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Dive Logs for Vance Stevens PADI open water scuba instructor #64181 Dives 505 September 11, 2003 Khor Fakkan: Inchcape wreck

Diving with: 7 Seas
Dive buddies: Bobbi
Others in dive party: -
Conditions: -
Visibility: -
Wetsuit: -
Weight: -
Diving from: -

September 11, 2003

My 505th Logged Dive since 1991

Dive site: Inchcape wreck
Training conducted: Calvin Ponton worked on his Padi Rescue Diver and Martin Corrado did his Padi Advanced Deep dive

Interval on computer from previous dive: new
Pressure group in, from tables or wheel: -

Time down on dive computer: 16:40
Max depth: 20.6 meters
Time started up from chart: 54 min
Dive time from computer: 54 min
Min Temp: degrees 25 centigrade
No-stop time left on computer: 25 min
Nitrox 21% (normal air), no deco

Description of dive:

We left AUH at a decent hour on the Thu and arrived in KF for a 2 p.m. dive at around 2:45, right on schedule. We were dipping under on the Inchcape wreck around 4 p.m. Bobbi and I, Calvin Pontin doing rescue training, and Martin Corrado on an advanced course. The waves were rolling the stomach juices around quite pleasantly I thought, horizon teetering this way and that in inspiring juxtapositions, but others in the group were taking on sallow expressions 'ere they went over the gunwales.

The wreck was per usual, vis not great. I had a light and illuminated the sand bottom till at the stern we uncovered a ray we'd not have seen without pixels. Martin did his cognitive task (long divison on a slate, couldn't see the tables for the usual min surface int. problem) at 19.1 meters depth (-ish, we compared depth guages). We then finned 240 degrees toward shore. We had been told to watch for jaw fish, which look like frogs when they peer out of their holes. They start the holes when small and keep twisting around in them I guess till they've got a cylinder that looks like a core sample had been removed from it. They peek over the edge but if startled and if you have a light can be seen staring back at you from the bottom of the hole, maybe two feet deep and 4/5 inches across. First time I'd noticed them.

The boat came for Bobbi and Martin but Calvin and I decided to stay buoyant for rescue work. Pitching around in the surge near the wall I lost a mask and a dive knife despite trying to concentrate on hanging on to the former (no telling how the knife evacuated). Calvin and I were ventilating and towing each other which accts for the mask loss.

Pressure group out, from tables or wheel: -

Intersting thing happened Thu night. Calvin and Bobbi and I were driving from the hostel to the Sandy Beach when the car sputtered and died and came to a stop opposite the Saturday market. I crossed the road and went looking for a mechanic but was called back to the car because one had come already from his shop. The mechanic determined it was an electrical problem. Meanwhile Hassan Jaber from Scuba 2000 whizzed by, recognized my car which has often been parked in his compound, and screeched, backed up, and called an electrician he knew, then towed us back to Khor Fakkan. He then drove us around from 9 to 10 looking for any shop that had my generator and when we could find not shops carrying American parts he arranged for a tiny shopkeeper to strip my generator down, put in some parts, and while we had dinner (Hassan dropped us by his favorite Indian mata'am in KF) trundled the refurbished 'dynamo' to the electrician who had the car running by 11:00 p.m. in time for us to wander in from our feed. The kindness of the people throughout this experience was touching, and their willingness to work late at night for normal wages was admirable.