DiversInc

Let me just start by saying what a fantastic trip it was. I’d never been to the Isle of Man before, but I wasn’t disappointed. The accommodation was great for the price and both Steve and Michelle from Discover Diving even chauffeured us around in the evenings to various pubs and eateries. And the boat (The Endeavour) was excellent with its spacious deck, lift and CCTV!

The island itself is in a bit of a time warp – yet in a nice sense. I didn’t see any graffiti, litter or see any loutish behaviour when we were out in the evenings, and everyone I met was friendly and helpful. It was a welcome relief form the various sights many of us have become accustomed to witnessing on a night out in the city.

The only negative was in terms of the weather; however we knew we were taking a chance going in November, but as it turned out, it was a chance worth taking.

The first 2 days were spent shore diving, as the swells and winds were a bit perilous. However these were by no means average dives. The first dive was at the Lifeboat Station in Port Erin which has an undersea wall that runs parallel and near to the lifeboat launch. It’s teaming with life and you’ll find Conger Eels, wrasse including Cuckoo, Ballan and Corkwing, with plenty of Tompots hiding in all the various cracks. Cammie managed to catch himself a lobster. Out of the water though it did look more like a juvenile, (I’m sure Cammie’s heard that phrase before), so he sent it homeward to think again. (Now where have I heard that before?).

The next dive we did was At Port Soderick. It’s a nice wee bay enclaved by cliffs to the north. Basically, you fin towards the cliffs and follow their contours. The undersea terrain is reminiscent of St. Abbs with huge kelp stalks in such abundance it’s like a forest. There were a couple of youthful seals in the bay which followed us around too. Due to the weather, the swell and undercurrents were pretty exerting and required a lot of physical effort. I think most of us felt like we’d been in a washing machine on the spin cycle by the time we made our exit.

Again the weather was poor on the second day, so we settled for a shore dive in Fleshwick Bay. It’s a beautiful bay with high cliffs on either side and lots of rocks and underwater caverns to explore. Close to the cliffs leading back to the shore, there’s lots of thick kelp and if you’re lucky you’ll encounter a seal or two here. The combination of the topography and marine plant life makes this a really interesting and enjoyable dive, not to mention the dolphin which welcomed us with a graceful leap out of the water.

On the third day we finally got out on the boat. The sea was flat and calm and our first dive was a scenic dive at the Calf of Man on the south west side just beyond Calf Sound. This dive was as scenic as anything you’d find in the Mediterranean. Great viz and lots of coloured fish darting in and out of the rock crevices, along with spotted dogfish, and an abundance of mature scallops too close to the rocks for the dredgers. This has probably been the best scenic dive I’ve done in British Waters, despite missing out on seeing a basking shark which Joe, Alan and Ian had an encounter with.

Then Steve (Discover Diving) advised us our next dive was a ‘2 for 1’ experience, combining the wreck of the Clan McMaster with a drift dive in Calf Sound. We dropped in uptide of Thousla Lighthouse at the isthmus between the Calf of Man and the main Isle of Man. The wreck of the Clan McMaster lies at 15m deep and the drift was 3-4 knots! It was one of the best drifts I’ve experienced and it reminded me of Harry Potter flying around on his broomstick playing Quidditch.

Our last dive was the Sugar Loaf Caves.  The caves descend to a maximum depth of 12 metres. After finning along the first walls, you encounter a large junction taking you into ‘The Cave of Birds’. There are stunning lighting effects here as the sunlight penetrates through the cracks in the rock. Take a torch with you to checkout the hydroids, anemones and various colourful sponges which adorn the walls. I found this particularly thrilling as you went from light to shadow to darkness, then shadow and finally light again. Cave diving has never appealed to me, so Sugar Loaf does just enough to provide a reasonable insight.

Already planning a return trip. However, I’ll try to diary it earlier in the year next time.

Just back from 10 days at the Cenotes. As independent as I would like to believe I am, I do really enjoy the social nature of diving. Just being at the same Cenote with friends is good enough for me.

The plan was to revisit an area of Taj Ma Ha that I hadn't been to in 12-14 months. This time in sidemount with the idea of looking for sidemount sized passage. I went down stream on the white line. The white line runs from Cenote Taj Ma Ha to Cenote Scarada. The swim time for that traverse is about 30 minutes. The average depth is about 25 feet.

In any event, I swam to the double arrows and jumped to the right. This jump is just a minute or two short of Cenote Scarada. A minute or so after the jump, I came to another line arrow. I tied my reel in and started to poke around looking for the jump. My first attempt netted me a dead end with zero visibility that required me to navigate turned 90'. Once I backed out of that mess, I found the jump. It isn't really in a logical place compared to the arrow. The jump is beyond the arrow to the left. There isn't a straight shot from the arrow to the jump, I guess they want to hide the jump a little. The end of the line has a big red arrow and is hard to miss once you see it.

That line is the sidemount passage I was looking for. It could be done in backmount, but it would be a big mess. The cave is complete swiss cheese and there is a lot of really fine white silt and little bits of cave falling down everywhere. Just my percolation made a real mess of the first part of the passage. The passage continues to twist and turn and takes you up through a lot more swiss cheese. It was a lot of fun to dive. The line continued where I turned. Not sure if I am going to go back, it seems really unstable back there. All that swiss cheese rock just gives me the jitters.

I am grateful for the explorers that came before me, however, sometimes the line I find is in the weirdest/worst places. It is almost like they weren't thinking when they ran it. This line was particularly bad. I can't really imagine how they surveyed it.

One thing I always stress to trainees is 'line laying and placement'. We spend a lot of time discussing how and where to place the line, what type of tie-offs to use and why. The idea is that a well placed line will be enjoyable and efficient to survey as well swim. The more line you put in, the more you look at line, With experience you start to notice good line and poorly laid line. I saw some poorly laid line in Taj Ma Ha. It wasn't dangerous, but it wasn't the cleanest either.

After I turned the first part of the dive, I spent some time exploring the rest of the area. The line I originally jumped onto looped back to the same starting point.

The great thing about Taj, is I always find another section I haven't been too. It is amazing how much diving can be done at one site and still not see all of it.

Had a great two weeks diving in Lanzarote. Once again with Squalo Diving situated in Puerto Calero. The majority of diving in Lanzarote is on the south around Puerto Del Carmen. There are about 40 dive centres on the island and it's not uncommon to see about 10-15 minibuses converge on Playa Chicca (Puerto Del Carmen), not to mention up to 5 ribs circulating the jetty. So at any given time there's upwards of 50 divers. But there are 6 sites which can be accessed from the shore and a further 4 by boat, so it generally doesn't get too crowded. Niamh and I, (my 11 y/o daughter and sometimes buddy) dived a number of the familiar sites in the area. Here are some of them:

The House Reef - Shore Dive

Playa Chicca is accessed from the beach or the jetty with a short surface swim then a free descent to approximately 12 metres at which point the dive runs along the end of the protected bay with overhangs on either side. The bottom contours can be followed to a depth of approximately 25 metres. There are a variety of fish including grouper, barracuda, angelsharks, and rays to be seen. Large shrimps, globular anemone, arrowhead crabs, octopus and sponges can also be seen. If you look among the coils of rope on the seabed from the buoy and mooring lines around the jetty, you'll often spot seahorses camouflaged in the folds and crevices.

As a shore dive, it provides a lot of variation. I've happily dived it several times now and always discovered something different on each dive.

The Cathedral  - Shore/Boat Dive

The site is accessed from the jetty at Playa Chicca. It is a short surface swim directly south of the jetty to a white plastic drum used as a buoy, then a descent down the buoy line to 14metres. You fin south along the reef to the left and over a drop-off which leads down to the Cathedral at approximately 30 metres. The Cathedral is a large underwater lava cave, which funnels down towards the rear. There are alcoves of finger coral and small shrimp and glass fish at the far end and there are many soft corals on the cave walls and roof. You'll see groupers here and stingrays. This is also a regular hang out for trumpet fish. Take a torch on this dive to explore the Cathedral cave. I didn't, so my pictures were lousy! Dardo (Squalo Diving) pointed out a Moray which resides on top of the Cathedral, on the outside of the cave.

Although, he didn't manage to coax it out, I still managed to get a great photograph of it accompanied by an arrowhead crab in the foreground.

Red Coral - Shore Boat Dive

The site is to the west of the jetty at Playa Chicca. It's a short surface swim to a buoy with a line descent to approx.16 metres. Keeping west, you follow the reef along a drop off which leads to a small lava alcove, which is where you will see the rare pink coral at the rear. Segura (Squalo Diving) also pointed out another formation on the top of the alcove. There is a great deal of fish activity here, especially in the mornings. I saw shoals of fusiliers, barracuda, tuna and sardines. There are some pretty big triggerfish too which pick away at morsels among the soft corals and seabed.

Richie's Reef - Boat Dive

The site is to the outer side of the buoyed area of the long beach at Puerto Del Carmen. Mooring on one of the large buoys, you descend to 18 metres. The area is an interesting flat-walled reef with outcrops of boulders and plenty of recesses for fish life. The contours take divers down to approx 35 metres. There is a good variety of fish to be seen, some very large groupers, morays, barracuda and octopus. The big groupers are so used to divers; they are pretty friendly and allow you in close to photograph them. Its here we encountered the Manta Ray. It approached us at 28 metres and made three turns towards us. It was definitely the highlight of my two weeks diving in Lanzarote and fortunately I was the only one with a camera! At the insistence of the rest of the group (divers from Gran Canaria and Madrid), I had to download the footage onto Squalo's PC so all could get copies.

The Blue Hole - Shore/Boat Dive

Access this site via the jetty and swim west towards a large white buoy followed by a descent to 12 - 14 metres to where the Blue Hole commences. The Hole is 2-3 metres wide and deep and leads from about 18 metres down, through the reef and out the other side at around 25 metres.

There is a very noticeable thermo-cline at the transition between the two depths as the reef drops to around 35 metres on the Atlantic side. In my 3mm wetsuit it felt like a day out at the spa, plunging from a comfortable hot bath into a frigidarium. The site is visited by barracuda, grouper and angelsharks. Although I was able to film angelsharks last year, this time I only managed to see the indentations in the sand where they'd previously been hiding.

Puerto Calero: Harbour Wall and Tenderete Wreck - Boat Dive

Adjacent to the outer harbour wall at Puerto Calero, a fishing boat, the Tenderete, has recently been scuttled. There's not much life on it yet, but I did see shoals of fusiliers and sardines. The wreck has been purposely sunk for diving and sits on the seabed at 25-26 metres. It is upright. It starboard runs parallel with the harbour wall with its bow nearest the harbour entrance and stern towards Puerto Del Carmen. The hatch covers and doors have been removed and you can penetrate the holds on the fore and aft quite easily. You can also descent into the engine room and ascend from there towards the wheelhouse. Personally I couldn't get into the wheelhouse, finding the corridor too narrow, but I'm sure an experienced wrecky would have no problem.

On your ascent, you can explore the harbour wall adjacent to the wreck. Although a featureless sandy bottom, there are many little creatures residing in the crevices to photograph. Scorpionfish, blennies, shrimps, spidercrabs, spiny urchins and gobies all making a home here.

There is one priority to consider though. Before diving here, you must check that the yellow submarine in Puerto Calero harbour will not be undertaking its undersea tour. Only then are you permitted to dive.

I would come back to Lanzarote. I find the diving diverse and the dive centre staff at Squalo friendly, helpful and extremely trusting. They even left me keys to lock-up one evening after I'd uploaded pictures to their PC, and for the second year running, I was trusted to compile my diving bill for the two weeks! When that level of friendship and trust is extended to you, it certainly puts Squalo at the top of my list of dive centres, so a big thank you to Nico, Dardo and Segura for making stay all the more enjoyable.

I put together a video, on the link below. Unfortunately, I'd forgotten to pack my strobe, so the colours could have been richer. However...

Lanzarote - Manta Diablo