Just Another Dive :/

So after exploring Conger Alley on Sunday we visited again at night (23^rd January), hoping for more conger eel action than we had last time.

Myself, Laura & Fast Eddie followed the same route, rapidly descending through the thermocline and down to about 24m on the reef. I should point out that Laura was test driving a new undersuit. Upon arrival at the reef I instantly spotted Beryl the Seal who frequents these parts, though it seems I failed to communicate this with my two buddies who all thought I was asking them if they were OK.

Now, seals in general are pretty friendly and Beryl herself has been known to ‘assist’ divers on a safety stop to the surface. However, I challenge anyone who has never encountered a six foot long seal in the dark not burn through their air supply pretty darn quick.  With this in mind I led our merry band up to around 15m to allow for a longer a seal encounter.  Once there, the fun began!

Fast Eddie (who has never encountered a seal at anytime) caught his first glimpse at this point. I know this because his torch turned into an excited searchlight. Fortunately, I had briefed him beforehand. The briefing went as follows:

• If the viz all of a sudden goes to pot there is a seal in the water
• Beryl is fast, you’ll catch a glimpse of her and think ‘what the hell was that’
• Beryl is big, about the same size as you
• You’re drysuit may not remain dry

Turning my attention to Laura who was prevented from dumping air from her drysuit by her new undersuit,  and was signalling she had a problem and 100 bar in between grabbing rocks. Being the gentleman buddy I am, I dumped all the air I could from my suit and BCD to make myself negatively buoyant and offered my hand to keep Laura from champagne corking to the surface.

Heading home at pace, Fast Eddie realised, as I struggled to keep Laura down, Laura’s rock collecting wasn’t a geological survey and grabbed her by the straps on the other side. Beryl’s curiosity however became more intense and she used the opportunity to make a number of very close passes including one between Laura’s flailing legs. Suffice to say we all made it quite safely to the surface.

The highlight of my evening was at the surface when the conversation went like this:

Fast Eddie: You weren’t kidding about the size of Beryl.
Me: No.

All in all just another dive in Posiedon’s Parlour