Last day

Well that's it.  Holiday almost over. All packed and ready to go.  We will be going over to the hotel at about 9 to spend the day and then off to the airport about 3.  I hope you have enjoyed the little blog, I am sure I will be chewing your ears off when I get back :-)

Final day of diving :-(

We have had a lovely week.  Maybe not as many shark dives as we would have liked but a lovely week just the same although I think we feel a bit reefed out.  We had a lovely drift dive this morning - saw some lovely fan coral.  A lovely relaxing dive (just how many times can lovely be used in a sentence????).  Once again we got successfully back to the boat!! Trying to get back to it with the current took some work as we had to swim back against it to ensure we arrived at the ladders rather than too far away.  We have one more dive to go then back to the marina and home tomorrow.  Looking forward to getting home and seeing the children and Kea but a few more dives would be great.

We saw sharks - wahoooooo!

Day 5 Diving.

A rough journey over to Brothers.  Slept through some of it but certainly was rolling about.  The evening didn’t start well after finding a huge beetle which I think was a cockroach in our bathroom.  As the engines switched on I decided to go to the loo so I didn’t have to get up during the night.  I have never stopped weeing so fast after I saw the huge beetle scuttling around.  Was quite a picture I am sure falling out of the bathroom with my pj’s around my knees screaming at  Dave to get it.  Dave, the hero, who was as wimpy as me, squashed it with his trainer and threw it overboard.  Was a bit worried about going to sleep as I thought I might have another one crawling over my face.

This was all worth it though after diving on Small Brother.  1st dive before breakfast took us out on the rib dropped off directly over a cleaning station.  A few people saw a reef shark but not me L.  Was a pleasant dive but was a bit sad I didn’t see a shark..  Dave saw one so he ensured he kept telling me!! We did see a huge wrasse though.
2nd dive out on the rib and I did manage to see a reef shark this time so was really excited and my day was made.  Also saw barracuda.  A really lovely dive.
On both dives I made a glamorous entry and exit into the water.  On the second dive I got hit on the head by a tank after rolling in but fortunately it was only a tap and nothing major.  Apparently a couple of women from Blue Melody ended up on the reef but luckily not hurt - not sure what reef damage it may have done though..  We saw dolphins on the surface today which was lovely to see.

3rd and final dive of the day and we entered again in the rib.  This time saw at least 3 sharks.  So exciting.  One of these reef sharks is known as the Fat Lady.  We also saw a small reef shark.  Was fantastic.  This time we made out way back to the boat which I was pretty impressed about.  No having to through ourselves in the rib in elegant style.

Dave has captured a great picture of Ken stroking a wrasse which is pretty amazing..

We were supposed to have our dinner before we left however we had our lines attached to the boat next to us who wanted to leave so we are now out at sea rocking and rolling.  Really not sure how we are going to eat our dinner - tomato soup apparently!!!!

Well that’s it for now as I can’t send it until we have WiFi.  Will hopefully add a couple of pics too.  Has been a long wait this week waiting to see sharks, we were thinking it wasn’t going to happen so we are really happy that we got to see them.  Sadly the Oceanic Whitetip and Silkies have not shown up which is late for them and some cause for concern.  Elka did a presentation on Shark conservation yesterday which was interesting and extremely thought provoking.  Websites to look at are:- www.redseasharks.org and www.longimanus.info which is Elka’s research.

The Fat Lady

Ken stroking the Wrasse

Still some hope for sharks :-)

We have been told we may still be in with a chance of seeing sharks.  We are now getting ready to set of to Brothers! Can be a bit of a choppy ride.  It's going to take about 6 hours to get over there so will be travelling overnight.  It is only 8.30 but we have already come to bed as we don't want to be trying to get sorted when the boat is rocking and rolling! There are going to be a few banging doors tonight I reckon.

Attached are some pics from the wreck today.

The ships funnel.

Two of the life boats which sadly could not be used as the boat listed too quickly for the boats to be released.

The boats positioned under the funnel, they look very close however there is about 10 metres from the funnel to the boats on the sea bed.

The bow door, again hard to visual the size of this but try to imagine vehicles would use this!

Pipe fish.

Days 3 and 4 of diving.

We had no WiFi as such yesterday so was unable to leave a blog.  Unfortunately the weather has been so bad we have not made it over to Brothers and as such have not seen any big stuff.  Sadly we have heard that someone died on that particular reef yesterday due to such poor weather conditions! Very sad to hear.

Although we have not seen any of the sharks we came out to see we have had some lovely diving. As mentioned earlier we saw a turtle swimming which was lovely.  I did try to upload the video however it was restricted.  I was courageous enough to go on a night dive last night which I am glad I did as it was lovely and we even managed to get ourself back to the boat.  We turned the torches off for a short while and was amazed at what we could actually see.  Has taken some of my fear out of night diving and hopefully I may try it again..

Elka has continued to give us presentations on sharks and last night was surrounding her research.  Although interesting Dave fell asleep which was fine however at the end he started to clap as if he has been awake all the way through - this did not go unnoticed so Dave has had to take the shame!!

Dave has been talking to the big white telephone today so I am not sure how he will be.

As we have not been able to dive where we expected we were able to to do a wreck.  We dived the Salem Express which was a roll on roll off ferry which sunk in 1991.  I think this is probably one of the best wreck dives I have ever done.  I had a very eery feeling about it though as it is so modern. It was easy to imagine how the ferry was having been on these type of ferries.  It is believes some bodies may still remain on the ferry and as such is treated as a grave.  Quite poignant diving something like this.

The second dive was on another reef which has was lovely.  We shall be moving on shortly for the 3rd dive and night dive.
There has been some issues today which have fortunately been resolved, my fin strap broke just as I was about to get into the rib, couldn't find the spare however Laura, one of the girls who was diving lent me hers - thank you Laura as I would have been sad to have missed that dive.  The ride out was a bit rough and the way back, although fun, seemed rougher.  The rib filling up with water was a tad worrying though.  Having got back on the boat, I found out my tank had broken so that needed swapping.  Oh yes when I got to the wreck, I was lucky to be able to take photos as I had not charged my battery and it was showing very low!!!
The funniest part of the morning though is Dave catching his budgie smugglers on the hook so he could not kit up.  Of course I made sure everyone was aware before I unhooked him :-).  I have also replaced my fin strap now.  Again fortunate as Dave told me not to bring a spare as the type we have NEVER break!!!!!!

There were some interesting entries into the rib.  I have to say Ken's was probably the least elegant with Sue a close second.  Fortunately Dave and I were back on the rib first so no-one was able to witness that :-).

Well lets see what the rest of the day brings!!

2nd day diving

Sunday 2nd Day diving.

Weather has been too rough to take us anywhere where we are likely to see sharks.  We had a trip overnight trip which was really rough.  I was awake for most of it rolling around in the bed whilst Dave was snoring - I was not impressed to say the least.  Having said that on speaking to the captain this morning he tried to take the calmest route.  He was sitting on the open air top deck so that he could see the waves to try to avoid them. Must have been really cold up there too.  I don’t even want to think about what it would have been like.

We dived two reefs today .  One wall/plateau with a drop off of about 120 meters I think the captain said it was.  Can’t afford to make any mistakes here.  Had two dives here and saw a turtle on one of the dives J.  The second was some pinnacles which was a nice simple dive however when we got back to the boat I got a bit confused as it looked a bit small from underneath.  We saw a moray eel and a large puffer fish here.

We are sailing overnight to Brothers, weather permitting, which is one of the places where we will hopefully see sharks.  Elka one of the dive guides gave us another talk tonight on Interacting with sharks.  Interesting, reassuring but all scary at the same time.  Really need ways to keep my heart rate down as fast heart rate can attract them.  Hmmmm there may be sharks about and my heart rate needs to keep normal?????!!!!

Oh well off to bed now.  Another 6am start tomorrow.

Unfortunately we had no signal last night so a bit late!  We didn't manage to move to Brothers due to the weather conditions so unlikely to see any big stuff today.  We have however been on our first dive of the day and already seen a swimming turtle.  I shall try to download video of it tonight!!!

Ken is having a problem with his strobe which isn't flashing when he wants it to, I have to say I wish it would go off as it would distract us from all the budgie smugglers that keep appearing on this boat!! For those of you who think diving is a glamorous sport, think again lol.  If you want to get to know the real person then its the place to be.  No airs and graces, no make up......lovely.

This is the first time we have had WiFi on the boat however its quite funny how many people moan when it isn't working or going too slow....me included I have to add.

Lets hope this wind dies down so we can move out to the bigger stuff tonight.