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Lanzarote 2008 - The Dive Trip. Our dive trip started as usual, like most of our trips do, with an abundence of excitement, a degree of confusion and a teaspoon full of disaster for good measure. On board were Andrea, Brian, Steve, Andy, Maddie,Jane, Brenda, Kelvin, Aaron, Kris Kris and this year our new little friend Salty Beaver. Two weeks before the trip, Andrea, our intrepid leader and trip organiser, slipped over on the slipway at Stoney Cove and badly damaged her ankle, resulting in a quick trip to hospital and a precarious exit on crutches with a very disfigured and damaged ankle. Hmmm not terribly good for diving on then. The week before we were due to leave two more trip members went down with flu and at one point we did think we might be selling flight tickets on Ebay. However, being a hardy bunch of divers, we did all manage to get on our feet, or foot in Andrea's case, and hobble or walk into the airport to meet up at check-in and off load heaps of baggage to the poor lady behind the desk who did a marvellous job with extra baggage allowances for divers. Well done to Thompson Airways on that one. Stepping off the plane in November into warm bright sunshine was fantastic and we all immediately fell into holiday mode. We stayed again at the Santa Rosa in Costa Teguise as it provides very clean and quiet self catering apartments, walking distance from the dive schools. We dived this year with Native Divers in Costa Teguise, as they promised us a daily pick up with 2 dives a day and back by 2pm so we could slob around the pool, which suited us just fine: We like slobbing, its one of our favourite pastimes after diving! Having unpacked our t-shirts and jeans we made our way to sign in at the dive school and sort out dive sites etc. Nico was to be our dive guide. Nico is an ex-military and commercial diver who is a strapping sort of guy and native to the Canaries, although he speaks fluent English. We were also accompanied on most dives by Alex. Alex is a gorgeous 19 year old English lad, with a dazzling smile and flowing golden locks, well mannered, fun, and has a mancunian accent, which is a little bizzare as he has lived in the Canaries since he was 7. The next day we were duly collected from our hotel at 9am to go to the dive school where we were to sort out kit and get ready to dive. This involved a plastic box for everyone to put their kit in and 2 cylinders per person to be loaded onto the minibus. We were introduced to a guy from London (Landan) who was also going to join our party and dive with us - and that was where it all went wrong ! Now we are a friendly lot at our school. We believe in team work and fair play with everyone having to hump kit regardless. So it was not a problem that we had to load the van - even though we were on holiday ! We duly formed a chain and passed kit along the line into the vehicle and loaded up all the cylinders including 2 x 15litre cylinders for the guy from Landan.... err.. hang on a sec, where is the guy from London. Havent seen him load any kit yet !! hmmm maybe he will load some later. With the kit on board off we went to Puerto Del Carman for the day to do two 30m dives. Nico was insistant that everyone must work as a team and help carry Andrea's kit on the grounds that she could not take the weight on her ankle, and everyone mucked in making sure she got into the water ok and her fins were on, and then kitted her up in the water where it was easier for her to take the weight. We dropped down into about 10m of water, and immediately found seahorses snuggled into the rope coils from the buoy line. They were quite amazing hanging on with their tails, and we even saw them free swimming around the rope line. The dive had quite strong currents on it, and was mainly across sand and rocks and through small caverns and caves. We saw angel sharks, octopus, file fish, and the friendly grouper waiting to be stroked and fussed. We dived to about 35m and battled a strong current on the way back but the marine life had been worth it. The second dive was off the pier in Puerto Del Carman. The tide was getting a little low but Nico jumped off the pier into the water, which was a drop of about 5m into the water. Most of us were taking the steps down so we could handle camera gear etc, but not Aaron. Aaron, not wanting to be outdone on the Testosterone levels, decided he too was going to leap off the side of the quay. It was hillarious. Just as he leapt off, it looked like he changed his mind with a mad mid air scramble back to the side which failed and he hit the water in the most ungainly fashion with everyone falling over in heaps of laughter. Another 30m+ dive, resulted in more angel sharks, schools of barracudas, jacks, damsel fish and another long swim home. Back at the dive school we unloaded the van and washed all the kit out in an impressive display of teamwork, forming chains and passing kit along the line - oh, wonder where that guy from Landan was again! - perhaps tomorrow he might help out !! The next day, kit duly loaded - erm has anyone put those 15's on for that guy from London - oh yes, Arran loaded them for him - we went to dive the Blue Hole. Its not clear at what point you are in the Blue Hole as its a tad indicipherable, but we apparently did dive it. Its not an awesome kind of dive you remember, unlike the Blue Hole of Dahab, but it was a dive. The marine life was pretty much the same as the day before and another long swim home warmed us up in the slightly chilly 19 degree waters. The same old routine followed, you load all the kit in the van and return to the dive school to unload the kit and get it washed off and hung up for the next day, with everyone helping out and lots of laughter and splashing, well everyone except the guy from Landan, who had a knack of disappearing just when all the hard work started. We soon had him sussed and a pile of unwashed dive kit was left on the floor of the dive school - and guess who it belonged to !! The next day we were told that we were going Deco Diving. A 44m dive to visit the Pink Coral Cave. We would have to go into deco time due to the depth and we all agreed we would dive as a team and anyone showing signs of being Narked would be rescued by anyone who noticed it. We all agreed and we set off down to the depths of the ocean. London, as he had become known, was not diving with us today, and had been replaced by two Spanish divers. Considering we were diving to 44m+ it was quite disturbing to see these two divers had hired kit with no depth gauge, no dive watch and no dive computer and were relying totally on Nico's profile. We dropped to 34m to the top of a sloping drop-off before descending to 44m to the cave entrance. Everyone was keeping an eye on each other, signalling ok ok but at this point we noticed Kris Kris and Salty Beaver were off on their own to far deeper depths, fining backwards down the slope and looking a little confused. But.... Salty the Beaver, being a well trained type of diver, soon pulled off a rescue and pulled Kris Kris back to 44m and normality resumed. The pink coral was a little disappointing considering the effort we had gone to to get there. Its a clump of coral about a foot high at the entrance to the cave, but its significance is good and its good its still there and clumsy footed divers havent managed to kick it to pieces yet. A long slow hard fin up a steep sandy slope on the way back was hard going and caution needed to be exerted to ensure that such hard finning against a strong current was not creating a "rapid" ascent affect. At one point I think most of us were almost climbing up the slope because it was so hard to fin. Once back at the top a slow fin back along the reef found a playful octopus, well until the Spanish girl poked it with her finger - God where do these people learn to dive??? That night, we had a great night out to celebrate Janes birthday. It wasnt strictly her birthday but as we were not diving on the Sunday, it was a good night to celebrate so we could all have some alcohol and a late night. We went to Janes favourite restaurant, a little place built onto the sea wall with good food. We had a table overlooking the sea and they arranged a birthday cake and a seranade by a waiter who played the guitar a little like Les Dawson played the Piano!! We had a great time and for Aaron it was made all the better by the blonde haired Spanish waitress who gave him her phone number, much to the amusement of half the diners. The next day was slob day. Although a little windy the sun was shining and the beach just had to be done. After a hearty breakfast, we strolled down to the beach and streched out for some well earned rest. Kris Kris and Andrea were the first to venture in the sea. Holding hands they made a purposeful stride into the water, only to stop dead in their tracks from the shock of freezing cold water on flesh. Clutching tightly to each other, they then ran at full pelt into the water and swam as fast as penquins to try to warm up. Fair dues though, they did stick it out for a good 30 minutes, joined of course by Aaron, who had to demonstrate his masculinity at every opportunity. Even to point of taking off his swim shorts in the sea, swinging them around his head and yelling at the top of his voice "Aunty Andi, Aunty Andi look at me!" Hmmm yes Aaron, the whole beach is looking at you !! Back on the beach and after a group hug with Brenda, who looked like she needed cooling down a bit(much to the amusement of half the beach) we dried off, warmed up and got sunburnt. Salty Beaver had some surfing lessons on a flipflop and then took up rock climbing on the rocky outcrop on the beach. Aaron, unable to keep his testosterone levels at bay, was eager to return to the restaurant to meet his new love and spent the rest of the day, wooing her with his tattooed body and stupid puppy dog grin made worse by several pints of beer. After a great night out Aaron finally got his wicked way with his new love over table number 32 (after the diners had finished we hoped) followed by table number 24, 18, 6 and finally the beach. Only to discover to his horror the next day, that his new love was someone elses love, and that he hadnt taken kindly to a tattooed chef from England romping with his lady either on or under the tables. So much so that he scoured Costa Teguise looking for a shaved headed tattooed guy and found.......Aaron. At which point he made it clear exactly what he was going to do to him and that included presenting his head on a plate to their joint love. . Aaron, being the stand hardy kind of guy that he is, denied all knowledge of any table d'hote liaisons and declared that he was on a dive boat at sea and so it couldnt possibly have been him - oh and what dive boat was that exactly Aaron ??? The last days diving took us to Mala, the German Nudist colony, to dive the Lift. We had already dived Mala the previous day, but the other side, and the access to the Lift dive site meant an off road drive over seriously rough ground with a vehicle full of kit. London was back with us, plus a Swedish guy who we had not met before. The climb down to the dive site was seriously steep. WIth the sea being so rough, the waves were crashing up over the rocks we had to climb down in full dive kit, making it extremely slippy and the rocks are razor sharp. Helped down by Nico, Andrea had to have full kit on as it was impossible to carry it. Struggling over the rocks, we all helped each other down, but were eventually over taken by a group of 3 German divers, who came past us carrying a thick rope. We let them pass us as it was slow going for our group, and they disappeared over the rocks. The water entry is one without fins on, with a giant leap off the rocks into crashing waters, where a quick scramble to get your fins on is followed by another quick scramble to get off the rocks and help the next person with their fins. Once we were all in, we dropped down for a very long swim to the cave system called the Lift. It was more of a military route march than a relaxing dive, full pelt through the water to find the entrance to the cave. Nico and his girlfriend went first followed by London and his Swedish buddy who kicked up all the sand sending visibility to zero in an instance. We followed as best we could but couldnt see anything at all, especially the Swedish guy giving the 50 bar signal in the cave !!!! One of our crew saw what was happening and escorted him and London out of the cave through an opening, sharing air with each other. After a seriously rapid journey back to the exit point, it was apparent that the rough sea was going to mean getting out was hard work. After taking off weight belts and forming a chain to hand them up to Nico, it was then a feat of engineering to get your fins off while being smashed against rocks and trying to climb up a slippery rock face with your dive kit on. Thank God the Germans had left their rope behind !! Aaron and Steve climbed up the rope followed by Andrea, who had no choice but to do it with bad ankle or not. There was no other way out. London climbed out on his own with his weight belt on and failed to follow orders or help anyone else, and just disappeared. Aaron and Steve, a little hung over from the night before and not feeling so well in the swell, were pee'd off about the guy running out of air, the poor dive plan and the conditions, and decided we were not doing another dive there and were going to climb their way back to the van with Andrea in tow. Humping and grumping up the cliff face, Aaron fell over trying to help Andrea and Steve suggested that Andrea wade through a shallow rock pool to get over a difficult patch of rock. Stepping into the 'shallow' Rock Pool, Andrea sank up to her neck as there was no bottom to it and scrambling to get out of it was even worse than scrambling over the rocks. Eventually we all made it to the dive van, followed by a very irrate Nico who wanted to know why we were not doing another dive at the same sight, and then all hell broke loose. There were accusations of poor dive planning, retorts about people who breathe too much air, comments about inexperienced divers not being part of the party and then Landan made a very rude comments about Andrea not being able to carry her dive kit and and that was a pain for needing help all week. Well that was a bad move for Landon - err has anyone ever seen Andrea deck a guy before???? . When Andrea resorts to silent menancing looks its time to take the brace position - but she held firm ground and suggested we load the van and move on to the other side of Mala, and kit was in the van quicker than you could say "Landan bit up thy kit and walk". He didnt of course load any kit, and simply left it to us While waiting for the dive van to come back and pick up the few of us who had waited behind, we looked at the Swedish guy's kit and it was another diver who was diving on hired kit, with no watch, no computer, no dive planner and no depth gauge. Andrea asked him how old he was and what qualification he held. He stated he was 42 and was a PADI AOW. He was then asked in typical Andrea forthright style " You're 42 years old, you're an AOW diver and you are prepared to dive without any means of timing your dive, you dont know how much safety stop you have done or whether you are in deco time. How much do you value your life?" The reply from the Swede was a shrug !! Says it all That night, we went out to dinner to celebrate the dive holiday being a success. Reflecting on the events of the week, it was clear that diving Lanzarote is not for the faint hearted and presents a number of challenges in rough seas and deep waters. All the diving was 30m+, most of them had fairly long swims, strong currents and some had difficult entry/exit points. The last dive at the Lift, was especially demanding in terms of fitness and strength, and we had also dived to 47m on air. Looking around the table with the wine flowing and raucous laughter, it was good to reflect on the level of team work and personal safety standards that had taken place. We had made sure everyone was safe on every dive, helped each other in and out of the water, made sure on the deeper dives we were all ok, helped Andrea with her kit and over the rocks due to her temporary disability, humped kit, washed kit, had fun and most of all had laughed together. It was good to push ourselves on demanding dives, and even better to be laughing about them over dinner. Anytime you can sit laughing about a dive, is a good dive. A great holiday, good demanding diving, but a tad boring topography and marine life. We have done it and got the t-shirt, so we wouldnt go back for the diving but its a great place to get some winter sunshine. Next year Gozo. Watch this space. The Crew |