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Dive 3 - The deep dive - What a stunning start to the day, clear sunny and no wind or waves. After the quick run through the knowledge review and a briefing of the site "The Meridian" a purpose sunk ship on a 28m bottom. As some of you will know you have to do a little timed puzzle before you dive, you then do it again at 30m and finally at the surface again. The idea is to show how narcosis effects you and slows your reactions, but me being me have to buck the trend, my first run 1 min dead, second at 30m 1:08, so far so good, 3rd time I should have been like grease lightning, nope 1:20 oh well never mind. On with the dive out on the rib again, drop the anchor; it was fantastic viz we could see the wreck from the surface. We headed off down the anchor line and down to 30m I was waiting for this new feeling of something different going that much deeper, but nothing, I guess as I have dived the Stanegarth so many times at 22-23m those extra 5-6m weren't going to make any difference. We found a piece of sand that was at 30m to do the puzzle and then it was just free swim. I had been warned of this trigger fish that had always taken a fancy to Paul and just to watch him fly like a big girl if it came near, I saw the trigger but it stayed clear of us this time, also a unicorn fish and a huge array of little fish. With 25m+ viz this was probably the turning point that made me think this is really what I want to do, divemaster and instructor here I come!
As normal with my air guzzling, we didn't get a huge amount of time at 30m so we headed up the anchor line to 5m and switched to a spare cylinder for a deco stop, out and back to shore for the last dives prep.
Dive 4 - Navigation, Now to be honest this was not a dive I was really looking forward to as my navigation skills to date have been awful at best but what must be done must be done. We hit RIB again and headed to El Puertito a 6-10m cove (inc. naturist beach round the corner, found that out a couple of days later)
The viz here was great again we did the first 2 skills using landmarks and then compass to do a line and back. Off then to open sand to do the square by compass but on the way over there we were greeted by a friendly turtle who just didn't want to leave us alone so Paul took some great pictures of me swimming with a turtle, what a memory to keep. Anyway back to the dive did the square and made it back to the start point on the first attempt (I think luck played a big part). The final test of the dive we went back to the anchor then Paul was going to take me on a swim round the bay and I had to note reference points and then get both of us back to the anchor, what a swim! A guided tour at 10m seemed to last for ages, watching octopus, large cuttle fish, another turtle and just loads of small fish. It was stunning!
Its official now the card has arrived I'm now an Advanced Open Water diver. Many thanks to Paul and the Team at Aqua-Marina for excellent tuition and some fantastic dives.
