Dive day #4
Finally we are organised (well, a little more organised than the previous days!) In as much as the alarm goes off, we get up, make and drink coffee, go down for breakfast and prep the cameras, all without incident or calamity!
This gives us plenty of rest and relaxation before the first dive.
Following last night’s success with adding our shorties to the dive kit mix, today we decided to change those up to the full suit (albeit only 2.5mm) which still leaves the option of the shorty on top.
Dive #13
Bethlehem
20.1 metres / 60 mins / 28 degrees
This is a dive on what is a flat bottomed channel between two pieces of land which is covered in broken coal where all manner of sub aquatic life can be found.
I could go on about the variety of critters we did find but instead I’ll turn my writings to focus on what happened immediately after I rested my wrist on a fire urchin…
Actually, all I’m going to say is that it smarted beyond your wildest imagination. Only those who have witnessed gall bladder pain first hand will have any comprehension of the magnitude of the pain involved.
There I was, rolling about the place in total agony and wondering who might rescue me first when I realise that everyone else is in front of me and facing the other way so I suffered in silence whilst nobody looked on.
Oh well, I’ll just rescue myself then, so for the next few minutes I just messaged my hands and wrist until the pain eventually subsided and then carry on as of nothing had happened!
After coffee and Oreos, we make our way across to Olympic for the next dive.
Dive #14
Olympic
22.5 metres / 69 mins / 28 degrees
Right next to the Olympic resort (which looks like it has been abandoned for decades) this dive is another flat plateau of broken coral which is accessed via a gentle slope from about 8m down to about 16m, the center of the plateau gets to said 21m in the deeper parts.
I find myself taking pictures of a candy crab which is hiding in the surface of a fire urchin, naturally I treat the situation with some considerable care, once bitten etc.
Back on board we head back to base for a spot of lunch. Before which our Swiss friends talk us in to doing a black water dive tonight. Essentially you are out in pitch black, over 100m to the sea bed and the boat dangle lights over the side to attract whatevers out there!!!
A full report on that later!
At lunch I mix things up a bit by having Pancit Canton with chicken whilst Jo sticks with the much tried and tested B.L.T.
Back to the room for a little blogging and sleeping before we head out on the afternoon dive.
Dive #15
27.1 metres / 62 mins / 27 degrees
Mainit Corner.
What an awesome dive what is already an awesome site. Significant highlights were the two shrimp on whip corals, it might not sound much to the casual reader but I really like photographing these things. There we are at 27m all over these things (pictures to follow).
The rest of the dive failed to disappoint too, including a close turtle encounter.
Back on land we consume hot drinks and biscuits whilst we contemplate our introduction to the black water experience.
At one point, a drone hovered above our heads so we posed and danced suitably as we knew it was our Swiss friend Christian, or so we thought.
Then we noticed the operator of the drone and it was someone else completely, oops!
Dive #16
20.4 metres / 61 mins / 28 degrees
Black water dive!
We head off for a 20 minute trip out to the deep water, over 100m deep so don’t drop anything.
For black water diving they set up a buoy which has a flashing light on the top and then a weighted rope which hangs underneath.
There are three collections of lights down to about 20m which is specified as the max depth for the dive.
We descend with our guide and basically circle the lights going anti clockwise at whatever depth you want and you look out with the lights behind you and wait for the critters to come along!
So there we are, floating around in the black and looking out into even more black whilst watching your depth and keeping an eye on the other divers (which you can actually see with light from the hanging lights)
The whole thing was simply amazing, there is so much stuff in the water, all manner of swimming things.
Lots of jelly fish and other floaty creatures. Jo found a tiny seahorse attached to a small leaf!
Round and round we go chasing these things, such fun. Our guide has an under water laser pointer so he can easily attract our attention regardless of where we are looking.
The hour passed very quickly, we do our stop, surface add the boat picks us up. All super exciting, I would totally recommend it!
Back to base, albeit somewhat later than usual for Prinks and Dinner then back to the room to pass out!