Scuba Diving with the Cattle

Argh! Despite getting recommendations, I still ended up booking us on the cattle boat.

Our first dive yesterday was a disaster in planning. I have never dove with an organization that does 1 divemaster for 10-12 people. It's not very safe to have 12 divers under the water with just 1 truly experienced, will-save-your-life divemaster. But, this group does it.

And when I questioned it, they implied that I was asking it because I was a new diver. I casually shot back that I had been diving for 16 years and you don't have to be new to want to be safe.

So, Chris and I were extra careful with taking care of each other above water and watching out for each other under water. My tank had its O-Ring blow out (above water) and on my 1st dive, my regulator quit working so I had to breathe off my backup regulator for the 2nd dive. The O-Ring is what keeps the air from leaking out the back of your tank and instead, flowing into your regulator. Neither of these occurrences made us feel very good about this dive outfit.

The actual diving yesterday was okay. We saw some barracuda, giant pufferfish, a nicely submerged wreck, and (best!) a very very large stingray. Viability wasn't very good - 25 feet max. The water is warm (81 degrees).

The diving today was much much much better but still, the Red Sail Sports was a joke. 1 divemaster for 12 divers, 2 blown out O-Rings on tanks and again, a faulty regulator (this time not mine). We have one more pre-paid dive with them and then we're switching dive operations.

Today, we dove the south side of the island - the waves were very choppy and getting in and out was a serious struggle but the dive was worth it. The first dive was 'Skalahein' where we saw some amazing, incredible coral formations and some baracuda. And the second dive that we did was 'Sponge Reef' which had many coral formations and we also saw 2 mating octopus (who got angry and inked our dive master). There were a few squid that floated by. Visability was about 50-60 feet and both Chris and I really enjoyed these dives.

We're scheduled to do a night dive tomorrow and then we'll switch dive outfits for our last dives on Friday. And right now, after Chris finishes his nitrogen-induced nap, we're off to explore more of the island via car.

And no, I didn't take the underwater photos on the blog. They are from various other diving sites on the 'Net. I just wanted you to see the types of animals we saw ... =)