided we were too near and wandered off, but then decided he wanted his picture made after all so meandered back and took to rest again. After that I don't recall what we saw because I'm still thinking about the next dive, but our maximum depth was 26.5 and dive time around 55 min.
After a snack and coffee, we dropped in on Castle Rock which met expectations as far as beefy white-tips are concerned. Bobbi and I had been joined by a Spaniard with just 30 dives on the first dive. He was ok but he decided to join his friends on the second dive, so it was just Bobbi and I and our guide Alex on the remaining two, and being a small and most experienced group, we were first in as well. This turns out to be a good thing on Castle Rock, since the sharks were plentiful and all around up when we first arrived on the reef. We descended to about 22 meters and hooked into rocks to hold ourselves into the current, but it wasn't so strong that I couldn't swim over to where the sharks were if I wanted. A group of them and some big jacks were gravitating toward a certain bommie, but when the others joined us they moved away from where we were and we hooked in to the balcony and watched the sharks move to and fro over the lip just in front of us in the blue. Alex said he counted 12 but I told him when I was in Palau I could only count up to 13 before they had moved around so much that I lost track. But there were at least that many.
We hung on for 25 min or so till I got within 5 min of deco and then we moved off and let ourselves go with the current to the far side of the rock where we basically hung out in the lee of the current and burned off air, coming up after 50 min, maybe 24 meters max depth.
The last dive was in a channel between two islands called the Caldron. This dive started in a coral rubble valley that looked like it might see a manta occasionally but we saw only sharks and turtles here. Not that there is anything wrong with sharks and turtles, and the occasional big green moray eel. We got some nice videos of these creatures as we moved from the rubble valley up the coral and into the caldron, which is a hole with a white sand bottom of 22 meters from its rim at 12 meters. We found turtles and one of our sharks swimming here. The current nudged us constantly to complete our dive, and near the safety stop we were entertained by a wayward whitetip and another small turtle that led my GoPro on a merry chase through a school of colorful reef fish. This dive was shallower than the others, less than 20 meters, and again lasted over 50 minutes, with air consumption compromised a little with the constant wrestling with the fairly mild current.
This might be our last day of Komodo diving. We had thought to go on a dive on sites near Rinca Island where we might put ashore and see the famous dragons, but we're also thinking of doing a 3 day cruise that stops at both Rinca and Komodo on its way to Lombok, which appeals to me, and if we do that then we don't need to make any special trips to see dragons.
Alternative ways to get to Lombok are to fly to Denpasar and then come on a cross channel ferry maybe straignt to Gili Trawangan, or take the local bus to the ferry to Sambawa, transfer to minibus to Bima and then cross Sambawa on a day bus to where we get the ferry to Lombok, a journey of 24 hours by the time we reach the other side.
Dusty and I met in Bali on July 17,
moved out of our constantly boombox noisy $20 hotel room on Poppies 2
at midnight, and moved into another called Keden 2 (same price) we had found in a
sound shadow on Sorga, the lane connecting Poppies 1 and 2. We tried our
hand at surfing next day (Dusty doesn't have the knack and I have
lost it :-) and waited for Bobbi to arrive from Houston 2 days later.
We went to Ubud, no longer quiet and traditional Balinese, but a
suburb now of greater Denpasar. We made a couple of hikes we found
in an old bit torrent version of Lonely Planet Guide, now paved over
and crowded with motorcycles, and thus not mentioned in the latest
version of the book that Bobbi brought with her from the states (and
now we know why).
We flew from Denpasar to Labuanbajo,
Flores, on July 22 in order to start a 4-day manta research trip
starting next day July23 with Wicked Divers. There's someone at the
shop there (named Mariel) who answers email promptly which was a
great help in our planning the trip from different corners of the
earth. There are a couple dozen dive outfits in Labuanbajo but most
are not that easily findable online and those that have web pages don't
always respond to mail. One shop even messed up our booking after we
had accepted to go on the trip, and that's how we ended up with
Wicked, because all questions were answered quickly by Mariel by
email, and because they had a “budget” boat focusing on mantas,
which appealed to me, and I managed to convince Bobbi and Dusty to
come on board with it.
Dusty managed to get us a room in
Labuanbajo at Golo Hilltop Hotel, $45 for a triple, because he
chanced on a vacancy due to cancellation, and they picked us up from
the airport and took us to a hilltop place just out of earshot of town with a
remarkable view. We thought it was a little shabby at first but
after looking around town and finding nothing better and plenty worse we returned to
the hotel at sunset (the best time) with new appreciation for the
place. It was foreign owned by people who worked there during the
day, and after relaxing in the pool with the volcanic islands view at sundown
we tried to book places after returning from our liveaboard, but
found there were no rooms available there till September, so we were lucky
to land there our first night. And one of the staff there put us on
to a new hotel on the beach, named the Luwansa, a little expensive, but not much $55 for a double plus a bed for Dusty, so we at least had
a place to stay and even chill out on return from our liveaboard, and
avoided the more salubrious and noisy options in town.
July 23
We were at breakfast at
6:00 a.m. and at the diveshop in town before 8. We had arranged a
bemo to take us into town the day before so it was a simple matter to
repack for a dive trip and leave excess baggage at Wicked Divers and
proceeded to the boat to do a dozen dives, 3 a day the
23rd, 24th, 25th, and 26th.
Not far out of port we stopped off near
the beach resort on the island of Bidadari for a checkout dive in
relatively murky and mildly currenty conditions. Our dive leader
Diego, a kindly ramrod thin guy from Mexico, checked us out by leading us
into current to test our air consumption and buoyancy, and then had
us go with current to see how we stayed together in ten meters vis.
There wasn't much to see on the dive, the most remarkable creature
being a crab in some rocks and a glass shrimp behind that. But we
checked out ok and stayed down 58 min at 16.5 meters maximum depth,
Back on board we found another diver
had joined us, Eiko from Germany, ferried out to our boat by
prearrangement after his flight landed late. His girlfriend was back
in LB taking an open water dive course and he was going to join her
after the manta research trip for a more relaxed liveaboard.
Meanwhile we were heading to Kanawa Island, and we saw spinner
dolphins as we approached the island. Spinners are distinctive for
the spin they make on broaching the water. The dive off Kanawa was a
little more interesting that the first one. With 20 meter vis there
was blue water and the excursion began to feel more like a holiday.
We found hump headed parrot fish here and blue spotted rays in the
rocks. There were some beautiful hovering cuttle fish at end of
dive, plus the usual reef denizens, making this a pleasant dive. Our
max. depth on this one was 17.5 meters, at 61 min.
Our last dive of the day was Sebayor
wall, Here we found a crocodile fish, turtles munching coral on the
reef, and lots of other small stuff. Our dive profile here was 19
meters, 57 min.
After the dive, there was dinner. Food
was provided pretty constantly between dives on the boat. There were
always bananas and oranges and apples on the table, coffee, tea, and
milo for the taking at any time, and even packets of Pocari Sweat
powder to put in fresh drinking water. We were each provided a
plastic bottle with our name on it to add water to, rather than drink
from numerous plastic containers.
We would snack from the fruit tray
before a first dive, have breakfast afterwards, and lunch after the
second dive competently prepared by a dutch indonesian girl Melika who spoke
fluently in English, Bahasa, and even Spanish with Diego, depending
on whom she was talking to. The third dive of the day was followed
by a snack (cake, popcorn) except for the first day, where the snack
followed the second dive. And finally there was dinner served later,
with beer and soft drinks available for $2 and $1 respectively,
except that at the end of the trip, Diego said the “honestly list”
had blown away, so we didn't owe anything for our modest consumption
of these items, so I put that money into tips for the staff at the
end of the trip.
Sleeping was dorm style, 6 mats on the
lower deck for Bobbi, Dusty, and I and the other three for Eiko,
Danny the manta research student who was our informant on the trip,
and Melika, the aforementioned cook, with Diego taking a 7th
bunk on a raised daias by the hatch. We all slept pretty soundly on
the trip. We were knackered at the end of each day and there were no
disruptive snorers among us, so all in all a very compatible group.
July 24, 2013
Blue and yellow ribbon eel, photo by Eiko Gramlich
We were starting to fit in to the routine of 7 a.m. wakeup, 8 a.m. diving. Our first dive this day was Tatawa Besar, a beautiful reef wall. Vis was maybe 30 meters, easy to see the surface from any depth, thus a tendancy to slip too deep. Sea creatures on this dive included an interesting blue / yellow ribbon eel, batfish, schools of fusilliers, and lots of turtles at the end of dive. The turtles here seemed unconcerned about divers interruption their meals. Our profile on this dive was 24.5 meters, 64 min.
Our 11:00 dive would be at Karang
Makassar where we hoped to finally see some mantas. On this special
“manta research” trip we would be diving here two days at
different times of day; i.e. mid-day with raging currents and lots of
mantas, and afternoon with more slack conditions and fewer mantas.
Eiko, in the group of divers with bubbles in the videos above, took this picture of me taking the videos on my GoPro :-)
Danny got us into collecting data on mantas. He was a third year
undergraduate student already getting involved in some interesting
projects like this one, under the umbrella http://mantatrust.org.
Data assignments were for Dusty to record manta encounters and their
timings, Bobbi to record other divers sighted to try and guestimate
how crowded the dive site was, and me taking photos of manta
underbellies to try and record their distinctive markings there and
possibly match them with others in a dbase that Danny had of photos
of known mantas on this reef. Data results showed some long
encounters with our mantas on these dives, 15 minutes being not
uncommon, and Bobbi's data showed what we knew all along, that this
site was full of divers when the current was ripping, and we had it
to ourselves for the afternoon dives. My pictures revealed a match
with one known occupant of this reef, and a new individual we might
call V from markings on her undersides. Danny was also collecting
data on how many males and females there were, and whether the
females were pregnant. Mantas rear only 1 pup at a time and that
only once every 2 or 3 year, so their exploitation by Chinese medical
industry is particularly damaging, considering that manta fisheries
will soon wipe out the known populations if they are not preserved.
Our first dive was amazing with mantas.
We figured we saw 8 mantas, the first one 15 min with a flight of 4
coming in overhead toward the end. Mantas become comfortable with
divers keeping low on a reef, and will even interact with lone
researchers. On our second dive on the same site Karang Makassar we
saw fewer mantas but this time we saw a white tip reef shark, 2
meters, and at least one turtle.
July 25
On this morning we did our first dive
on Batu Bolong, which Diego said was one of his favorite dive sites
in this area. Bolong means hollow due to keyhole on one of two rocks,
so it was a distinctive landmark serving to orient us on many of our
dives here. It was also a popular stop for other dive operators. We
dived the south side in order to dodge the current, along with dozens
of other divers from 4-5 other dive boats, making for a crowded, a
disappointing dive. When we dived the lee of islands we'd go left
and right over the reef and zig zag up so there were few surprises
after our first couple of passes. I'd left my SD card in Bobbi's
computer card reader the night before, but pictures I remember I
would have taken from this dive are 3 turtles, and high on the reef a
large scorpion fish, and surgeon fish changing colors and being
cleaned by wrasse quite near to me. Diego said in his briefing that
we'd end the dive at 60 min or 50 bar or when we got bored with the
orange fishies. Almost the latter happened, as we went up after
having reached a max depth of 26 meters, only 50 minutes dive time.
Another of Eiko's photos: Vance GoPros a manta
Our second and third dives on this day
were again on Karang Makassar. As with the day before, on the first
dive we saw maybe 7 mantas, often in pairs and again with long
encounters, since they were just hanging out in strong current,
scarfing up the plankton.
One, the one I call V, went right overhead
of Danny and I (and current wrenched me off the rock I was tenuously
clutching when I tried to twist around to take the overhead picture).
On this dive, we were pretty focused on manta, max depth 17 meters,
50 min.
On the 2nd dive of this day
at Karang Makassar we dropped in at a far point where the current was
against us so we aborted and returned to the dinghy and got a drop to
a more favorable spot currentwise, but 30 bar lighter in our tanks.
Still the dive was shallow, 17 meters max, so we got 50 min on round
2. It was a so so dive by Karang Makassar standards, bleak terrain with a white
tip at rest, a large monarch sting ray in the rubble valley, a couple
of turtles, and toward the end of the dive when we least expected it,
coming down the valley was a lone lost manta. For Karang Makassar it was not up to expectations (only one manta), but seriously, on how
many dives worldwide would you see all that and be by any stretch
disappointed?
The place where the boat anchored each
night was called Siaba Besar. Diego outlined a plan for us the next
day to do a challenging current dive outside the bay and then a
second dive after breakfast at the mouth of the bay, and a third dive
on the way home. However, something dramatic happened at 10 p.m that
night that altered this plan. Coming up from our last dive on
Karang Makassar that afternoon, we had all noticed a split in the
siding on the dinghy we were using as a chase boat, and we thought it
was funny at the time, but that evening, the boat sank. Actually it
wasn't the boat itself; the boat was eventually hauled up to the point it
could be bailed and refloated, but it was its engine sinking that
meant that our last day diving would be without a chase boat, and
this somewhat altered where we could dive our last day on this trip.
July 26
Diego dutifully woke us up at 6 a.m but
since we didn't have a chase boat, we had to dive starting at our
anchorage in Siaba Besar. Therefore we started over sand but went as far as the reef where we
started to feel current, with which we couldn't proceed. All tolled, our
profile was 17 meters for 55 min. It was not a bad dive all things considered. We saw
turtles as far as we got on the reef, I found a blue spotted ray, and
Diego pointed out a snake eel in the sand. Heading back over coral
toward the boat, we found a white tip meandering in the bommies. It
was a nice, relaxing dive for first thing in the morning.
After breakfast we moved the boat to
Pengah Kecil, where we dived 19 meters, 55 minutes (kecil means small, as in island; basar means large). The choice of spot was dictated by the fact that the boat
could be brought near to the island, and to do it safely we had to
stay in the lee and zig zag as at Bolong the day before. Avoiding
current meant an easy dive, but no big Komodo stuff either, though we
saw a lot of micro life, pygamy clownfish, and an eagle ray that
zoomed down the reef over us, made a long pass out into open water,
and then returned to the reef to buzz us a second time. Again, not a
bad dive, and the best we could expect under the circumstances.
Our final dive of the trip was at
Sabayor island, 17 meters, 60 min, Here the boat moored in the lee
of the island and we did a round trip over the reef and back to the
boat. This made it again a conservative dive, but Bobbi spotted a
young eagle ray that let me come up behind it and take its picture,
and Danny found a little crab next to clownfish on an anenome. We
also found nudibrachs and other creatures too numerous to mention.
Overall it was a great trip. We all
enjoyed the mantas and the opportunity to learn so much more about
them and appreciate their vulnerability. The Wicked crew were great
company for 4 days, and Diego was an incredibly competent guide, as
was Gafur, the Indonesian divemaster acting sweep, always worth
lagging behind and hanging out with for the things he could point
out. The folks did the best they could, but the big cloud over the
silver lining was the chase boat sinking, a huge crimp in the program.
And also, dive shops there were telling people water temps were 29 degrees,
and were therefore steering people into shorty wetsuits, which they seemed to have a lot of as opposed to full-length ones. That turned out to be inappropriate. Actual water temps were
colder, plus all the currents meant scraping on rocks, so that Bobbi
and Dusty couldn't help getting cut up and stung while holding on to
whatever they could during the times we had to stay low and watch mantas. Me, I
had insisted on a full length 3 mm, so I was fine, but I was stung on
my hands by hydroids sometimes, and Danny changed to a 5 mm at some
point on the trip. So I would say if you do this trip, and if you
have the option, try and avoid diving in a shorty if at all possible.
July 12, Nomad Ocean Adventure speedboat trips to Musandam
My logged dives #1211-1212
Sérgio's wife Daniela is a colleague of mine at work. She told me that Sérgio had recently certified as an open water diver and was wondering if he could join us on one of our trips, but though he had completed the course in May, still in July he had still not received his certification. I offered to contact the dive center and see what the problem was, and soon his certification was visible on on PADI's Dive Chek, certified in May, processed in July, but now he was legit to dive with me. I woke up after a deep, long sleep at Nomad Ocean Adventure on Friday and met Sérgio, who had driven down that morning from Al Ain, and after a chat over coffee, we decided to start working on his advanced course, so we arranged to do our two dives that day as an advanced o/w boat dive, and peak performance buoyancy dive.
Seas were a little rough due to rain over the mountains, so the boatman took his time, taking an hour and a half to reach Ras Morovi. But once there we had a great first dive. Sérgio and I had worked out correct exposure protection, I had extra weights, we fine tuned buoyancy on the bottom with fin pivots and set out to explore the reef. Vis was decent and Sérgio's diving was fine. We skirted the bottom looking for rays and came up to the cave where I can always find at least one crayfish. That cave is home to batfish as well and they are not camera shy. Just outside the cave a trio of lion fish posed for photographers.
We continued south along the reef till I judged it was time to pop over to the other side. I have a favorite spot on this dive, a grotto where there are sometimes sting rays, and I had mentioned to Sérgio that turtles lived in this neighborhood. As we progressed along the eastern side of the reef, heading north now, I moved deliberately ahead of other divers who had also popped over to this side of the reef, so as to be first to the grotto to see what might be lurking there. There were no rays, but we came upon a very large turtle relaxing there.
When we came along he contemplated our presence and decided we were crowding him, so he moved slowly and gracefully out of his niche and headed down the other side of the reef, and I followed him with my GoPro.
Sérgio's air held out well and we had a 50 minute dive plus a safety stop. Sérgio had the typical novice problems with buoyancy toward the end of the dive and surfaced inadvertently, but unlike most at his stage of diving he got control of it and came back down to finish out the safety stop. To make all of this a learning experience we decided to conduct the next dive as a peak buoyancy one. We finished lunch and motored over to Lima Rock to see if the seas had calmed enough for diving there. The south side was still too rough, with waves crashing on the island, but the north was sheltered, so we went in there. Again we would work on fin pivots, breathing and hovering, and do swim-throughs as buoyancy exercises. We entered the water at about the middle of the north side of Lima. My strategy here was to reach the point and see what was there. Along the way we found this cute little yellowmouth with a wrasse exploring all the yellow parts. I meant to take this as a video with my GoPro, in which case you would have seen the little blue wrasse enter way inside the moray's mouth and disappear down the throat, only to emerge and continue his ministrations. However the GoPro has no display and works on button presses, so I had pressed one too many, and the GoPro was in a mode where it takes multiple shots of the same scene, but only over a second or two, so I didn't get the video shot I wanted.
Sérgio signaled he was at 100 bar as we neared the point but there was little current there, so there was no problem edging our way past the gap and further along the wall. There was a swirling school of jacks present, and I went out on the rock where John and I had found the barracuda the week before hoping to get a shot of them this time; I was very aware of my camera today :-) However, the barracuda weren't home so we went back to the gap and found a crayfish in a crevice. Sérgio signaled 50 bar so we worked our way around the corner and into safety stop position at 5 meters on the reef, heading back the way we had come on the north side. Our dive profile was 18 meters at 39 minutes, plus the safety stop.
Chris and Armand were already back on the boat when we emerged, but they had seen an eagle ray, perhaps the same one I saw last week, at about 12 meters depth near where we had surfaced. The boatman went around picking up other divers on the north side but avoided the south where white horses raged. However, some of our divers had rounded the point and were now floating in the chop. We picked up two, and the one from Oman, Nasser, amazingly fasting despite the heat and salt water, asked if the others had seen what was behind the school of jacks. Neither had seen anything there, but Nasser insisted he had seen a whale shark swish its tail and move away. He had a big camera and owned a diver center in Seeb. If he got the shot maybe we'll see it on his website, http://sealegends.net/photogallery. So all in all, it was a nice day of diving, with plenty of critters around, and I'm looking forward to diving with Sérgio again when he is ready to complete his advanced course.
July 5 and 6, Nomad Ocean Adventure speedboat trips to Musandam
My logged dives #1206-1210
John has been talking for some time about doing a course with me. He has a dive certificate from a long defunct Australian agency from 1978, and since he has some logged dives, I offered to give him an advanced course under the PADI experienced diver program. He works for the National newspaper and travels a lot, but some time ago he had asked me to set aside this weekend for a course. But then I didn't hear from him for a long time so I was surprised when he wrote to ask "if we were still on". Bobbi had just gone to the states, so I was available, and I took him up on it, especially as he was kind enough to do the driving across the country. We picked up Nicki somewhere along the way, and pitched up at Nomad for dinner, some good company, and a good night's sleep, not something I normally get on weekdays. The border crossing, sometimes an issue, had gone smoothly, the agent on duty checking our papers through the window of his air-conditioned kiosk.
Friday July 5, 2013
Friday July 5 we found ourselves on Fizzy's boat, destination Octopus Rock; we being Nicki and John and some other military types and Chris from UK and the German Marcus diving with Bob from Scotland. Paul was aboard training Vince Cording, an ex advanced student of mine, in deep specialty. Most of our boat were diving nitrox so sorting the tanks with each diver's name on it was a challenge at the start of the dive, passing tanks around a small boat, and John and I using generic air.
Can you spot the torpedo ray :-)
John and I decided to do the first dive as a deep dive and since Paul was taking Vince to the north east for depth, and since I have almost never dived in that direction, I decided to go there. There was only a slight current pulling us west, a fairly benign condition for Octopus Rock. It was a beautiful dive as Octopus Rock usually is, with good vis and the usual suspects, a topedo ray in the sand, swarms of trigger fish, batfish at the cleaning stations, and clown fish in the anemones. We saw some large honeycomb morays and at 5 meters on our safety stop on the shoulder of the rock, there were the resident jacks.
We had planned a multilevel dive of 24 meters for 20 minutes, 16 for 10, and the rest of the dive for however much time we needed at 12 meters, based on my experience using the wheel. In the event, we didn't need all that time. We were doing our safety stop after 22 minutes, so for calculating a pressure group for the next dive, we used the 29 minute NDL on the tables for 25 meters.
One reason the dive had been so short was that John was having buoyancy issues as divers with limited experience do, so during lunch in the surface interval I explained how to control it, and we did the next dive as a peak buoyancy dive, on Lima Rock South. We started near the west end and went along the wall to the east. Vis seemed a little more cloudy here, and I kept the dive to 18 meters to give us a 45 minute bottom time in our pressure group after our surface interval, and conserve John's air, though this put us on a wall where I would normally have gone lower to the sand, not much on the wall. So I decided to rise, a challenge to someone working through buoyancy, but John vented in time to keep to the new level of 12 meters. Later in the dive, he had to work out buoyancy to follow me down to see a crayfish I'd lit up in a cave, and further on he decided to take a picture of a yellow-mouthed moray, and again had to breathe himself down to it to stay in position (though he was pinching the rocks as well to keep level, he confessed later, and as can be seen, left hand, in the photo below).
The high point of the dive was right at the end, with John coming on to 50 bar. I saw a flash of silver, in the shape of a fleeting sail, further down the reef. I spurted down to have a look and found a huge eagle ray hanging on the reef nose first, about 4 meters in wingspan. They spook easily so I eased in as best I could without startling it. After a few long seconds, he became aware and fled to mid-water, but I was still able to follow his shadow a few seconds more as he turned and circled almost out of sight. Only later did I realize I hadn't thought to use my GoPro :-( one of three missed photo ops on this weekend ). But the buoyancy work was paying off, John lasted 41 minutes on this dive, plus another 3 min on the safety stop.
The second missed photo op came on our night dive at the Caves at Fishhead Rock. We managed to recruit enough paying customers to make it worth Nomad's while so Fizzy got back in gear and conducted us northward. I had thought we were going to the near cave but it seems they had discovered the one I had found some years ago. After going over the procedures with John we entered the water and as luck would have it, luck because on a night dive you never really know where you are, John and I stumbled on the cave first.
I happen to know it has an exit to the surface, so it's a more or less legal night dive, not a real cave in other words, but it's still dark when you wander it with a torch and penetrate. John stayed close behind ... also on night dives it's not perfectly clear who is close behind you, but I recognized his fins and his dangling alternate light.
So we were slowly moving into the cave, deliberately, keeping off sides, top, and bottom, when I thought I saw light ahead. The top of the cave so soon? Not at all, the white was the rippling underside of a large two meter wide marble ray disturbed in his night rest and now looking for a way out around the blinding bathyscapes that were moving in on him. He wasn't frantic, just probing, seeing where he could slip his biomass through where we weren't. I moved to the side as he rippled by and then to my surprise he was followed by second one. And then they both slipped by us and were no longer there. Fizzy said later she had spotted one near the entrance to the cave.
I had deliberately left my GoPro behind thinking there wouldn't be enough light in a night dive, but I think there was, the marble rays were impressive in the torchlight, so I was kicking myself a second time that day, another memorable moment unrecorded, like countless such moments in the 40 years I've been diving without a camera (and 30 without a computer). One of these days I'll tell my grandchildren about them.
For this dive, we saw also some gaily dancing squids (also illuminated well in torchlight) and some perky grasshopper shrimp, spotted from glowing red eyes in the torchlight, move closer, and they move away like a flea. The most interesting thing besides the rays was how we surfaced inside another cave. I had noticed we had been covering bare rock the last of the dive, unusual since there is usually coral here. But when we came up and saw we were inside an air pocket in a cave we realized that the reason there was no coral was that we had ended in a place that doesn't get sunlight. Another buddy team came up in a similar place and one of the guys got quite anxious because there was no obvious way out short of going back under, and he was low on air. But in our case, I detected a place where the surge seemed to be coming from and found there an opening that led to night sky. I guess the other buddies did about the same because they emerged a few minutes later. Our dive had lasted 30 min plus the safety stop, and we had got to 15 meters during John's successful round trip compass exercise over the sand.
Saturday July 6, 2013
So three dives through the advanced course and two to go. After dinner back at Nomad and another good sleep, we were back up and on the dive boats, this time to Lima Rock North for a dive we would conduct as an advanced boat dive. We started at about the middle of the north side and headed east, taking advantage of the numerous swim throughs there to work on John's buoyancy as we went. We picked up a little current as well and half an hour into the dive we had arrived at the gap and were shooting through in almost still water to the other side. Here we found schools of jacks off the point and a slight current that we had to pull into. I don't think John used the rocks, so his air depleted rapidly in the current. As he neared 50 bar, I kept our depth to ten meters or less, then decided we should let ourselves drift back to the point and use as little air possible to let stuff come to us rather than us work to get to it. Unfortunately there wasn't much there apart from the schools of fusiliers, so with John nearing time he would need to come up I decided to have us drift a little further over the deeper rock off the point, and there we found the school of barracuda I'd been looking for. We dropped into it to let the barracuda swirl around us before deciding to ascend as John was low on air. On ascent I realized that concern about depth and John's air had caused me to space on the third great video of the trip, as I had forgot again to fire up my GoPro. But John did well. After going a bit deep on one of the exercises early in the dive, reaching 24 meters before we'd realized it, our dive had lasted 45 min plus the safety stop.
For our last dive, we stopped at Ras Sanut (Wonder Wall) on the way home for the last required dive of the AOW course, Navigation. We didn't see much in the process, but we set up the compass courses very well. We started on a south heading for 30 meters, at the end of which I left my hat weighted down with nearby rock rubble. Then we returned north to the start, where I'd put up my reel. Finally we went east 30 meters and then south the same distance, where we got down to 18 meters. Now when we turned west, we should find my hat at the end of 30 meters, which we did. I collected that, and from there it was an easy 30 meters back to the reel. I recoverd that and we exausted our air in the rest of a 41 minute dive much higher up on the reef.
And at the end of that, John Henzell, having fulfilled all the other requirements for AOW (eLearning, filled in logbooks signed) earned his Advanced Open Water certificate. Congratulations, John (you been grandfathered :-)
June 21 and 22, Al Marsa Liveaboard
Dhow trip in Musandam
My logged dives #1200-1205
Once a year we pamper ourselves on the
Al Marsa liveaboard dhow trip for diving in Musandam, two nights and
six dives out of Dibba harbor. The weather has been very mild so far in UAE with cool evenings
and very little sweating after dark, but with many expats away on
holiday and for those who remain behind, an assumption of hot humid
nights on the deck of a dhow, Al Marsa reduces its prices in summer,
making the trip feasible for those on teaching salaries.
An Al Marsa Dhow weekend is about as
relaxing as it gets on weekends in the UAE, if relaxing for you is
something less sedentary than a weekend spent by the pool at a posh
hotel. We shed the work week on the drive to Dibba, endure the
increasing hassles and delays at the UAE border checkpoint, and
finally cross into Oman for the short drive to Dibba harbor, where we
give ourselves over to being pampered and catered for two nights.
Most in our group were searched at the border and with so many expats
trying to cross on weekends, it was almost 10:00 p.m. before we had
all arrived on the dhow. The group were Tom Longo, another
instructor, his friend and colleague Stella from Italy, Greg Golden
and Greg Perry with his visiting dad who went by “coach”, Jay
who'd flown down from Doha with his daughter Shelby, and two nice
beginning divers, both named Tariq, originally from Egypt (but one
born in Minnesota). We assembled for what should have been sundowners
on the top deck followed by dinner, a nightcap, and restful sleep in
a cold cramped cabin (under a cozy blanket) while the sounds of the
engines lulled us to sleep for the trip up to Khor Hablain, the long
fjord where we used to go camping with BSAC divers when we first came
to UAE.
Some time after dawn (a lie-in for us;
normally at home weekdays we're up before dawn at 4 a.m.) we got the
knock on the door to get ready for our first of 4 dives that day, a
short speed boat ride to the mouth of the khor, called Ras Samid. I
don't know if I've ever dived there before. There was some
discussion of how much wetsuit to wear. Our dive guide Robert said
the water was 29 degrees. I wondered aloud if that was just at the
surface but some were wearing shorties, and I dressed lightly in .5
mm lycra body suit, an only slightly thicker rash vest, and a 3 mm
farmer john overall. Once I'd gone below 10 meters, I was almost
immediately cold and vowed to revert to 5 mm next dive.
Vis was good and the dive was pleasant
despite the chill. I don't recall what there was to see on the first
part of the dive, but as we rounded the corner on Ras Samid we came
into a large shoal of barracuda, possibly numbering in 3 digits. For
some moments we were in amongst them, but then things returned as
before, comfortable but not outstanding diving.
In our dive briefings we were always
told 50 min, or 50 bar. Since we were given the choice, all our
dives were an hour that weekend because we always went for the 50 bar
option. We came up in surge that was booming on the rocks, making us
think the boat was trying to recall us, but it was the waves hitting
the headland with sharp retorts carried clearly underwater. We were
recovered by the speed boat in higher than normal seas and back
safely on the dhow, we enjoyed breakfast on the top deck and retired
to our quarters for an hour's nap.
By the next dive at Ras Morovi I had
sorted the problem with the SD, but there still wasn't much to take
pictures of there. Robert had suggested we do the outer island which
was fine by me, but he wanted to dive inside, in the channel. He
figured the current was running north to south on either side of the
island. I aked if we could do the outside and he readily agreed.
The briefings were conducted on the dhow and our equipment was left
in the speedboat all set up for the next dive. As we left the
protection of the khor in the small boat we hit heavy seas that
sprayed us in the face and made working our way to Morovi tedious.
But when we arrived, Robert figured we could carry out the plan. Most
of us were advanced or better and the Tariqs were game, so we put on
our kit and the boat brought us near to the rock where we entered the
water and descended to the relative calm beneath the waves as quickly
as possible.
The plan was to go with the southerly
current on the east side of the outer island and end up rounding the
south tip to the west. We carried out the plan despite the current
being contrarily against us. This made it hard going but all the
other divers followed except Robert, who reversed with Tareq and
Tareq to ride the current around to the west side, where they saw two
very large sting rays. It seems the current was spiraling around the
island because even when we crossed to the other side we had it
against us and Bobbi and I ended up letting it carry us back the way
we had come, to the south tip of the island. The year before this
very spot had shown us close ray encounters including a pair of eagle
rays <http://vancesdiveblogs.blogspot.ae/2012/07/fun-diving-on-al-marsa-liveaboard-to.html>, but today we were only able to find crayfish hiding in the
rocks, in addition to surrounding us with the usual panoply of reef
fishes. It was a pleasant relaxing dive though. I was fine in 5 mm
wetsuits, Bobbi and I the only divers in the group to have them.
The routine on Al Marsa trips is to
make two dives from wherever the boat has spent the first night, and
on this day it hadn't traveled far due to sea conditions and a late
start due to most of our group having had to queue up to be searched at the border. After
the second dive lunch is served on deck and the dhow is moved to Lima
headland. The kilometers long headland is a natural and consistent
overnight shelter, but the default dive from there is the headland, a
common destination for day trips out of Dibba, followed by a night
dive in the same spot near the dhow. In his briefing Robert
suggested a conservative plan that would keep us back off the point,
start a little inland, pass under the dhows, and be picked up as far
toward the point as we would get. I suggested not passing under the
dhows but start on the seaward side of them. This would also give
some the option of diving the point, and others the option of staying
safe and not risking the currents there. Vis was poor near the dhows
but improved as we neared the point.
I had left my GoPro behind by
accident, which of course guaranteed that we would see interesting
creatures. We started out with a torpedo ray we almost descended on
top of. Bobbi and I opted to go with Robert and see what he could
find us, and he found us a small (not nudibranch, but a common slug
with orange, black, and white thorny processes). One interesting
thing we came onto was a pair of morays having a fight. They
slithered along the sea bed beside one another with their heads
cocked each at the other and mouths wide with fangs bared. They held
themselves this way as they scooted along the bottom together, but no
blows were actually struck, and one suddenly broke off and went for
cover.
In the last part of the dive, as we
neared the clearer water near the point, we found lots of big puffer
fish. As we were about to ascend after an hour's dive, a turtle came
up from depth and we went down to see it. It was in clear water, it
passed near us unperturbed, I framed a picture of Bobbi swimming
with it, but that picture is in my mind and not on my GoPro :-( And
back on the boat Greg and Greg thanked me for suggesting the starting
point I did because they made it to the point and saw a pair of eagle
rays there :-)
Back on the boat we made tea and waited
for sunset. The two Tariqs and Stella went off in the boat with
fishing gear and came back with a half dozen snapper that made a
great lunch next day. By then it was dark and we had put fresh
batteries in our torches. We started from the speedboat which took us
around the first point in sight of the dhow, object being to dive
back to the dhow underwater. Conditions were perfect with warm balmy
air stirred by a sea breeze and comfortable in the water with 5 mm
suits. We scoured the undersea features for animals and the first
thing I found was a bright red miniature crab in some hard lattice
coral. We found caves and walls full of grasshopper shrimp whose eyes
glowed in the torches, giving them away by the hundreds, and fewer
but frequent delicate red and white banded crabs. Tom Longo found a
couple of crabs that wear anemomes on their shells, or anenomes that
hitch rides with this particular crab, whichever. We found sleeping
parrotfish, puffers, lots of lion fish that were red in the white
torchlight, and Bobbi found scorpion fish. The find of the night was
a ray hiding under a ledge several meters long from head to tail, and
we left him alone when he started to ripple at being discovered.
Back on the boat we were served dinner,
another buffet washed down with smuggled seafarer's grog, and we went
to bed to be ready for our diving on Lima Rock next day. We did two
dives there, starting with the north side first thing in the morning.
Robert called the currents well. He briefed the first dive to head
east, reef on the right. Of course he mentioned we might see a whale
shark and everyone was anticipating that.
We saw no whale sharks in our two dives
there, but the first dive we saw much else. The first thing was to
find a small cave that Robert told us about that I had never noticed
before. It was more like a chimney where you could see up to lighter
water above. The next thing to happen was a ray shooting over the top
of Bobbi and I, heading into the sand, but then doubling back and
passing right beneath us while I struggled to get my camera in play.
I finally got it working as the ray was heading away from us over the
sand. I chased but he easily pulled away from me.
The north side of Lima is full of swim
throughs that have batfish in them, and no telling what you can find
it you shine a light into an alcove. We found a moray out of its
lair and I think I captured it on video, but by now my camera was
running down its battery … it doesn't hold a charge well. I almost
prefer diving before I got distracted with such considerations.
Current improved in our favor and we
found we could easily work out to the point. Bobbi found us a
honeycomb moray hiding in a rock near there. We turned to shoot the
gap between north and south Lima. At that point we were following
Tom Longo and his group but I got attracted to all the jacks buzzing
us there and lost track of the other divers.
We expected strong
counter current to hit us on the south side but this was not the
case. Instead the current on the south side was running westward,
toward Ras Lima. And it was a powerful current and made diving
effortless as we drifted along the famous Blank Wall at Lima. We
came around the wall but hit some back current where the sand and
reef resume. We were both low on air here but we hung out at 5
meters for 3 minutes before surfacing to discover we were in a
bracket of rock and needed to move out to sea a bit so the boat could
see us, as they might not be looking for us on that side. Eventually
they puttered along and picked us up.
So it was back to the dhow anchored off
Lima headland for breakfast and another nap. The air conditioner in
our room had gone off in the night and kept us up an hour fiddling
with it, so we wanted to catch up on sleep, but the aircon problem
persisted and we had to wait till the boat started motoring back to
Dibba before we could get a proper nap.
This one's for Jay!
By then I had recharged the GoPro and
we had had our second dive, again at Lima Rock, south side this time.
Robert again called the current, dropping us far to the west and
telling us the rock would be on our left when that morning it was
raging in the opposite direction. But he was right, we had little
current at the start and were able to easily make our way in
excellent vis. I went deeper than others to about 20 meters looking
into the sand. Most went along the reef at 12 or so and moved ahead.
We ended up with Robert and the two Tariqs. Bobbi found a nice pair
of nudibranchs, which I attempted to get on video. There wasn't
anything else special until a half hour into the dive I dropped to a
ledge, shined a light inside, and found a black cowtail ray hiding
there. I videod till it started to get agitated, then left it in
peace. Bobbi tried to call the others down but they were already
heading up, low on air, Robert accompanying them.
The current was downright benign so we
found ourselves finning again along the blank wall but with no
resistance from current from the direction we had come that morning.
Until we reached the gap that is. The point with its current is of
course the sweet spot of a Lima Rock dive. If you can find the
current and stay there then animals often come to you. Jacks swirl
here, you can easily find yourself surrounded by barracuda, and if
you can get deep and off the point you might find devil rays
cavorting. Current is also a favorite haunt of whale sharks, who like
to use their powerful mass to keep themselves positioned so plankton
is swept by the current into their mouths. If you can reach the
points in this area, find the current, and stay there, this could be
the high point of your Lima Rock dive.
We were unable to pull to the other
side through the current pouring into the narrow gap. It was the
kind of current that could sweep a mask off your face. But we
managed to cross the channel and climb the rock on the far side where
the current here pinned us to its face. Working our way atop that
rock we found a fish net attached there and held on to it we could
keep ourselves in the current and see what would come to visit us.
On this day we saw only jacks. But
others before us found the barracuda here which might have been below
where we were. We hung there as my air slipped below 50 bar. We
must have been at about ten meters so we would have to let go to do
our safety stop. This can be a pleasant journey. Often when we head
mid water from here, we pass through the barracuda that congregate
off that point. But not today, for us, though others saw them.
I like this kind of diving. Bobbi less
so, though I'm proud that she can, and will, do it.
Fun diving with Bobbi and Nicki,
Rachel, Steve and Anna, and Bonnie Friday, add Charlie and Liv on Saturday, cheese diving at Nomad hostel in between
Our first dive Ras Morovi, we got dropped
in at the north. It was a glorious sunny day, not too hot, and water cool
enough for 5 mm wetsuits. First dive was very nice and relaxed. I took
pictures of different colored soft corals, a large honyecomb moray, and
some lionfish hovering around a rock. We went into sand at 20 meters
coming round the point and then followed it up into the shallower
channel, a good move for the divers low on air. Rachel and I somehow lost
the others when I realized we were coming on to my favorite cave at
Ras Morovi and I scurried to get to it while Nicki was back taking her own pictures. The cave has a small alcove where there are sometimes rays
and then a deeper alcove in the back. Since Rachel was with me and
likes caves I decided to go into it as far as I could and really
examine what was wayyyy back in the back. We found a couple of large fish
hiding back there, agitated that we had lit up their world, and we
lit up the red eyes of some glass shrimp as well, and found a long spiky
tentacle of an ever-feeding invertebrate. Leaving the cave area we met back up
with Nicky and Bobbi and found a turtle in the cabbage coral. We had
only consumed 100 bar but we were an hour into our dive so we
surfaced, and Bobbi and Nicki followed minutes later.
We pulled in to the bay to have lunch. Nomad goes out of its way to accommodate multiple dietary preferences, so we had had a flurry of emails during the week about which vegetarians would eat fish, who was strictly veg, and when egg and cheese sandwiches were suggested I replied that I didn't eat egg. So on the boat one sandwich was produced which said 'no egg', and it appeared to be for me. It was just cheese. This was almost worst case except that there was an additional container with meat and cheese. Apparently the cook had remembered that I had had a diver before who couldn't eat bread and although that diver was not with us, the cooks had associated me with him and had included this spare chicken to be put with the cheese wrap that James said resulted in a man-wich. It was funny because the evening before, when I had sent joking email saying that two of our divers didn't eat meat but were partial to “lobster and large shrimps” two plates of fish and shrimps were brought out and the vegetarians concerned were sought.This happened both nights, so we all shared the windfall at dinner. Nomad do go out of their way to please our palates.
After lunch we motored past Lima Rock
because James didn't want to take his discover scuba divers there for
risk of current and we ended up at Ras Sanut instead. This turned
out to be cracking dive, our best ever at Ras Sanut. While waiting
for our group to descend I went to investigate a large boulder out to
sea and found a large marble ray parked next to it. He was friendly.
He tried to ignore me at first but then decided to move, but instead
of fleeing, he came towards me, and then went around me and then
circled back and came right up to me again. When he moved off we
found another one like it a little further on, who put on the same
performance. And further on from that we found a huge cow tail ray
pointed into a rock with his tail sticking out. We photographed it
with our GoPros.
This was a super dive. Later on we
found a turtle, and shoals of fish hovering dreamily off the deep
rocks. At one point a huge lone barracuda passed right over Nicki's
bow and headed up the reef. I followed him to a cleaning station
where he opened his mouth wide for the wrasse to enter and clean. We
found large honeycomb morays on all our dives that weekend. Toward
the end of the dive I went to a deep boulder with a school of
bannerfish hanging off it and Rachel followed but we lost the others.
We found a swim through there with a huge crayfish inside. We
surfaced through the picturesque corals past the batfish cleaning
stations and places where the triggerfish were hiding in rocks and
found a last sting ray, this one more diamond shaped than the others.
The dive lasted an hour and was superb.
Later we found that the first whale
shark sightings of the season had been made on Lima Rock that day.
We were disappointed to miss the whale shark but we had had a great
alternative dive instead. Next day we returned to Lima Rock and had
two dives there, but no one saw any whale sharks from any dive boat (from any company) our second day there.
Still our dives were pleasant. There was a little current on Lima Rock so rather than fight it out to the east point we opted for a nice drift dive most of the way on the south side of Lima Rock.
There were lots of honeycomb morays, including one that came up behind us when we were filming its cousin and went through my legs on his way to a suitable lair. As usual on Lima Rock there were lots of batfish being cleaned, including one arge batfish with a serrated edge, and a school of batfish at 5 meters followed
by a school of young barracuda on the western point.
For our last dive, we decided to try Lima Rock north side and attempt the east point from the rear that way. Our group comprised Bobbi and Nicki and Anna and
Steve. We started on the north side of Lima and rode the mild current (going clockwise around the rock it seemed) to
the corner where we shot the gap and hit current coming up the other
side. Bobbi and I pulled ourselves along with our hooks but there
were no huge barracuda here like before and no whale shark. We found
as we turned the corner on the south side of the island that the
current essentially dropped off, but vis became crystal clear, and
Nicki found a turtle resting on the bottom with no intent to move off
no matter how intrusively she caressed it with her camera. It was a beautiful dive but we'll have to come back to see the whale sharks.
Back in port, we took a parting shot at the Dibba Oman fish market:
