Diving 2008

Photoalbum Lesvos

Diving

     

Photoalbum Angistri

 

Thursday April 12, 2008: Scuba diving on Lesvos island

We get up with the alarm at 07:30, because we have an appointment at the diving base at 08:30. We are there on time, but not the Greeks, they arrive late as usual. Jorgos comes to welcome us and has two people with him: Maurios (GR) and Filip (FR, Lyon). First the normal course of action, fill out forms, try on the suits; we help to load and the van leaves to the small harbor of Petra. We dive today on the island of Petra, close by the coast. We, Eef and Timo, Michaël and Natasha and Markos walk to the harbor, only ten minutes and the boat is already prepared to leave. Jorgos explains some things and leaves; Maurios will take over the lead. It’s a young guy, good looking, says Timo, he starts to feel at home on the island of Lesvos. We prepare our gear and are ready for briefing. Everything is siga siga and that is very nice. The first diving spot is Fegameni. The overall depth is going to be about 15 meter and if the air consumption permits it, we will be diving to 30 meters. Everything is still quiet and at ease, Timo has some issues to go down and is a bit nervous, as he often is at the first dive. The fish are the same as they always are in Greece: damselfish, wrasse, some smaller sponges and anemones and especially the beautiful thing is the sun against the high rocks. A little bit deeper we spot some groupers and Eef goes out there and checks them out. She is rather quickly a distance away from the group, but can soon join us. We don’t go to 30 meter, but only to 23-26. Now we return to the boat, we dive a bit shallower and see some starfish. After 37 meter we arrive close to the boat and now have to rest a bit on the surface. First we need to change tanks and we can sleep, smile and eat and drink something. We keep it calm and stay on the surface for almost two hours. Then we put our wet suits back on and enter the water again. Now we’re on the other side of the island: at Saint Georges Island. Now we dive again over the rocks, go a bit less deep and dive a bit longer. Between the rocks, just one minute over grass and then reach the point where there are plenty of amphoras on the bottom. From that point we return and we dive shallower. The animals we see are nothing different from other dives in Greece: schools of damselfish. We continue to find them very beautiful and funny. Bream and wrasses are here too. At a certain moment we dive along a wall, there Eef sees an octopus and Timo a scorpion fish. A bit further we see many tubeworms and one small moray eel; Timo thinks he’s just too late for the picture. This dive is again very beautiful and way more relax than the previous one. After 50 minutes we come back to the surface and can look back on two nice dives. We arrange all the gear and let ourselves dry in the sun. Back in the harbor we unload the boat and load the van. We walk to the diving base and fill out our logbooks and talk about diving, Greek islands with a beer in our hand (Heineken, they had no Mythos). Very nice. Jorgos gives us the mobile number of Giannis, the diver on Chios and then we return to our room. We prepare everything to drink an aperitif: 1 ouzo mini, tiri saganaki, one tzatziki and we get a dessert, pancake with ice and chocolate on the house. We return to our room again and write the postal cards; we send them to the complete gang in Belgium. The ouzo is already causing some thing sin our heads. Either we rest a while – too dangerous – so we go and check the sunset and drink two craft beer (8 Euro, an hip and expensive bar here). Timo is a bit hungry, so he buys 1 pita kotopoulo and Eef buys an ankle bracelet. We return to our room, drink another Mythos on our terrace and go to bed at 22:30. Tired of the diving we sleep very well.