Scapa Flow Day 3 - Mary Poppins - 11/06/2018

Day 3 on board the MV Karin was going to follow a very similar pattern to the previous day. 

Step 1. Dive a German High Seas Fleet Cruiser

Step 2. Eat

Step 3. Dive a a blockship

Our plan was therefore to dive the SMS Coln and then dive the Tabarka blockship.

I was settling into the routine, the diving while deep and technical was actually pretty straight forward.The Coln passed without incident for myself and the Wylie Fox. It was impressive and to someone who isn't a 'wreck guy' was fairly recognisable. We had spent about 40 minutes below 30m before starting to come up doing around 20 minutes of deco. Simple.

However, it was the shallow Tabarka that through me for a spin and reminded me how things can change quickly. Diving as a four, we had waited for slack water. I had WF's advice ringing in my ears - just get to the wreck an meet me there. 

So, I junmped in and got down. I was joined by the Landlady then the Barrman. We headed as a three towards the wreck where we met up with WF. We explored the inside, saw the boilers of the old steamer then headed towards the exit. The kelp was flat and the tide was running fast. 

The skipper had mistimed the tide and so the dive plan needed to change. WF and I put up an SMB as did the others. We emerged on the leeward side of the tide at which point WF's SMB acted as a sail and swept her away with the surface current. It was almost magical, a bit like Mary Poppins. This left me in a bottom current going the opposite direction and effectively on my own. I watched the others struggle with their own SMBs before deciding to go it alone.*

I popped up my own SMB and enjoyed the instant feeling of being whisked away. It was fun. Some time later I surfaced. It had been quite a ride. 

Coln Gun

Nudi

In the Tabarka

In the Tabarka

* I don't recommend solo diving, but myself and WF had agreed that as we both had redundancy the usual look around for a minute didn't apply. It's debatable if it's right or wrong, but we work on the presumption that we're solo diving anyway.

Coin De Mire and the Giant Tuna of Death - 10/04/2017

OK, so there might be a little hyperbole in the title of this blog, but there certainly was a giant tuna.

Day 2 of my diving adventure with Just Diving in Mauritius saw Gill.I.Am join me for a couple of plongees (that's french for diving). I had agreed the day before with Olivier to ensure that the diving was pretty fluffy for Gill - she has trouble equalising.

With that in mind the guys had arranged for us to travel across to Coin de Mire to dive "the wall". If you look at the picture from the island The Wall is on the left of the island.

Before, while being briefed, Olivier had explained that there was cleaning station frequented by large Tuna. I was skeptical I've been to many cleaning stations where, well, nothing seems to happen. So my expectations were low. However, as well as beautiful topography topside which continues under the waves the site is encrusted with coral and the usual assortment of reef fish.

We plopped in close to the shore and began working our was down the wall during slack water. Eventually once were down at around 31m as we came round a large rock I saw a large shadow swimming away from me. Machu our guide for the dive signalled to stay low and wait. Then around 30 seconds later the Tuna reemerged from the gloom to have its teeth cleaned. We watched. It was definitely big perhaps around 2-3m and with the exception of a whale shark in Mexico the biggest fish I've ever seen. 

On our second dive we did the same dive again but from the opposite direction. It felt different and this time it had a very pleasant current running allowing for a nice drift amongst the corals. I think Gill.I.Am enjoyed it.

Unfortunately, I had forgotten to pack the camera.

Day 5 - The Road To 200 - 22/11/2014

They say in diving that if you don't have a picture then it never happened. It's true, underwater your eyes can be easily decieved.

Today saw me undertake dives number 197-200. It seemed fitting that dive 200 was going to be a night dive. My log book is about 50% that.

However, before that particular moment of legend I still had to dive, Thomas, Woodhouse and Jackson reefs. The reefs lie in the Straits of Tiran in the Gulf of Aqaba.

The day was always going to be a bit farcical with one of Snapdragon's rhibs either broken down or burst. They hadn't been very reliable all week.

During the first dive (Thomas Reef) I spent most of my time watching the space between the edge of the reef and the blue. Then I saw something, something big. I was sure it was another reef shark. At the surface the Zookeeper disagreed, but the Lawman also claimed to have seen it. However, neither of us took pictures therefore we never saw it. Them's the rules!

Woodhouse Reef provided us with more drifting and an alleged 'cleaning station'. It did however provide us with one half of the legendary Derola buddy pair being that the first half was sitting the dive out. I liked it as a dive - long and straight with porcupine fish and a turtle.

Jackson Reef provided us with more drift diving and a prolonged wait on the surface to be picked up. However, the boat banter was enough (for some of us) to make up for the certain doom had it been an emergency. :)

Then came two hundred....

Banners and Butterflies

Turtle

Red Anemone

Camera Failure

Zookeeper & Porcupinefish

Day 3 - It Didn’t Start So Well – 20/11/2014

The day started badly. There was vomiting, medicinal drugs and time for recovery. As such I missed the first dive – yet another trip round the Thistlegorm. By the time we’d moved to the second site, the humorously named Small Crack, the drugs were kicking in. I was fit to dive.

The Small Crack began with a rhib to the outer part of the lagoon. We rolled off and dropped down to around 20m - practically on top of a large moray eel. Swimming along for what seemed like ages we finally reached the area that formed the crack. The tide which was rushing into the lagoon soon sucked us through the shallow canyon towards the boat. It was great fun. The Zookeeper and I missed it by a considerable margin and had to be towed back to the ship by the rhib. I felt a tinge of 007. The dive also saw me break my duration record – 71 minutes.

The remaining dives of the day were at a site named the Alternatives. I think  because you should dive somewhere alternative. Despite a dull first dive on the site the night dive improved considerably. The dive included:

• an inquisitive masked puffer fish
• a scrawled filefish (90cms)
• a bait ball being attacked by barracuda and squid

No biggies yet. However, tomorrow is another day.

Moray Eel

Swimming Away

Upstanding Member of the Dive Community

Masked Pufferfish

Goatfish

Scrawled Filefish

Day 1 - Into The Black & Blue – 18/11/2014

As I mentioned, probably a hundred times if I met you in the last few months, I’m now in Egypt diving off the Snapdragon -  a fairly grim Flowers of Sinai live-aboard. I’m bunked up with a very pleasant chap who we'll call Seanathon. I’ve dived with Seanathon before, well over a year ago. He's a decent chap, that said, he’s probably gutted be sharing with me. 

For diving purposes, my buddy for the diving side of things is the Zookeeper.

Today we did three dives, having arrived quite late last night. The sites were:

• Ras Katy – a shallow reef check dive
• Ras Satar – a deep wall drift dive
• Dunraven – a notable Red Sea wreck, with a nearby reef 

As I’m discussing a few dives I’ll stick to the more notable incidents. Essentially everything went to plan on dive one, luring me into a false sense of security and even delivering a very pretty octopus. It was too far inside its whole to photograph, so you’ll have to take my word for it being pretty.

Ras Satar was a quite different affair for me.

I once heard bittersweet being described as “watching your mother-in-law drive over a cliff in your brand new car.” I have no real issues with my mother-in-law, but this dive was bittersweet. I was bobbing along enjoying the drift and wall when after about five minutes what felt like a jolt of electricity shot through the right hand side of my face. As this was my first ever Nitrox dive, my first thought was it was a symptom of oxygen toxicity (at 22m *coughs*). The reality, however, was far more mundane.

I endured the rest of the dive, made only bearable by my first ever turtle sighting.  When I emerged I had a scarlet rash laden cheek and mouth. Apparently, it was a plankton sized jellyfish. 

I can tell you, even now, 9 hours later, my face is loupin. In addition, I cut my leg as I boarded the Zodiac.. As I said, bittersweet.

Finally, dive three was a night dive and both the Zookeeper and I were in our element. We enjoyed some nice lionfish action, a couple of moray eels and wide selection of night active fish.

Blue Spotted Ray

The Zookeeper

Pinnacle

Masked Butterfly Fish

Turtle

Large Table Coral