La Fest de Murene - 11/04/2016

With just one more day to dive with my new found friends at Just Diving I headed on a the boat with a couple of Germans from Munich and a French guy called Alexander who would ultimately be my buddy for the day.

As always I chatted beforehand to establish his experience. He lived near Calais in France and was a fairly regular drysuit diver.  That immediately eased my fears because, as we all know, anyone who learns to dive in cold water finds the warm stuff easy in almost all conditions.

The day was mostly a check dive for the German couple so the sites were to be kept nice and fluffy. We dived two reefs - Shamenta and Tikoraye. Both were fairly pleasant providing a nice assortment of reef fish, nudibranchs, amd as Alexander would proclaim as we surfaced from the second dive "en Fest de Murene". 

Now, my French isn't great, but even I could translate his proclamation as a festival of moray eels. Though to say that, was little bit of a disservice to a dive that also had Garden and Ribbon eels on show too. Not to mention a number of stone, lion and scorpion fish.

Two nice dives and a great way to end my time diving in Mauritius - especially when Jean spotted two great nudibranchs.

Moray

Lionfish

Fryeria marindica

Anemone fish

Red Scorpion Fish

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.

King of the Castle - 07/04/2016

With what the Americans call Spring Break upon us my wife and I have headed for the Tropic of Capricorn and the tropical island of Mauritius. Before arriving I had contacted a local dive company called Just Diving led by a keen underwater photographer Olivier Fayolle. It turned out to be a great choice.

On this the first day I went diving alone and after a flash of my ScotSAC Master diver card was immediately accepted into the fold as an official Dive Ninja which meant that we were going to a more advanced site - Kingfish Castle.

We loaded onto the small Just Diving boat and headed out through the lagoon to the channel that exists between Mauritius and Coin de Mire Island.

By the time we hit the site the swell was up at around 2.5m (3m in my head) and as someone who isn't a huge fan of boats I was starting to feel nervous. I shouldn't have though. I've done this stuff before and survived....and enjoyed it.

We rolled back - negative entry - and immediately I saw the large rock beneath surface pushing up the waves. We dropped down in a considerable surge to 32m and headed for the small cave where Olivier knew the Kingfish lived.

They were there. We admired them for a few minutes before working our way back to the boat pick up, watching a free swimming Moray on the way. However, it was the end of the dive that threw up the most interesting encounter. As we sat at around 6m doing our safety stop beneath us something was moving at around 20m. A shark, too far way to photograph I watched, it potter about, before continuing with its day. 

As I posted on Facebook after the encounter, 

"Today I saw a white tip reef shark, it hovered beneath us as we floated in the deep blue. We regarded one another before it went about its business. Sharks are extraordinary, we need to protect them."

From there it was back into the boat and off to Eden Reef, a very pleasant but relatively fluffy reef dive on the outer edge of the Mauritian lagoon. Here, the only thing that happened was that Olivier made me the subject of one of his photographs - an image I'll treasure.

Me

Starfish

School of fish

Kingfish

Another Dive on the Wall - 27/03/2017

Whenever I do certain dives I have certain tunes going round in my head. Tonight diving at Anchor Point with Jester and Kingmaker was one such time. 

I've dived here a few times, and only once would I say I'd really enjoyed the dive and that was last year. Even then I'd never really done so well in terms of exploring the wall, always tending to head too far north to catch the wall at depth.

When I suggested it as a location I wasn't sure Kingmaker was convinced of my assertion that it was only 15-20 minutes by St Catherines - he actually tested me on the way home and it was pretty much 20 minutes.

Anyway, after my alleged poor navigation last Monday this week the pressure was on Kingmaker to deliver. I could sense he was feeling it too. Why not Jester for lead diver I hear you ask. Good question, I suspect it's because he's a lazy wee bandit!

We went in and headed down hitting around 25m  at low tide. Still in a silt bed, Kingmaker was floundering then, by luck, he found it. He whirled in celebration. I offered a congratulatory high five.

The wall was covered in life, but unfortunately many of the anemones were closed, but we managed to spot some nice bloody Henry starfish, devonshire cup corals and an excellent little nudibranch which when I first saw I almost mistook for a sea squirt.

All in all it was just another dive on the wall. 

Despite the pleasant surface weather the water remained cold at just 4.4c.

All photos care of Jester,

Devonshire Cup Coral

Greater Spotted Frewbowski

Nudibranch

Bloody Henry

The Shallows - 26/03/2017

ScotSAC has a similar structure to PADI. Where PADI has an Openwater diver, ScotSAC has a Branch Diver. While at each level ScotSAC divers have a longer training time, they also tend to have a richer set of competencies but  a greater number of restrictions in the early stage. For example Branch Divers are required to dive with someone more qualified ScotSAC diver (a sport diver or master diver) when not out with an instructor training.

This is a good thing and it means inexperienced divers shouldn't find themselves in positions where they are putting themselves in any significant danger and will always have a more experienced buddy in the early stages.

Today I had volunteered to dive with one such diver in my club. He was restricted to 15m as a Branch Diver. I had suggested Twin Piers:

1. As a site he had never dived
2. A site where there are some cool things to see within the depth range

We arrived at the site in the midst of the three days of Scottish summer sunshine and bumped into a few of our Kilmarnock ScotSAC cousins. We chatted and got a vis report. It wasn't good.

They were right, I abandoned my plan to try and find the old truck axle and instead lead us down into the dark but relatively clear area around 15m.

On the first dive we did OK, spotting the small wreckage of a the barge, a lobster and a conger eel. 

The second dive was to be a little shorter largely so that I could get way with using just the one tank. By the time we re-entered the water the tide had gone out and the visibility had improved. It meant we had a nice wee descent through the big pier to the truck axle and by the time we were on the reef the we could see around 5m below us.

It was an almost perfect day for it and it meant a new diver could get another couple of dives under his belt and another 1hr 25 minutes logged underwater in the shallows.

Detours in the Dark - 20/03/2017

When the Gandalf of the Internet and Kingmaker turn up in what feels like GotI's mobile command vehicle, you know your going to have a little fun.

When we got to the A-Frames, our chosen sight for the evening, I was nominated as the dive guide.  I made a bold promise which in the relatively poor vis seemed to be a little optimistic given that for the first 14m you were unable to see much beyond a metre. So instead we ambled  aimlessly for about 35 minutes into an area where we rarely go.

The result was that we saw a clutch of young catsharks and a free swimming baby conger eel - which caused GotI to exclaim through his rebreather.

With no real idea of where we were, we took stock and swam back towards our entry point. As we did we found a couple of the a-frames. The frames, that if we'd hit them in the zero vis earlier in the dive all my promises would have been fulfilled.

As it was GotI was delighted, he'd never seen a free swimming baby conger eel. The Kingmaker was typically nonchalant - to be honest he's gotten grumpy in his old age, I'm not sure what impresses him these days. I think he liked my selfie surprise.

Selfie surprise

Cometh the Hour, Cometh the Man - 16/03/2017

You know summer is on the way certain creatures return to summer by the coast. Specifically, pink spotted sea cucumbers. Tonight's dive with Jester and the Barrman 

was confirmation of that. 

Arriving at twilight, we kitted up and headed, as is sometimes the case the loch had receded into the distance which meant that the bottom of the reef was within reach of those limited to just 30m.

The dive was a pretty calm affair, much more so than abuse ridden journey to the site.

There wasn't anything unusual until we reached the bottom of the reef and started to spot the sea cucumbers. They were still quite small, but they were back. Coming up the reef I spotted a few nudis pointed them out to the Barrman who was wondering what we were looking for. Then, he spotted his first nudibranch.

A sense of pride overwhelmed me, my mask began to fill up with tears of nudi joy. It was a beautiful moment as yet another diver entered the water a nudi virgin and emerged all the man he will ever be. OK, so I'm exaggerating but in a relatively pleasant, but normal dive it was a highlight.