Diving 2006

Photoalbum Thira

Diving

 

Friday October 6, 2006: Dive at Santorini

Our alarm was going off at 09:00, but we were already up at 08:30. Again we prepare our breakfast with Nescafé – the water boiler does its job very well – bread, cheese and marmalade. The weather is not good at all: very foggy. We almost don’t see the church in front of us. We ask ourselves if the dives will take place with this weather. We prepare ourselves and go to the square where we meet our dive instructor. When we arrive on the square the little van of Mediterranean Diving Club just arrives too. It’s Nikos, a Greek with dreadlocks. In Thira he needs to pick up some more people: Cathie, an American and Kevin and his wife – also American, his wife will not dive. We drive to Perissa to the dive club and arrive there at 10:30. Everyone is very relaxed. Have a seat, drink something. We all go to put our boots and wetsuit (7 mm) on. Ola kala. Ten divers are joining: Nikos, Emma, Jody and Ashley of the dive club and then Kevin, Cathie, 2 Mexicans (father and son?) and us. We are driven towards Vlihada by car and there is the boat. The Mexican mother stays on shore, because she would get wet, when she would join us. The boat is nothing more than a speedboat; everyone needs to sit on the side and needs to hold the rope or a metal bar. All the gear lies on the bottom of the boat. Nikos is using all the speed the boat has, so we need to hold tight. After 20 minutes we arrive at the first diving site Aspronissi: the white island. We are briefed, and then everyone receives his or her fins and the rest of the equipment. Eef needs to enter the water first, back-roll off the boat. All OK. Timo is next. How did we need to do it again? Never doubt, just do it. All OK. But then the tank starts to blow off, a little bit scary. Not good, Jody shuts is off. Timo stays in the water and gives it all back to the boat and then he receives a new tank. In the end everyone is in the water and we go down. Very nice, very good sight. And immediately we see a lot of fish. It’s a wall dive: this means we swim towards a wall, follow it for a while. Beautiful snails, stones, rocks, sponges and curious fish. We need to take notice we don’t go down too deep, because in total it’s about 2 to 300 meters deep and then no one will find you. We swim on along the wall and then return after 15 minutes. Same way back. The group stays together and we rise to the surface. Splendid first dive. We all crawl back into the boat (just like that without stairs, but very easy after some practice) and we swim to the white island, to the beach to have a snack. The people of the diving Club have brought a croissant and juice and water. We stay out here for about an hour and then swim back to the boat. Then we move on to the next dive location; Mesa Pigadia. It is a black lava rock with a lot of holes and caves. This is our cave dive. Again there is briefing. This time we go down with 6 divers, the others have to do some things for the next certificate, probably dive master. The dive is excellent, magnificent. We swim in and out the caves and small entries. Sometimes it’s very narrow, you almost need to squeeze through. We see magnificent scenery of light and rocks. Inside the caves or swim-throughs it is dark, but the sunbeams come through the little holes. Really pretty. The fish here are not scared, they almost swim with us. The dive takes about 40 minutes, but it seems like it was only 10. Back on the boat we wait for the other three. When everyone is back on board, Nikos takes the wheel and races back to Vlichada. Everyone is really deeply impressed by (especially) the second dive. We arrive safely in Vlichada, where the van still is waiting for us. We drive back to Perissa, change and will out the logbooks. Cathie, Kevin and his wife, Timo and Eef go for a drink in the bar next to the club. At 16:00 we drive back to Thira – Firostefani. On the road we pick up three French people. The bus is full. At 16:30 we’re back at the hotel. We take a shower and start tow rite our diary. At 19:00 we go to Thira to book the trip to Folegandros and to call Sibomat (company building our house). They had left a message on the voicemail. We don’t do either of this things (not book to Folegandros nor call back), because we don’t feel like it. We go to eat at Dimitris. It has been delicious all the time and not too expensive, so we go there again. Today we have different choices. Eef has Mythos megalo and Timo miso kilo chima krasi. The food will be choriatiki, souvlaki kotopoulo and dolmadakia. Ola kala. We enjoy our almost last night on Thira. On the balcony is not a lot of wind today, so we stay outside a long time. Not very very long, because in the end we’re tired of the diving. The last dive Nikos swam with a fast pace of his fins, just like he was steering the boat. At 23:00 we sleep immediately. Tomorrow it’s shopping time and the volcano and all siga siga. Sleep tight!