| Date |
Logged Dive # |
Location |
Diving with |
Trainees and buddies |
| January 17, 2005 |
633-634 |
Sabang, east of Pto Galera, Philippines: Escarcero
point west of Sabang Beach and around the corner through the hole in the wall
to Pink Wall and over the coral rubble
Afternoon dive at Shark Cave |
Triton Divers |
Diving just me with divemaster Mark, we descended
over typical philippines coral with lots of strands poking up to just off the
floor, many corals for ten min at 25 meters, till we saw a blue spotted ray,
and Mark signalled up gradually. We went comfortably with current to the hole,
just that, at 12 meters, nothing much inside but lots of big fish around, jacks
and triveli and a trio of chunky tuna. Then down a bit and around to the pink
wall. Nice but ... There was an orange nudibranch there and a scorpion fish,
some morays, and I found a large octopus in a hole. Nice dive, well led by
Mark, over an hour plus 3 min at 5 meters just a meter off the bottom where we
ended our dive.
That evening a pair of 'mericans wanted to go to Shark
Cave so I came along. Kheith dived with them so I got to go with Mark again. We
dropped down on shark cave and found a large rotund at least two meter long
black tip shark sleeping in it. We crawled in and bathed him with torch light
but he was wickedly unperturbed. The rest of the dive was anticlimactic though
we saw some big nudibranchs, and Mark came on a lovely crocodile fish. |
| January 17, 2005 |
635 |
The Canyon off Sebang |
Triton Divers |
Another excellent dive with Mark again. This time we
put in closer to the point, seas running rough, and made our way in adverse
currents to the canyon where there were schools of huge fish racing about. The
dive was pretty good and challenging though I forget the particulars exactly,
except that with all the exertion, pulling ourselves over the rocks and such, I
got low on air after about 40 minutes, and the nature of the dive was such that
we were see-sawing between 16 and 25 meters, and I found myself at 25 m with
about 60 bar of air. The way out was not up but upcurrent at an angle that
didn't get us even to 20 meters when I went into deco with 50 bar. I signalled
calmly but firmly to Mark. He looked around for a way along the contour only
momentarily before agreeing with me that a vertical ascent made the most sense,
and we got carried some way midwater by the current while doing our safety stop
(deco having burned off on the way up). It was fun back at the shop to watch
Mark animatedly explain to Kheith how we had clawed our way through currents
running counter to intuition. Mark confided that he'd had divers panic in such
conditions and he was glad I wasn't one of those. |
| January 20-21, 2005 |
636-637 |
House reefs off North Pandan Island |
The dive shop on North Pandan |
Made an afternoon dive on arrival at North Pandan,
me and a divemaster, and a morning dive next day with the French people I'd
hooked up with, Pierre, Jerome, and lissom Valerie. The reefs were redundantly
beautiful, reminiscent of Cook Islands, lots of small stuff but not much big or
saliently stimulating. I recall lots of nudibranchs. Interesting but I was
mainly passing time while awaiting a boat trip to Apo Reef. |
| January 22-23, 2005 |
638-642 |
Apo Island reefs |
The dive shop on North Pandan |
Diving again with, Pierre, Jerome, and Valerie.
First day was not as great as expected. First dive off a vertical wall 60
meters. I went to 30 in the clear water and stopped. Others went deeper. It was
easy to loose track in such clear water. Not much on the dive though except the
exquisite small stuff. Second dive of the day was slightly better with a white
tip to punctuate the experience. We put in at the island and walked a bamboo
boardwalk to an inland pool before returning aboard for our night dive. The
night dive was done in a stiff current, hard to hold position. Lots of
invertibrates, quite interesting. We slept aboard and in the morning did
another wall dive, more sharks and a turtle at the end. The 5th and last dive
we went to the corner where the current was sweeping in and drifted fast
through one of my most memorable dives ever. At 25 meters or so, sharks were
cruising above and below us. A couple of mantas blew in fast with the current
and swept past us. We came upon the largest baraccuda I have ever seen, a good
couple of meters, holding himself in the current rippling like a banner in the
wind, looking almost like an undulant shark. I found another baraccuda in the
blue and swam after it and apparently missed a napoleon wrasse atop the reef
for my pains. More sharks and at the end of the dive, when Pierre and Valerie
had gone up, Jerome and I drifted more with the current and found a turtle
swimming casually in water clear as a pool. We then had to exert ourselves
upcurrent back to the boat and I climbed aboard sucking the last 20 bar from my
tank (from the exertion). Fascinating dive. |
| Thu Feb 10, 2004 |
643-644 |
Khor Fakkan: Martini Rock and Ras Qitfah |
7 Seas |
Sami, Mahindra, and Mark all did o/w dives 2 and 3
plus numerous surface skills, getting just one dive short of completing their
course. We dived Martini Rock first and saw lots of moray eels and scorpion
fish (disguised cameleons). Near the top of the rock we came upon a turtle
hovering there that let us come up to it and didn't seem at all concerned about
us, so we hung there with it and looked it in the eye a while. Our second dive
was at Ras Qitfah just south of there and I don't recall that we saw much there
except a flounder and one tableau with a brine shrimp next to an anenome with
clown fish in it. But the dive was nice (and shivery cool!!), and all divers
performed well, completing their exercises for each dive and getting most of
the surface work done as well. Eric Kleiss joined us along with Andy and Liana
Dunn and Mohamed and Huda Malhas. |
| Fri Feb 11, 2004 |
645-646 |
Musandam: Lima Rock and Lulu Island |
Al Marsa |
This was an expedition with Andy and Liana Dunn,
rescue divers, Mohamed and Huda Malhas, and Michele for her final o/w advanced,
and her buddy Scott, recently advanced. Bobbi came on the boat. The Lima Rock
dive could have possibly been better. We got dropped near the west end of the
south face so it seemed we would be diving that face and not reaching the
corner. Michele planned a mnemonic 24 meter 24 min, 16 meter 16 min, and 12 to
finish out the tank profile. Thus we didn't get down to the sand but rode the
easterly current seeing not much, perhaps a baraccuda or so, until we came to
the bare rock wall, where we encountered a slightly back current. By then we
had elevated to around 12 meters so it was going to be a different dive on the
way back, so I led us away from the busy corner, as Mike Ralph had requested in
the dive briefing. But on our way back we encountered Mike almost immediately
leading his divers toward the corner. He signalled me and I knew he was between
us and the corner but I continued with my group back to the west in the
shallows until we again picked up the current that had nearly carried us the
length of the island already. With Mike still to our east and the current
suggesting we go that way as well, I reversed our direction and headed us back
toward the east end of the island. We were high up the wall so the diving was
at least colorful and interesting here. Shortly we encountered Mike and his
group at the corner. The current was fairly still there so there weren't so
many fish as there usually are all swirling about there. My divers were getting
low on air and one was having difficulty overcoming the weight / depth factors
that kick in when diving shallow at the end of the dive, and when Mike took his
divers up, she was already on the surface. So the three of us surfaced, I
handed out some weight, and as we had 50 bar plus each I suggested we skim the
top of the reef on scuba. In the 5 minutes added dive time we were rewarded
with a honeycomb moray protruding from the reef in good life and vis.
We
pulled into Lima Bay and had a biriani lunch and a long surface interval, so
the next dive at 18 meters around Lulu Island and spiraling up and around
brought us nowhere near deco. Liana stayed out so Alan and I dived together,
and Michele and Scott accompanied. We hit strong current on our east heading
around the rock and when we came on that spot again after a full
circumnavigation, Michele and Scott headed up and Alan and I carried on south
along the submerged reef there. We got as far as the next island (Lulu had an
osprey on top, this one didn't). We saw a turtle on our way there. |
| Thu Feb 17, 2004 |
647 |
North of the sand island off Jebel Danat, UAE |
Boat arranged by Jebel Danat Hotel |
A cold 19 degree water dive with Kathleen and
Alistair and me buddying with Hazem. I had provided tanks for K and A and Hazem
had brought 2 which was a good thing because I had messed up and brought two
near-empty tanks. Allistair used one of Hazem's and I went in with 75 bar (1000
psi).
Fortunately the dive was shallow, just 4-5 meters, and when it
got down to 2 I just surfaced and snorkeled till I saw something interesting
and in this manner managed to dive for half an hour ending up with 33 bar (500
psi).
There were interesting things to see. The site had typically Abu
Dhabi fauna but lots of it. There were plenty of bat fish, big ones, in the
shallow corals, and some huge groupers. Lots of sweet lipped grunts (bream?)
and blue angel fish. Pretty dive. We were exploring and maybe we'll come back
with students. |
| Date |
Logged Dive # |
Location |
Diving with |
Most recent dive is the one
listed above |
