Beaufort 8.04.2002

OK, I admit I have been slacking off. I got the pictures and I have processed them for a long time and I didn't put the story up and I haven't sent the link to the pictures. Oh, well, to much stuff to do.

Day 1

Pretty much as usual I started my day after partying on Friday night, of course without drinking, at 2.30 when I got in the car and left for the coast. The weather forecast was very very bad and I almost didn't wear a patch since I was sure we will not go out. Fortunately I did wear the scopolamine patch and that paid off big time.

I got at the Discovery Diving dock on time but on pouring rain and I expected to see the captain telling us that we can't make it out and we should all go to have some breakfast BUT... no, we loaded the tanks and we headed out.

Weather was as shitty as you can imagine. Rain, about 68F and a slow roll. Fortunately the waves were not to bad so I was able to not get sea sick.

The only site we could do was as usual on bad weather Indra. We anchored on Indra and we had a first long great dive. Imagine how it was from 68 F outside the water and cold rain to get in the water in a pleasant 80 F and a good 30 ft. of visibility. I dove with Rob my DiveCon buddy and We stayed 54 minutes at 71 ft. We have seen some cool things and if I remember well we have seen even a shark.

After 1 hour and 5 minutes of surface interval we dove again on Indra but now not to see the wreck but a newly discovered reef located about 30 ft. off Indra on its left side. From now on I will call that Octopus Reef.

The dive was fantastic. Of course I didn't had any film left in the camera but the next time I am going I am staying just on the reef and take pictures of the amazing octopi. They are strange, fantastic, very intelligent animals which can change color in a blink of an eye. I have seen probably about 15 pretty good size. I even caught an air crab and I put it in front of one octopus and it jumped immediately on it and sat with its whole body on the pray... I need to do that again it was a fantastic experience. I could not move from this reef... It was to interesting. I stayed one hour and 13 minutes at 71 ft. and I almost didn't move just looking at those incredible animals.

I have to talk also a little bit about the accidents we had... One of the guys caught his tank strap on the bench and the strap opened and the tank dropped straight on the deck of the boat... Unfortunately, Marrie-Ann's head was on the way so she got a very nice bruise. Of course the tank ripped the inflator hose of the BC apart so Wytold and Laura, our group leaders tried to, fix the BC by cutting the hose and reattach it. Unfortunately the waves made Laura to cut her finger pretty bad (well ... 5 stitches ... not to bad :-)). No, it is not over.

When we got out of the water the waves got big and the ladder was a bitch to climb. This is the first time I got hurt on the ladder. One of my feet slipped in the ladder and the ladder hit me pretty violently on the inside of my leg (yes, a couple more inches and I would have been a soprano singer). No, still not ever yet...

The only one after me was John which got scarred when he saw that I was thrown out by the ladder so he took his time to be extra careful. Well, bad luck, he got throw out of the ladder and the air hose which gets to the BC got stuck in the ladder so of course it ripped off the BC. I guess he needed a new BC anyway :-)

We left Indra and luckily the rain had stopped during our underwater interval and no more accidents happened during our ride back.

We all got to the bunk house and left for dinner after a couple of hours, Great dinner at a pretty far restaurant.

Day 2

Day two was pretty much the same with the weather. Same cold rain and same 68 F air temperature but today was calmer so we went further out.

The group decided to go see the Atlas tanker and although it was no change in seeing one of those lion fish on it, I was pretty happy since I have never dove Atlas.

As soon as we hit the water we were in paradise ... Visibility about 90 - 100 ft, 75 F temperature and no current. It was great. We saw nice coral and great fish.

The dive was 49 minutes long at 124 ft.

The second site was again one I have never dove where the sharks are hanging out lately. The wreck is called Nancy Lee or Verbina and I could count at one time at least 20 sharks. Visibility was pretty good, the wreck is much much smaller than Atlas so we had the time to explore it really good and also to search for shark teeth. I got some nice ones this time!

The weekend was great although the weather could have been better. Great diving though... Well, but enough talking, check out the pictures, some are pretty good.

Pictures

Her are the pictures:

• Beaufort 8.30.2002