Diving 2007

Diving

     

Photoalbum Isla Margarita

 

Monday December 10, 2007: Dive at Los Frailes

Yes, today we will dive the first time in Caribbean. We have breakfast and have a good meal. That way it will work out fine. We pack everything for our dive and put everything in our bag pack. Then we’re ready and we receive a call on our room. There is already the pickup and it’s only 08:45, well on time. We still need to pickup one couple at Hotel Coco Paraiso and that is a Dutch couple that was on our flight. They join us for snorkeling. The boat is already in place at Playa El Tirano, we go there with a small speedboat and then it will take us one hour to get to Los Frailes.  Cool, let’s go. On the way we see ten flying fish, a group of 10 boobies, many frigatebirds and we are well off here. We stop 1 minute to hand over a package to a local fisherman and sail along the rocky coast of Los Frailes. On the cactuses there are many pelicans and frigatebirds. There are also birds with a red throat sack; those are the males during the breading season. That’s great. A species of eagle flies over the rocks and many brown boobies too. We did not spot that before. We first arrive at the dive spot El Infierno. We prepare everything and we go into the water. This dive takes us from here to the corner of the island and then the same way back. Under the surface it is just magnificent, lots of coral, plenty of fish and many many colors. We mention some of the fishes: trumpetfish, parrotfish, snappers, angelfish and many others. It is really great. We dive in-between shoals, the fish don’t seem to be scared of human beings. Timo has the camera with him and takes pictures at will. We are a group of 5: Eef, Timo 1 instructor and 2 Swiss guys, not too many and that’s nice. On many spots you notice the coral has been damaged so we need to pay attention. We swim over rocks and over fields of corals; it is breathtaking. Half way (at 100 bar) we turn and swim back to the boat. It swarms with fish; something like this is unseen for us. We have a good dive, after 45 minutes we come out of the water, which luckily is very warm, so everything is perfect. We had no trouble going down, ears and nose was OK, so everything was perfect. When we arrive back on the boat, we change oxygen and are already ready for the next dive. But first we can eat something. It is plenty and tasty: cutlet, rice, salad, tomatoes, potatoes and as dessert watermelon. We don’t eat too much, because on Rhodes Timo’s stomach was too full, but this time it will be OK. When we are preparing for the next dive someone shouts: “Look dolphins!” and indeed a few meters away from the boat we see a group of dolphins swim by. We think they’re about 6 or 7 adults. It’ s great to see these creatures in the wild. This excursion is a very good one, that’s a sure thing. OK, second briefing: we dive on the same spot and end in the next bay. We dive with the same people in our buddy team and now the camera stays on board. Timo can now enjoy even more than the first dive: red fishes, nice colors looks like a rainbow. Also now we see the same species, 1 cuttle-fish and especially many yellow fishes, they always are visible in complete schools. The blaze of color is huge, small yellow with a black dot, complete black, fully red, blue, all colors can be seen here. This dive goes directly to the boat, lasts 46 minutes and is as beautiful as the first one. We are well trimmed out, closely watch each other, we’re getting close to perfection. When we’re back, everybody is already there, so the dive of the other group (three people) took about the same time as ours. 2 people snorkeling are still in the water and when they come out the boat can leave immediately. It takes about an hour again and at 15:15 we are back on the island. Here in the harbor we need to wait on the pick-up bus. At this moment there is nothing much to see, the fishermen and vultures of this morning have left and we can only wait. At 15:50 an obscure van arrives and brings us to the hotel. The bus is almost falling apart, like most of the cars here too. Everything is broken or almost broken. The cars would not pass the checks at all. They’re all old American cars, but all fallen into pieces. We are back at the hotel at half past four and we rinse everything and take a shower. Then Eef has the idea she needs to call, so we go out looking for a cheap phone. Right across the hotel the phone is broken, so we try it at the beach. There we don’t receive connection, so we will need to send a message, while we drink caipiriña, watch the pictures and write the reports. We have 4 caipiriña and sit at the bar until we can go to eat something. A small anecdote: on the boat to Los Frailes Eef had an headache, no migraine, but normal ache. The problem got solved, when she loosened the strings on her hat, well-done baby… After dinner we see a live band at the hotel. We are close to the atmosphere. We enjoy it very much: 1 harp, 1 bass, 1 ukulele, 1 singer and 1 guy who gives the pace with samba balls. It is very nice, but a bit too busy because we are too close. After about 5 songs they take a break and we move to the balcony with view on the pool and the band. We drink some more Polars, light our candles and enjoy the second round of the band. We stay up until 22:00.

 

Saturday December 15, 2007: Dive number three and four at Los Frailes

Damn, damn, bad weather today. Will the dive take place, it’ already the forth day in a row bad weather and rainy. We fear the worst. We are already thinking about a backup plan – rent a car and drive round the island. At 09:30 they still have not picked us up and we quickly call Ira. She confirms that we will be picked up soon, but they’re having some trouble with other people at the different hotels. We go to our room, get our gear and at 09:45 the old bus arrives to get us. At the harbor there are high waves, everybody is on board, but we can’t leave yet. The boat is full, 32 people in total; that is too much. There are high waves and the boat is rocking like a roller coaster. We fix our eyes right in front of us and neither one of us gets seasick, unlike a couple of Germans, they are hanging overboard. After one hour we arrive on Los Frailes, now first on the island on the left side, the previous dives were on the island on the right. Everything is prepared and we go into the water. Timo has trouble sinking and returns to the boat to collect two additional pieces of lead. The guide of Scuba Pelicano did not really know, which blocks weighed how much, apparently Timo took 2 kilo too few and now he manages to dive under water and we can move on. We did not know where we had to look first – the corals are beautiful, the fish marvelous and they come in that high numbers, really beautiful, a pity the sun is not shining, because that would make it even better. We dive close to a wall until 100 bar and then return the same way and surface at 50 bar. Worth mentioning: 1 barracuda and 1 giant dorado, the rest we will need to identify from the pictures and from our memory. To be continued. At 50 bar we are right under the boat, Timo again was the first one to reach 50 bar. Eef and Timo rise as the first ones and the guide and the three Swiss people stay on the bottom for about three minutes longer. Timo changes bottles and then we have lunch: 1 small piece of chicken, a whole pile of rice, salad, tomato and 1 piece of watermelon; we did not really like it – very greasy – and we don’t eat very much. The weather does not get better, because it starts to rain. The diving guide says this is because of a hurricane on the Dominican Republic, it is supposed to get better one of the next days. The boat moves to the other side of the island on the right and we have a drift-dive. It is really hectic when we need to enter the water, because they are scared to hit the rocks and reef. We go down directly to 16 meter, everybody follows OK. Here we see some lost cages. These were used to catch fish and scrape oysters from the bottom. Also in this area there is some current. We’re relaxed, so everything goes well; we enjoy it and don’t bother about the hectic when we started. For us – not really experienced divers – this is paradise. Loads of fish, many beautiful colors, a grace for the eye. We enjoy it all and we are pretty hard impressed, the splendor of colors, the amount of fish. And then we think that there are even more beautiful places on earth to go scuba diving. For us this is really something and we won’t easily forget the four dives on Los Frailes. After about one hour we go up again, because we have 50 bar, Eef has 60, so well done Timo. We come to the surface – a few meters earlier the guide went up too, to check the direction and we swam ever further from the boat away. “Ich habe das Boot verpasst” was the only thing he could say. We palm in the direction of the boat and he raises an inflatable emergency tube in red. They have seen it and come for the rescue and immediately we leave to the mainland and all goes well. On the boat there was a photographer with another diving school with real professional equipment, maybe he is someone famous. The van is waiting for us this time and we can get off first at our hotel. Shower, logbooks, diary and (s)cuba libre. Tasty! After a day of diving you’re always tired, so we don’t hold on too late today. Two Polars on our terrace and then sleep. A special note on the dive: a certain moment we saw a stone statue of Maria on the bottom. Nice to make such a discovery.