Two dives this afternoon at a dive shop a little closer to me but a little farther from the dive sites. Right next door to a bar steeped in Americana.
Only two of us, plus the guide, on the first dive. It was deep and had a cavern so most people couldn’t go. Thank goodness I got my Advanced!
The other diver was much more experienced than me. That meant I was likely to be the one to run out of air first and cause the dive to end. Peer pressure did it’s job: I managed my air as well as I ever had. Part of that included not taking too many photos. Every little movement takes more air. I really need to figure out how to do a good frog kick. The flutter kick is not very energy efficient.
Down that deep it gets dark.
The depth limit for recreational divers is 40 meters. My maximum is 30 meters. On this dive, we got down to 35 meters. I didn’t really notice until we’d hit 32. (Side note: the 7 in the upper right means if we’d have stayed at that depth for 7 more minutes, the ascent would have required a decompression stop because too much nitrogen would have been in our bodies. Not something you want to do as a recreational diver. We did not stay down at that depth for very long.)
After a little exploring down there, we got closer to the surface and entered a cavern.
My poor GoPro didn’t like any of this. A combination of unsteady hands and very low light. The dive was great though. We swam through the cavern and then surfaced. Lots of sharp edges and sulfur from the ocean eating away at the rock. Terrible photos unfortunately.
During our swim out, we all shut off our lights so we could see the cavern entrance. Just swim toward the light!
The first dive ended at 58 minutes. So close to an hour, but our air was running low so we had to surface. The second dive stayed nearer to the surface. I don’t think we got below 15 meters. Lots of light, plenty of fish, very relaxing.
Then our time was up and we headed back to the dive center.
Clouds were doing some showing off.
Once back, we unloaded and cleaned our gear. I left mine there and plan on going back to dive with them as soon as I can.
The sun set; the drive was dark. I got very confused at one intersection. What does it mean when there’s both a stop light and a stop sign just a few feet away from one other?
Work tomorrow. It’s supposed to rain again. Hopefully this week the bad weather will stick to days when I work!
Travel 