After completing an important and hopefully fruitful phone interview which caused me to miss the morning and afternoon dive, I was was at risk of not diving all at all today before, to my relief, a night dive was arranged.
Heading out to the dive shop with my light, I wondered what I might see. While they say there are no sharks in the Caribbean Sea, I couldn't help but hope to find one fast asleep.
The diving here during the day is incredible, with a remarkably healthy reef, the marine life and coral are amongst the most diverse and plentiful I've ever seen. While I hold only fond memories of diving along the east coast of Australia, without a point of reference I did not understand what other divers meant when they commented that the Great Barrier Reef was over dived and very damaged until I dove in Barbados. In combination with crystal clear waters providing for great visibility, countless turtles, and various ship wrecks, this is a great place to be for divers or those wanting to learn.
Tonight was especially exciting because not only was it my first night dive here, but we were diving as three pairs, making for a group of 6 experienced divers. This meant I was not diving as a dive master who had to guide and watch over others, I was diving with another dive master, purely for fun! For those who know me well, I kind of dive like I live, sporadically all over the place in excitement looking for everything and anything of interest.
With my leg almost now completely healed from accidentally brushing up against some form or unsafe coral while filming on my second dive here, I decided to wear a wet suit for protection. While I normally dive with extra lead as this helps me to hold down others who might otherwise shoot to the surface in a panic or lose neutral buoyancy during a safety stop, we over calculated how much more buoyant a 2 millimeter wettie made me with adding additional weights. I must have been at my limit before because after taking a single step stride off the boat, I began to quickly sink. I was caught so far off guard that it actually took me a few seconds to realize I was descending quickly and not naturally resurfacing as one does when jumping into water. Kicking as hard as I could, I resurfaced and inflated my BCD to maintain buoyancy while noticing the skipper and my dive buddy having a good laugh. We were off to a good start.
Descending 19 meters or roughly 60 feet into the dark and mysterious ocean I instantly became a child at a play ground. Dave later laughed at how entertaining it was to watch my light move in large z patterns as I swam back and forth looking every which way, while others swam a straight line as not to get lost and preserve air.
I still find it strange to see fish, especially large fish, lying flat on their side on the ocean floor sleeping, as though they are dead, while the lobsters and crabs come alive roaming for food. I found a massive turtle at least 4 feet in length, sleeping under part of an old ship, parrot fish sleeping along the ocean floor, pipe fish still amongst the fan coral blending and squirrel fish surprisingly still awake at about 7:30 pm, moving in schools through it all, with my light catching dozens of eyes as I glanced ahead.
The fan coral in one part was so thick, I felt like I ws making my way through a dense forest at night as I swam through with my light hoping to find something to study and watch or chase. There were a few times before this point where I had wondered off and looked back for my dive buddy only to realize he knew where I was the whole time. This led me to willingly conclude that this would always be the case. So as I entered into this dense coral I didn't think twice and it wasn't until several minutes or longer afterwards that I realized there weren't any other lights in sight anywhere. Reaching for my dive computer I realized I had descended to a deeper part of the reef while wondering through and with my last siting being around 18 meters, I used natural navigation and headed back up the reef to relocate Dave. I later found out that Dave's light had flooded leaving him in complete darkness while he reached for his back up causing me to almost swim right past him. Had I not noticed an unusually large lobster which caused me to turn and accidentally kick a sleeping fish in the head startling it (naturally fish might not expect this to happen when going to sleep:), I might have continued straight past him.
Reunited we continued the dive, noticing all of the eyes our lights illuminated along the reef as the squirrel fish, still awake, swam in skoals around us. Reaching the Frier Ship wreck, where the group met and resurfaced together, we began to end the dive.
After a 5 meter safety stop we met at the surface, inflated our BCDs and looked for the boat. It was no where in site. Lying on my back staring up at the stars above as I floated along in the calm ocean water, while Dave blew his whistle I couldn't help but be reminded of the last scene in the titanic and laughed. Shortly there after Mike arrived with the boat and we were all boarded. It was a calm clear night and a brilliant one to be out at sea. Reaching land, I found myself already excited for the next dive.
Heading out to the dive shop with my light, I wondered what I might see. While they say there are no sharks in the Caribbean Sea, I couldn't help but hope to find one fast asleep.
The diving here during the day is incredible, with a remarkably healthy reef, the marine life and coral are amongst the most diverse and plentiful I've ever seen. While I hold only fond memories of diving along the east coast of Australia, without a point of reference I did not understand what other divers meant when they commented that the Great Barrier Reef was over dived and very damaged until I dove in Barbados. In combination with crystal clear waters providing for great visibility, countless turtles, and various ship wrecks, this is a great place to be for divers or those wanting to learn.
Tonight was especially exciting because not only was it my first night dive here, but we were diving as three pairs, making for a group of 6 experienced divers. This meant I was not diving as a dive master who had to guide and watch over others, I was diving with another dive master, purely for fun! For those who know me well, I kind of dive like I live, sporadically all over the place in excitement looking for everything and anything of interest.
With my leg almost now completely healed from accidentally brushing up against some form or unsafe coral while filming on my second dive here, I decided to wear a wet suit for protection. While I normally dive with extra lead as this helps me to hold down others who might otherwise shoot to the surface in a panic or lose neutral buoyancy during a safety stop, we over calculated how much more buoyant a 2 millimeter wettie made me with adding additional weights. I must have been at my limit before because after taking a single step stride off the boat, I began to quickly sink. I was caught so far off guard that it actually took me a few seconds to realize I was descending quickly and not naturally resurfacing as one does when jumping into water. Kicking as hard as I could, I resurfaced and inflated my BCD to maintain buoyancy while noticing the skipper and my dive buddy having a good laugh. We were off to a good start.
Descending 19 meters or roughly 60 feet into the dark and mysterious ocean I instantly became a child at a play ground. Dave later laughed at how entertaining it was to watch my light move in large z patterns as I swam back and forth looking every which way, while others swam a straight line as not to get lost and preserve air.
I still find it strange to see fish, especially large fish, lying flat on their side on the ocean floor sleeping, as though they are dead, while the lobsters and crabs come alive roaming for food. I found a massive turtle at least 4 feet in length, sleeping under part of an old ship, parrot fish sleeping along the ocean floor, pipe fish still amongst the fan coral blending and squirrel fish surprisingly still awake at about 7:30 pm, moving in schools through it all, with my light catching dozens of eyes as I glanced ahead.
Reunited we continued the dive, noticing all of the eyes our lights illuminated along the reef as the squirrel fish, still awake, swam in skoals around us. Reaching the Frier Ship wreck, where the group met and resurfaced together, we began to end the dive.
After a 5 meter safety stop we met at the surface, inflated our BCDs and looked for the boat. It was no where in site. Lying on my back staring up at the stars above as I floated along in the calm ocean water, while Dave blew his whistle I couldn't help but be reminded of the last scene in the titanic and laughed. Shortly there after Mike arrived with the boat and we were all boarded. It was a calm clear night and a brilliant one to be out at sea. Reaching land, I found myself already excited for the next dive.
No comments:
Post a Comment