Linda and I woke up early for breakfast. Last night was an early night. There isn’t a ton of nightlife here though. The bar closes at 10 pm. We got on the EZ Diver boat for our dive. Our dive master is David. The first site we dove at was the Valley of Kings. There is a coral formation that is supposed to look like a Sphinx. It has two feet and a head.
It felt great to be diving in such a beautiful location. While we were diving I took some pictures with my underwater camera. However it seems the housing let some water in and the camera got fried. Luckily the SD card was not damaged. Linda got sick on the boat. We had to wait and ride out the waves while the others were finishing their dives. If we did the second dive, we would have had to wait even longer for our surface interval.
Instead, we went back to the dock because they were concerned about Linda being sick. David took Linda and I separate for our orientation dive alone. When you dive from shore, you walk out to a platform where you put on your fins. Then you swim following some floats under water towards the safety stop bouy. From there, you can either go left towards Coco View Wall. Or, you can go straight to the Prince Albert.
The Prince Albert is a wreck that they suck in the front yard for divers to enjoy. You can proceed past the wreck, following the markers, and find Numan’s Wall. Linda and I did two dives today on our own after the orientation dive. The first dive we saw the wreck and Numan’s Wall. We used up a fair amount of air by the time we got to the wall. So we didn’t see a ton of it.
I am hoping that Numan’s Wall will be better if we have more air to see it. We turned around a little early. We also used up a decent amount of air at the Prince Albert. The second dive we went to Coco View Wall. That wall was amazing. There were tons of coral formations. The wall goes very deep. Although Linda told me to lead both dives, I wound up following her both times. When we at Coco View Wall, Linda had trouble trying to maintain depth. We had ascended pretty deep. I saw some pretty cool coral far up the wall on our right on the way back. I wanted to go up and check it out.
I should have told Linda to add air to her BC. We have had a lot of learning experiences. At any rate we went back. On our way back Linda started heading towards the Prince Albert. After that, she started going down Numan’s Wall. We talked earlier about not deviating from the plan. I was also concerned about the amount of air we had used. It wasn’t clear to me that Linda knew which way she was going. So at that point I had us turn around and call it a successful dive.
After dinner we attempted a night dive. We bought two under water flashlights for $140 each. We intended to do a few night dives and tonight would be our first. On our way out. we fought the current. The wind had picked up a lot at night. We didn’t realize how much of a factor the current was. The bouys pick up a little bit past the platform. I managed to get to the bouys. At that point I realized Linda was behind me thinking I was going the wrong direction. I went back to her to recollect ourselves. Now we were down current and had to fight to get back to the bouys. The whole experience was pretty nerve wracking. Personally I was fine. However I am taller so I could stand in some of the water we were in. Also, I am a stronger swimmer than Linda.
So I was mainly concerned about her safety. Utimately we aborted the dive and went back in. We will try again another night.
We saw a lot of interesting fish diving today. By Coco View Wall, we saw a large fish that may have been a shark. However we weren’t close enough to get a good look at it. I am pretty sure we saw a berracuda. That fish’s teeth freaked out Linda. We saw a hermit crab under water by the Prince Albert. I saw a trumpet fish in the sea grass on my way back to the platform from the safety stop. That reminded me a lot of AB’s Mr Seahorse book. I also saw a fish that digs into the sand, it’s camoflaged so you can barely see it. Linda saw it earlier on a prior dive and was trying to point it out to me. We must have seen 20-50 squid swimming in a school near the safety stop. That was awesome. They are so intelligent and curious.