Dive shop is a 20 minute walk from my apartment. I got to listen to some singing for the first couple of those minutes.
Got to the shop. I didn’t have a chance to water seal my camera, so just brought the GoPro again. Two of the other divers had nice underwater cameras. One day….
Twelve divers means a lot of gear.
Full boat; fast boat. They should charge just for the ride.
We launched into the air a few times. I had to put the GoPro down and hold on with both hands. Which means I didn’t have a hand free for my hat. It now belongs to the ocean.
Started the dive and I just couldn’t exhale fully. I definitely know why my air consumption is so high at the start of a dive: I’m breathing like crazy! It’s as though I’d just run a race. I need to calm down.
Once we got started, we swam past an old artillery shell.
I tried to make friends with a fish, but he wasn’t as interested as me.
I was running low on air and had to share for a while with the instructor leading the dive. When we got back she apologized for not noticing that they had given me a smaller tank than everyone else. I was already the most novice. The next least experienced had over 150 dives. The two others who were with us had more than 200 dives. I’m glad I didn’t run out of air even earlier!
On the way back we swam through a procession of fish going from the deep up a sloped rise toward a shallower plateau.
Then we were done.
In the evening I went to a seafood place one of the other divers recommended. The waiter and I had trouble communicating. I asked for a piece of grouper (a whole one is way too big). He claimed he brought me one, but there was no way. He took it away, when he brought it back he had deboned it.
Somehow my questioning that he brought the wrong fish got understood as “please take the bones out for me.”
The kitchen knew what they were doing. On the bill, they charged me for gilt-head bream (Τσιπούρα) not grouper. I can believe that’s what I ate.
It’s only 8:30pm but I’m tired. Movie and bed I think. Work tomorrow. Two dives Thursday and hopefully 2-4 more over the rest of the weekend.
Travel 