Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Today was a dive day for me, the day started at 7:45 with the long commute to Dive BVI. I must have taken at least 50-60 steps on the lengthy and arduous path to the “Sea Dragon” dive boat, 2 slips over. But make it I did and I joined a friendly group of 4 other fellow divers for out trip to the wreck of the Rhone. We arrived early enough to be the first dive boat there and while visibility was only average and the bottom current quite strong I saw parts of the wreck that I hadn’t seen before and we saw a turtle, a ray, several lobster, a very large barracuda who refused to be photographed and other interesting flora and fauna. Upon our return to the docks at Leverick Bay my fellow divers convinced me to join them on a night dive departing at 5pm. I’ve never done a night dive before and, although a bit tired from insufficient sleep and the two dives on the Rhone, I chose to join them. We departed shortly after 5pm and went to Coral Gardens in the Dog Islands; the site which I had dove with Carmen and Bernd just a couple of days before. The mooring balls are far from the aeroplane carcass and, as I learned, night dives are very slow dives with no great range so we wouldn’t make it that far out. We got a security and signals briefing and descended into the murky depths at dusk, the first 10-15 minutes of the dive still had sufficient ambient light to be able to see outside of the cone of light thrown by our flashlights. The experience was wonderful and I look forward to getting other night dives; one sees different reef denizens who only come out to play and feed at night; the lobsters that we did see moved around with surprising alacrity and one even seemed to fly to the attack at one of the divers. I do think that next time I do a night dive I’ll squeeze myself into a wet-suit and wear gloves, since it is very easy to let oneself inadvertently drift into coral or other underwater obstructions.
