auchmeddan

About 3 weeks ago I went out with Anson Nash of the Bermuda Conservation Society, who was looking for a volunteer to assist with the inspections of the dive moorings.  We pretty much covered every mooring on the South Shore, right up to Castle Harbour.  He checks that none of the lines are fraying, and changes the pick-up lines on most of them.  A couple of them (Shell City and Hangover Hole) had the entire mooring Changed.  While it seems like quite a difficult task it didn’t take Anson very long to do it - He would prepare the mooring line on the boat and then dive down and attach it to the cleat on the reef.  It Was pretty interesting to see and be involved in, though I didn’t do much apart from hold his tools and pass him plastic ties.  One of the moorings we went to was Southwest Breaker, and Unlike the others it also needed to have the buoy changed as well as the pick-up line.  When we were out there diving last week I said to Michael “I helped change that”.  He just laughed knowing that I had very little to do with it.  I Was only out the one time but it was nice to know I was able to help, even if it was only as a dive buddy.

I’ve pretty much fallen into a routine of going to the gym twice a week and diving the rest of the time.  Mondays and Thursday I go to an Aerobic Kick boxing class followed by Pilates.  The rest of the week I’m out diving with Bluewater, helping out with the trips they have on.  I mostly guide people around the dive sites but I’ve helped Tracy a couple of times with some Lesson and dive folks.  Doing this you get to meet a lot of different people, and I spent one of my weeks diving with Sandy and Bruce, a couple originally from Zimbabwe who are now living in London.  Ondrej managed to take them to a different site every day which is pretty good going as there are regulars that they tend to go back to time after time. I’m learning a lot and I’m becoming a much more confident diver.  I Wanted to be very comfortable in the water for our Shark diving trip in June, so “mission accomplished” I think. 

I Still dive on the weekends but I don’t guide or assist with lessons and just go diving with Dave.  Its much more relaxing as we tend to just hover around the reef looking out for anything that would be good to photograph.  Dave does the picture taking, while I guide us both around the site.  I Was at Cathedral Caves on Wednesday but didn’t really get the chance to investigate the caves, would like to go back with Dave and have a better look and maybe get some cool photos of it.  The one I did manage to see was beautiful, it was a narrow tunnel that opened out into a huge open cave that had light coming through from a gap in the rocks.  Its really hard to describe how spectacular it was.

The rest of my 58 days here are more than likely going to be spent in much the same way, with a little packing here and there.

The seas were pretty calm on Saturday, and we went out for a couple of dives at the Hermes and Virginia Merchant.  The vis at the Hermes was terrible, but Virginia Merchant wasn’t bad and we saw a huge Black Grouper on that Dive. 

On our way home I asked Jules if she fancied going for Sushi at Salt Rock Grill for lunch, which was my way of delaying the studying I knew I had to start in the afternoon. We went home to have a quick shower and dump our dive gear, and managed to catch the end of the Hibs Vs Hearts derby on the Radio.  As I was in the shower the Hibees went 2-1 up and won the match.  I ended up celebrating the Hibs win with a couple of pints as we sat in the sun and ate Sushi.  I continued my study-avoidance with more beer and Howard Stern on the radio, and we ended up sitting out on the Patio for the rest of the afternoon. Just around sunset we spotted a pair of Rays swimming along in the shallow water - a perfect end to a great day.

Unfortunately for me, I had picked up way too much sun on my head at Salt Rock and had developed a case of Sunstroke by the early hours of Sunday morning.  I was really bummed out at the prospect of missing the dives we had planned as the sea was completely “flat calm” and I was due to reach my 100th Dive.  After some gentle prodding from Jules I decided to go anyway.

I really didn’t feel that great as a headache, a sunburned head and cold water don’t go together very well.  However, it was worth the pain to get my 100th Dive in at a very calm Southwest Breaker.  The highlight of the dive was when Jules and myself found an Octopus being chaperoned around the reef by some coneys.  This was the first time I’ve ever seen an octo out in the open during the day, and it quickly moved to a new hiding place.

Photos of the Octopus on the reef, and the Coney with the octopus hiding under a rock are below.  More photos are up in the photo gallery.

  

Today was our first dive together this year, and to cut a long story short I ended up very cold and had to cut both dives short. As it was though, the dives were only the opening act for a really special moment.

On the way back from the dives, Ondrej spotted Whales and was good enough to take us a bit closer for a look. We had a great time crowded up front of the boat, waiting on the Mother and Calf to surface. We didn’t get to see a Tail, but we had a good time “ooh-ing” and “aah-ing” along with everyone each time they surfaced.

The best photos I managed to get are below. Click on the pics for a larger version.

Jules is out sunbathing just now. I’m heading out into the shade with a beer to enjoy the memories from today.