Diving 2010

Diving

     

Photoalbum Epidavros

 

Tuesday May 25, 2010: Diving in Epidauros

Timo is awake at seven already and has a mission for the day. We've had plenty of mission although we're on vacation. He first goes out to see the rising sun at the beach and then he buys bread at O Fournos, buys also some oranges, about eight to make fresh orange juice. We've discovered a juicer. When he returns home Eef is still in bed waking up. Timo makes the fresh juice, puts bread and cheese on the table and makes coffee. Also here we have a small pan on a small cooker. Coffee tastes good and ensures we can wake up. Our coordination is not yet OK, because we spill and need to clean the table three times. We make sure we have everything to go diving in Epidauros with Pascal. Timo wears his Epidive-T-shirt and Eef takes her Mokarran of South-Africa. We mustn't forget snorkels, masks, fins, towels and plenty of water and we can leave.

We had the plan to leave at 08:30, because it's a drive of 45 minutes, if there are no slug on the road. We leave at 08:38 and follow the same road as Timo has already done the last couple of days. We know the road pretty well and even know when some curves are approaching. It takes us almost an hour: first a slow bus, then a pickup truck that was driving only 50 an hour. Only the last bit we can race, but we're still right on time. The Greek way: siga siga. Pascal is on the terrace of Hotel Mike, first drink something and then dive. Eef drinks a normal coffee and Timo a frappe: metrio choris gala. Then Pascal asks us to prepare everything. We try our vests, wetsuits and Timo also takes a hood in order to stay warm under water. Eef has her "chicken vest", so she does not need a separate hood.

Everything on board for two dives: the first and the second dive will be on the same anchoring spot, but number one is straight ahead and the other one to the right along the wall and returning a big shallower. We have a bit of problems with the belts on the vests, but Timo solves this for himself and also for Eef. We're ready to leave. Pascal anchors the boat, checks the propeller, because there was an issue and then we can enter the water. From up here we already see it will be worth it. We start the dive to four meter and then it goes deeper and deeper. Pascal spots an octopus and tries to catch it. At first he manages, but can't hold to it. We see the octopus squirting ink and then swim away very fast. Pascal follows it, but in vain: this octopus is very fit. We descend even more and see a lot of nets hanging from the wall. They are covered beautifully and on the rocks sponges grow. We see some crabs, starfish, a small lobster and the typical fish of the Mediterranean: damselfish, bream, wrasses and stuff. The dive is very nice.

Then Pascal and Jean (a diver from Brussels) descend deeper and deeper. Eef continues to follow these guys to a depth of 44 meters, so this becomes a deco-dive. Also Timo is in deco, because he sees 7 minute stop on his computer. At this depth it is cold and there is not a lot to see. The crabs are here, but we also saw them at lower depth, so actually I can't think of any reason to dive so deep. But Pascal is a CMAS-diver and it seems like they look for the kick in deep diving. Timo is not too pleased that Eef is almost diving as deep as the other two. We have learnt to not descend below 40 for a reason. We don't really stay a long time below 40, so it won't do that much harm. Then we ascend again, because Timo has already used hundred bar. A bit higher we see a planehead filefish. There are also a lot of places where we see the eggs of a nudibranch: the dotted sea slug, so Timo needs to take some pictures of it. After 40 minutes Pascal signals to stop the dive. In the meantime everyone is OK according to their computer and we can go to the surface. At the end pretty shallow Timo sees a scorpionfish, a small one, but it's nice to stop the dive like this.

We go on board and prepare everything for the second dive. We have a surface interval of one hour and forty minutes; we go back in the water twice to cool down and then it is time again to dive the second one. Now we'll dive along the wall to the right until someone (probably Timo) reaches 100 bar and then return to the boat. Now also Eef has her camera with her, because the first dive might have been too deep for it, so we did not take any chances, but now she can. In the first part of the dive we see a lot of fireworms, different in size: some even seem to be 40 centimeter. Starfish are here too and the site is famous for the amphora's spread over the bottom. In Epidauros there must still be a treasure of antiquities lying on the sea-floor. We see a dozen examples here. Special for this dive is the amphora's, a nudibranch that Eef does not see, but Timo has a nice picture of it. A blenny, again starfish, sponges, some very big.

Then it's about time to go back to the boat and dive a bit higher. Eef sees the dead body of a fish that is being eaten by many fireworms. Again we see the eggs of the nudibranch, some large mussels, wrasses, bream, many sea-urchins and the normal inhabitants of the Greek waters. We don't go deco now, although we dive pretty deep, but the computer indicate one minute before deco, so that's good. During the safety stop Pascal see a fishing net that holds many animals. He takes his knife and frees the animals from the net. He goes way too deep, but it's positive that he releases these animals. Well done! We dive on to the boat and stop at 50 minutes dive time. That very nice for a second dive. We surface and ensure we put everything in the crates and then sail back to the harbor of Epidauros. It takes only ten minutes, we clean our gear and can take a shower. The water is nice and warm, because it got chilly at the end of the second dive: even Timo had cold feet.

When we reach land, we see Linda, Patrik and Pat and Ann, eating and that's nice. We have a beer, order one spaghetti for the two of us and then drink some more beers. They serve Mythos in half liters, so we feel it when we drive back to Tolo at about six. Traffic is OK and we're back within the hour. We don't need a shower anymore, but Eef buys beer, cheese and withdraws money, while Timo finishes the report of yesterday and starts the one of today.

Then we do a short walk on the mainstreet of Tolo, eat something small: choriatiki, pita gyros and pita souvlaki kotopoulo. After the weekend it's not busy anymore, so we eat quietly at the side of the street. We drink another Mythos here and one on our balcony. Then Timo checks the beach out and sees that one of the small islands is lit very beautifully in the evening. When he returns back in the room Eef is reading the last pages of her book and then we go to sleep. Two dives in a day is exhausting and then twice the distance Tolo - Epidauros - Tolo is also tiring. So we sleep and tomorrow we get up for the last dive on our vacation.

 

Wednesday May 26, 2010: Dive in Epidauros

Again we are up early: Timo already at seven and Eef stays in bed for about half an hour. Fresh orange juice, coffee, bread with cheese and ketchup on our balcony with view on the two hotels in front of us and of course at the sea. They said they had given us the best room and that could be true, because on the top floor the owners are living. We take everything for the dive at Pascal in Epidauros: fins, masks, computers (certainly needed when diving with Pascal), towels, money, and water. Check! Everything in the car and we leave like yesterday at 08:30 to Epidauros. This is the forth time for Timo, the third for Eef and by now Timo knows the way very good. No curve has any secrets left: normal when you did this route that many times.

At the dive center everything goes faster than yesterday, because we already knew which suits we needed and which vests. Timo now receives a 15-liter tank, so we have some extra spare when we dive deep. Normally we would only do one dive today, so we take one tank for each diver. A French couple joins us during this dive. Pascal leads the dive to a nice depth, not below 40 meters today. When we first reach 8 meters Timo notices his tank is not connected very well anymore. He signals Eef and she says everything is OK, but Pascal notices what's wrong and solves the issue and off we go! It is a very nice site again: Polemarka. Nets hang from the walls and sea squirts grow on the ropes: transparent or red ones. We see a lot of starfish and amphoras are spread on the sand. Pascal picks one up from time to time, looks at it and put it back on the right spot. Sometimes he discovers new ones, but usually he knows where to find them. There is one very big one, with a diameter of half a meter.

We should see many nudibranches here, because we see six or seven strings of eggs, but no nudibranches no: you can't be lucky all the time. Fireworms crawl over the sand looking for food. When you come too close with the camera, they erect their bristles and then you need to take distance, because it is poisonous and causes a burning sensation for a couple of days. All normal stuff here, but one special thing: a black round thing rolling over the sand and it looks like a couple of mating nudibranches: after all? We're not sure and show the picture to Pascal, but he does not know either. We stay deep a long time, until one of the French divers reaches 100 bar and then we dive shallower and return to the boat. Timo reaches 100 bar on the way back, but still notifies Pascal of it. Eef also reaches 100, but is not bothered telling anyone. She already saw Timo notified Pascal, so he was aware.

Eef and Timo stay down a bit longer than the others, because they already reached 50 by now. We don't see anything special anymore. The deco-stop is OK (7 min) and the safety stop afterwards too, so we can go to the surface safely. We put everything in the boat and Eef starts to shiver for ten minutes, although we're in the sun. Temperature is a nice 26 degrees; the water is 20 on the surface and 17 deeper. You can clearly feel the difference when going deep and the first cold comes at 10 meters and the second cold wave at 25. when you ascend again it is a lot warmer above 25 and at 5 meters it's nice to do the safety stop.

When we arrive at the harbor Pascal fixes the boat and we need to return here in about two hours and a half. Timo had tried to convince Pascal to have a second dive today. At first he did not want to, but the third time was the good try, especially because also the French joined: now for the same spot as last year: Aliotou, a beautiful wall with many nudibranches and when you're lucky even a seahorse. We eat soutzoukakia me patates and chorta at Mike's, have a frappe and a beer. Then it's already 13:00 and we need to wait for another hour and a half for departure. Eef hunts for stamps and makes a short walk and then Timo does that too towards the beach and the church over the harbor of Epidauros.

At 14:30 sharp we are gone: tanks on the boat, just full, twenty minutes on the boat to Aliotou. Just jumping off the boat Timo sees a scorpionfish, a small one. Then we look for the deep, see immediately the marvelous views of the nets hanging down, two or three amphora's, Timo sees a lobster and watches into the deep. If you're afraid of heights you could panic, because it goes down to below 100 meters. At a depth of 38 the slug festival starts. First two couples mating: yellow and blue, really beautiful and large ones. Then the dotted sea slug: Dalmatians. Pascal puts a starfish on his hand, we see some anthias in the small caves, really very nice fish.

A bit further and in the meantime also less deep we're already on our way back, because we spent a lot of time with the slugs. Eef and Timo took plenty of pictures and then suddenly they noticed that Pascal and the other two were already 20 meters higher, so we ascend slowly, not too fast. Pascal points out three more nudibranches: all three from a different size, from small to big, almost in a row. Timo also contributes and spots a very tiny nudibranch of less than a centimeter: really astonishing how he can see that (just plenty of luck). Everywhere on the wall we see strings of eggs, different colors and shapes, so also different species.

At a depth of eight meters Pascal sees another scorpionfish: they are really nice. With his knife he kills a few sea urchins and the fish race to the feast: wrasses, damselfish, and bream. Then we see another filefish that is the best ending of the dive, we think, but no there's more. The "more" is an octopus. Pascal takes it, exhausts it and we can take beautiful pictures. The ink floats through the water, because the animal is not really happy with Pascal's actions. Timo follows the octopus to take some more pictures, tries to lead it towards Eef, but that is not successful, so we go back to the boat. We're almost under it, so we go up, because both of us reached 50 bar and we were diving deep for over 50 minutes. That's very good.

Back to the harbor with the boat, clean everything, take a shower and then have a drink at Hotel Aristoteles, where Patrik and Linda are staying. A bit later also Pat and Ann arrive and we drink some ouzo. It's getting late, certainly for us ¨C a one-hour drive ¨C so at about 20:00 we leave Epidauros after a quick goodbye. We arrive back in Tolo just before dark, eat pita and drink Mythos. Timo walks to the beach again and enjoys the view of the well-lit island. Eef is still on the balcony so we drink our last Mythos and then go to bed after a great day in Greece with two great (especially the last one) dives. Goodnight.