Diving 2006

Diving

     

Photoalbum Antiparos

 

Our first real dive on Antiparos island Greece, Tuesday May 23, 2006: DIVE!

Early in the morning Timo is awake and in order to let Eef enjoy her sleep, he leaves to jog. Normally his schedule says to run once for 20 minutes long, but that did not come through correctly and he did it twice. Then shower time and breakfast at Yannis’ Place. Eef has the breakfast ‘Antiparos’ (toast with cheese, ham and tomatoes); Timo has ‘Kambos Livado’ (omelet with vegetables). Both are served with coffee and fresh orange juice. This is perfect to start the day. We buy water (2bottles), fruit, cola and some biscuits to take with us on the boat and we prepare our bag too. All we have, we take with us: fins, masks, and snorkels. In the meantime we need to move to be on time for our appointment at the dive school. We’re waiting at the and of the beach road and suddenly see a person walk by with fins in his hand. Timo speaks up and this is Filip. We look for a diving suit, that fits, put it all near the road and wait for Alexandros to pick the gear up with his van. At the boat Timo helps Filip to load it all on the boat and everything is put on the boat (almost perfectly on time). Eef does social talk with a mom and daughter from Sweden, they join us, but for snorkeling. Now we’re on the move: we get dressed with a shorty and a 5 mm suit. Everything is done for us; all equipment is ready to dive. The first dive is near San Spiridon, the name of the church on top of the island. Before we go there is briefing: go down to 8 meters, then next to a wall further down to the bottom, up next to another wall, swim for the three minute stop and then to the surface again. Ok! Let’s go! On the boat, front roll. First Timo, then Filip and as last one Eef. We go down easily and then we’re under. Everything is unbelievably beautiful: a lot of small damselfish between the rocks, seaweed, sea urchins, 2 fire worms. Scorpion fish also swim there; it’s really too beautiful and too good to be true, but it is. We’ve been to a depth of 19 meters. Last year there was an octopus in this area, but he’s not at home right now. Two starfish and the diving skills are OK. The water is warm, sight is good. Marvelous. We all get back on the boat and go a few kilometers further to the ‘Black Rock’ for the second dive.  Again Filip does it all for us. He changes bottles, gives us our jacket and we’re settled to dive away again. They tell us that two years ago Tom Hanks has learnt to dive here. What an honor! Now we see again lots of fish, one moray eel. There is one bigger fish with loads of different colors: green, yellow, blue and has a fin that sticks up. The descent happens very well again, we both have it under control.  We swim around the rock, now only at a depth of 11 meters. A great opportunity. This is why we have been diving into black water of De Nekker without any fish, without any visibility. During the second dive Timo has the underwater camera, we’re curious how it will look like. After 30 minutes we’re back in the boat. The only thing we need to do is undress; we don’t have to worry about the equipment. We’re on our holiday, remember? Once we’re back in the harbor Eef runs for the first café she can find: she urgently needs a bathroom. Then we say goodbye to Filip, Alexandros and the two Swedish women. We clean all our equipment, take a shower and prepare ourselves for a cheerful aperitif. At Makis, 1 retsina, 1 ouzo with chtapodi psito, spaggi vegetariana and let’s enjoy it. We feel great. Let Mike know how it was with a message from the mobile phone and continue to enjoy our moment of glory. Filip arrives too a while later and joins us. We’re chatting about Greece and diving in general. From 16:00 till 18:00 we’re sitting there and then go back to the rooms for a siesta. We’re there until 19:30: then we drink coffee on the balcony, write down our stories of the day and go to the dive shop at 21:00 go fill our logbooks out and afterwards we can go to eat. The Swedish women had a good suggestion for us to eat tonight, so we will check that out. Fillip was not in the dive shop yet, so we go directly to Pavlos Place. The reception is unbelievably friendly and welcoming and they show us all specialties of the day. We order fisherman’s plate as an appetizer, 1 souvlaki shrimps, 1 grilled snapper, 1 chicken kleftiko. With that we drink 1 liter of retsina. The waiters are very friendly, the food is excellent and guess who is there also: the Swedish woman with her family. We eat it all and it is very, very good and when we ask for the bill, there still is one ouzo from the house. A good thing we had a lot of water with dinner, else we would be drunk as hell. So back to the dive shop now. Alexandros and Filip are drinking on the terrace right opposite the shop. We fill out the logbooks, drink another 2 ouzo and talk about traveling and diving with Filip. We finished a beautiful day with a great evening and night. It’s pretty late when we go to be (00:30).