The French Invasion

This week has been fun, we had a big group of French and Swiss passengers with a number from the USA too. Most notably from the U.S was a guy who was travelling alone and turned out to be  an art collector. He has the worlds largest collection of art from Frida. Frida was one of, if not the most famous female painters the world has ever seen and his catalogue was breath taking, an awe inspiring collection.

I ironically got along with the French contingent from day one and they inspired a European feel to the entire week. On the first night they were trying to get me onto the pastis but company policy is no drink for the crew during the week. The diving was incredible and again there were many hammer head sharks and some very cool cave dives. A true alliance was built up over the week and we laughed and had a lot of fun. The American contingent taking the micky out of me for the word “Torch”, which is apparently a flash light! I was soon backed up by my European friends.

Our final dive was on the wreck of the Komberbak, Long Island and I was joined by only three of the French. It was a beautiful morning dive and we headed down to the wreck at 30 meters. After some time, and a couple of photos, we headed to the sail boat sank just off the port bow. One of the French disappeared inside the wreck and we waited for him to reappear. He did not return for some time and myself and the remaining two divers looked at each other with puzzled faces. After a few minutes he returned to the entrance of the wreck and produced a toilet!! We could not believe it and you could hear the laughter projected through the water. We ended the dive in fits of laughter and recalled the story late into the night over a big bottle of pastis :) 

Dolphins and Hammers

Im going to keep it short this week. 18 guests and the crew is getting smaller, so the work gets a little harder but its still cool. The group this week have been fun and the diving has been incredible. There is a great need for a small crew such as ours to have cohesion and a sense of humour to allow the fun and excitement of diving to pass off onto the passengers, that sounds cheesy when you read it back.  Unfortunately im not sure this crew has what it takes right now but its early days.

I was passing on my small knowledge of drilling to our new drill team from club med this week. In return one of their instructors told me about a dive site called “The Great Cut”. I wont go into too much detail but the site is awe inspiring and truly rivals some of my favourite sites from Egypt such as “The Canyon” and “The Blue Hole” (those of you that know what they are will under stand, those who don’t, buy me a beer and I’ll tell you).

We completed one dive at conception island, I had to return to the water to recover the mooring from the bottom and I was joined by a bottle nosed dolphin. He watched on as I swam to the bottom and released the shackle, clearly wanting to play. One of the crew members darted around in the zodiac above and gave him some exercise and a show for the passengers. I hung on the line for a while before surfacing and he just looked me in the eye, not nervous but interested. I broke the surface to help recover the buoy and when I looked down he was gone.

I had some great dives this week and they were all relatively deep. I was sure I spotted a hammer head shark but was not 100%, I was sure the narcosis was to blame. The next dive the passengers surface, elated they had all seen a Hammer Head!! I was happy because this made me feel sure I had spotted one, but I had no evidence. Sure enough the next dive we were once again visited by these notoriously shy creatures. I was blown away, when I told the boys from club med they said it was not uncommon to see them this time of year but the sightings were getting fewer.

I still had no evidence, I decided to take my camera on the next dive but I knew this would push the superstitious balance against me. I descended to around 30 meters ( hammers love deep water) followed by two of the passengers, both experienced cave divers. We battled against a strong current for about 20 minutes and admitted defeat. I turned to the diver next to me and gave the signal to turn, looking forward one last time. I looked round to our route back along the wall and there in the distance was the faint shimmer of a shark. I stared at it hoping that it was and its was!!! I glanced back at the other diver, when he finally looked at me a signalled and I watched as his eyes light up. We both look over to see a huge 8ft Hammer heading straight for us and he was not stopping. My breathing went through the roof, after I realised what was happening I pointed the camera at him and just kept hitting the shutter button. The most beautiful shark swan right up to us and casually swam past, barley batting an eye lid at the vicious current we had battled to be there. He strolled off into the distance and the diver next to me looked back with an elated face, I was so happy, the rest of the dive I just lay back and let the current take me to the boat. I got the photo I was after.

Pioneering New Dive Sites

Wow, what a week, where to start. The week began by me driving to the airport to get the guests, driving again was fun!! I soon picked up that the group (9 people) where all from a group called Seacology, a non-profit foundation who develop projects for islands around the work, check it out www.Seacology.org.

This charter has been an exploratory trip of the islands of the southern Bahamas and most of the dive sites did not have names or had even been dived previous to our arrival!! This was a cool because we had to name the dive sites as we went along, possibly the only time I’ll get to explore places other people have never been before which is pretty special. Most of the islands where uninhabited and so naturally we jumped in the dingy and went exploring between dives. The diving was varied but my main aim was to spot an oceanic white tip but no luck this week, however we are now running this charter for the next three weeks so there is still a chance. Oceanic White tip sharks are endangered, they also have the worst reputation for attacks, they truly are the masters of the ocean. We dive an island called conception which is where im going to concentrate my search. Conception is a small uninhabited island that’s sits just on the edge of the Atlantic ocean and there is no other land until Africa from its shore line.

The other portion of our trip has been installing new mooring pins for us to use on our return to the dive sites. We all took it in turns to be on the drill team and it’s a fun, exiting and different side to being a diver. We drilled using a hydraulic drill then set the pins and finally setting them in place with either cement or epoxy depending on the type of mooring. An education for me but fun, something different, keeping it varied again.

When we arrived at San Salvador the Seacology group departed for land to attend an opening ceremony. The group had funded an new conservation centre for the iguanas that are indigenous to the Bahamas. All seemed to go well for them and they returned to the boat for another dive. No rest for us it just gave us an opportunity to get some routine maintenance done on the boat.

All in all its been a good week, I can not believe its been a month. We now spend three weeks out of George Town, Great Exzuma, Bahamas. It’s a change of pace and hopefully it will be fun, exploring new dive sites and looking out for the elusive Oceanic White Tip Shark.

Splicing Variety

So this week ive been learning how to splice line, making loops and putting thimbles into line. Its all in preparation for when we head to the Bahamas next week. We have also been setting up the underwater hydraulics drill we will be using to put in mooring pins. The plan is to arrive at a dive site, drop anchor and while someone guides a dive two others will dive down and drill into the ocean floor, put in a pin and cement it in place. We can then attach the mooring lines, which we are currently splicing together, which we can then moor to when we return to the site. Its all in an effort to reduce the damage of dive boats in the Bahamas.

On the other side of the coin ive been offered the Chef position for when we sail to the Dominican Republic in January for the whale watching trips. Im currently I talks about wages because the added responsibility obviously requires a better rate of pay J

We are currently on route back to port after yet another successful charter, I nearly got head butted by a 2 meter Eagle Ray the other day which ws nice and I spotted my first Arrow crab, its all good fun but the variety of it all is the best part for me.