The anchorage at Oranjestad has been wonderfully calm, no swell curving onto the west side. The wind has increased and it could be choppy out on the dive sites. All diving has to be done with one of the commercial outfits, diving on your own is not allowed. It's also a marine park and carefully monitored.
We take our kit to the main wharf and load it onto the dive boat which is already tied alongside the dinghy dock. Then we hop into their truck and go to the dive shop half a mile along the road to meet our fellow divers and for our briefing on the Charles Brown wreck. The Charles Brown, a former cable layer, was sunk in 2003 to be a dive site. It's 100m long and lies on its side on the sand in 30m. On the surface the waves were choppy in a lively breeze, but as we descended the shot line it was quieter though we did have to hold on all the way to the bottom because there was current. These wonderful photos weren't taken by me – I've 'borrowed' them from stock images on the internet.
 |
| Charles Brown (not my photo) |
After a surface interval taken back at the dive shop with our next briefing we headed back out to a site called Anchor. This was a reef on top of lava tubes and in the middle a grand anchor at least 100years old encrusted with life. It was very nice, a lot less current, and interesting to pootle around.
looks like me, but not
The only downside to our day is that the dinghy outboard refuses to start and we accept a tow home from our neighbours. On the ride back we make the fun discovery that we met their boat in our first week of sailing. Back in November '08 it was called Blue, a PDQ catamaran owned by Richard Owings and we were at Stocking Island in the Bahamas. Another 'small world' experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment