A good day for interacting with the natives today. We'd booked a dive trip with Wreck Bay Divers. On todays trip there were only 3 divers, David, me and our friend Jack from Anthem, and 3 people snorkelling. The small dive boat picked us up from our boats at .8.30am and we sped out of the bay and north to Isla Loberia, a sea lion colony, where we did a quick check dive to do a buoyancy check and basic mask clearing, regulator recovery exercises. Check dive done we were free to go snorkelling with the sea lions.
They are so much fun and love to play. The ones in the water with us were juvenilles, puppies, who wanted to get close but would never touch. I was taking photos as they ducked and dived, swam at us, swam around us and one cheeky one came up to the camera as if to take it from my hand. I pulled my arm back sharply. A group of four had a leaf that they passed and carried like a toy. We were fortunate to be able to get close to a group of 6 youngsters in a small inlet and they were firing toward us, blowing bubbles, somersaulting and turning away at the last moment. Such fun and you can see why we found it the best part of the da. David and I were reluctant to leave them and were the last to climb back on the boat.
The captain fired up the engines and we roared off north once more to our dive site, Kicker Rock or Leon Dormido (sleeping lion). This is two towering rocks in the form of an obelisk that emerge from the sea with nesting frigates and one lonely marine iguana in residence. Originally they woould have been the plug in a volcanic crater. The slim gap between the two rocks was our first dive site. We kitted up did a backward roll into the water and then down a sheer rock face to 22m. The water is cooler than the Caribbean, about 24c and visibility was fair today. As we got lower into the gap between the rocks we could feel the surge pushing us forward and then pulling us back though not strongly. Above us two eagles rays cruised over head. It was as we went deeper we found the sharks, white tips, black tips and one Galapagos buzzing around. They must have known we were in their domain but they didn't show any concern. All too soon it was time to turn around and start our ascent following the wall of the second rock upwards until we were back at th boat. For David and I this is the first time we've had a guided dive and a surface crew for quite a while. We wouldn't have been able to do this dive on our own.
The first dive was only 40 minutes and not too deep so we only needed one hourssurface interval before jumping in for second dive of the day. This time we went out to the seaward side of the rock looking for that current that attracts hammerheads. We dropped down and followed a ledge out to 18m and sat there waiting for something to cruise past. We had four large turtles join us in the waiting game. Sadly no hammerheads today. To finish the dive we sw am along the wall which was covered with starfish and a few smaller fish and then up and out. Again just 40 minutes. When you're used to doing over an hour this feels like ending before you started. David had a leak on his regulator and was low on air. I'd used the gills behind my ears and came back with 2/3rds full.
With diving for the day completed and approaching lunchtime we turned back to home and dropped the hook off a pristine white beach. Lunch was served. We ate chicken sandwiches and the resident horseflies had us. Monsters. We were encouraged to go for a walk on the beach after lunch. However the horseflies were so prolific and intent and geting our blood the walk turned into the dance of the fly swatters and we gave up after 10 minutes.
The dive boat dropped us back at Jackster at 3.30pm. While I laid out our kit to dry David hopped a water taxi into town to go to the welder before he shut for the weekend. The motor on the main sail out haul failed last week and our friendly welder was doing some minor repair work for us. and he did a great job for very few pennies.
To finish off our fun day we went out for dinner with Jackie, Gary and Jack to a local restaurant and enjoyed a feast of soup, barbecue chicken, rice, lentils and salad for an amazing $5 each. A water taxi home and we fell into bed and slept soundly.
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