Diving 2011

Diving

     

Photoalbum Paphos Diving

 

Tuesday June 14, 2011: Dive day one and Tombs of the Kings

We get up at about seven thirty after a good night of rest, but we had already done some things yesterday, so we could use the sleep. Today they will pick us up at quarter to nine for our first day of diving. Veerle joins us for snorkeling and Timo is diving. But first we need to have something to eat: breakfast on our balcony. We have banana, cheese turkey filet and a bit salad and tomato and we also bought coffee. Breakfast does us well. It is really nice to have breakfast here with the sun in our face and then it’s time to prepare everything and to go to the reception. There Alex comes and picks us up and drives to the dive centre. Timo had sent an e-mail to about five dive centers and only two had replied. From those two answers he preferred ABC Diving Cyprus, because he thought they would provide the best service based on the reply. After fifteen minutes we are at the dive base.

At first it is the usual paper management and gear management and they put everything in a bag, so we can leave on time. There is a small problem, because one of Timo’s buddies is Russian and does not speak one single word of English. That is going to be a cool briefing later on. Not my problem though. Veerle also receives her gear for snorkeling and then we can leave in a mini-bus to the first divesite of the day: SaintGeorgesBay. The drive takes about half an hour and we arrive in a small bay with a beautiful harbor. On the top of the hill is a church, probably the Agios Georgios and we start the

Photoalbum Travel Paphos

dive in the harbor. Veerle can snorkel at the beach and she’ll have fun. We prepare out gear and then we start to have fun: the Russian guy has seven dives, yes seven and it has been two years since he was diving. He did not even remember how to wear his lead belt. How difficult can it be? The instructor looks as if he fears this is going to be a special dive, but we’ll see.

We start snorkeling from the harbor to the end of the pier and then we need to go down and dive on the outside of the dam. Everything OK, so the dive can commence. There are high waves and because this is a shallow site we can feel it. The trick is to swim only when the surge takes you forward and not constantly. Otherwise you use too much air for nothing. The dive takes about forty minutes and does not really offer a great deal of things. We swim under a small arch and over a field of sea grass and enjoy the waving of the grass by the rolling of the sea. After twenty minutes the Russian guy has reached hundred bar – we all had ten-liter tanks – while Timo has forty bar more. That’s more or less normal, because everybody had to learn it, but this is a bit over the top. Another buddy is a German guy and he’s about the same level as all of us, so nothing can be said about him.

The only thing we spot that is worth mentioning is an octopus, a couple of damselfish, and a few tubeworms, in general they’re beautiful but that’s about all we see. On our way back the instructor goes to the surface with the Russian guy and we continue the dive. All in all it’s nice to be diving here, but there is not a lot to see and the instructor was speeding like hell. The speed was so high that the Russian guy, Sergey was having cramps in his legs and he needed help. Timo is happy with the dive and Veerle was happy with her snorkeling adventure.

We put everything back in the trailer and head for the second diving spot. We thought so, because once we get there the sea is not as willing as we would have hoped for: the waves are too high, so no second dive today, maybe two more on Saturday, because tomorrow it’s not possible. The instructor Glenn drops us of at the Hotel Alexander The Great and we walk five minutes to our hotel. There we wash the salt of our brown bodies and then we decide to go for a long walk. The plan is to go to the Tombs of the Kings: a Unesco World Heritage Site. But first lunch: we have a chef salad, a toast ham and cheese and a little bit of tzatziki and a beer and a cola. We’re not really hungry yet, but it tastes well and we eat it all. We’re seated in a beautiful scenery too: a view on the bay of Paphos.

After lunch we visit the fortress and enjoy the beautiful view on the harbor. It actually is a tourist trap, but we don’t mind and pay the 1,70 Euro for the great view on the city. Very nice. Veerle has an ice cream and eats it on our way. We take the beach road that is only open to pedestrians and cyclists and arrive at a shit hotel via FarosBeach: Elysium Hotel. It is prohibited to non-residents to enter the property, so we return to the main road while we had a view on the tombs. We pass KFC to the main road and then look for the entrance of Tombs of the Kings. We still have a couple of hours to visit this site and decide to do that, because we did not come here for nothing. At the hottest moment of the day we walked for about six kilometers, but we had water with us, so no worries.

We pay the 1,70 Euro without a problem and stay here for an hour and a half. The tombs are the graves of the middle class and not as the names states of kings. At each of the eight graves there are steps down and they end in the tomb chambers. Be careful. The tombs are small chambers cut from the porous stones and nothing more. The archeological artifacts have been removed by grave robbers a long time already. Of all eight there are only two that are a bit more special: one with a colonnade and that is remarkable, especially knowing that it was built ten meters under the ground and it is beautiful how the light shines into the graves and also the architecture looks good. In another tomb there is a cube, serving as central grave and then we had the most important things. It all is beautiful, but once you’ve seen one or two you’ve seen them all/ two special sightings on this site are a falcon and a lizard. They can find their way easily amongst the rocks and the beautiful architecture. This is yet another proof that nature can find its way and can adapt to the invasion of men.

After one hour and a half we’ve seen it all and want to have a fresh drink, so we walk to the other side of the road and have a coke on the terrace. We rest a bit and have some sugar: yes, this is what we needed. A short break and we then head back to the harbor. We want to have dinner there. We talk about one thing and another and arrive at estiatorio Pelikan. Then Veerle decides she wants fish and orders one of one kilogram two hundred grams: a red snapper. Good, but not cheap. We have a good “kilo” of wine with it and we’re having fun. The waiters are really surprised that Timo speaks Greek, but that will serve us well. The red snapper is very very good, the company is great and the day ends as good (or even better) than it started. Veerle enjoys the fish and Timo joins her. A red snapper is pretty big, but it tastes unbelievably…

But then the (un)expected, we receive the bill and have one lousy Euro short. That is what you get when you leave the bill to the women. I’m not complaining, I’m having a good time. Veerle wants to withdraw some money, but the waiter falls for her and cuts the bill with two Euro, so he ensures he gets a tip of one Euro. Well spotted. A perfect closing of a very good day. The walk back to the hotel is fast: we arrive there in less than half an hour and we enjoy a glass of wine and a cigarette, look at the pictures of today, write the report and go to bed at about ten thirty.

 

Saturday June 18, 2011: Two dives with ABC Dive

We have been able to rest very well here, so also last night was not a problem: we had to adapt to the hard mattresses, but no big problem. The bread is finished, the salami not just yet, but we don’t want just salami as breakfast. Veerle gets up first to have a look for breakfast and it works out at the second attempt. The mini-market down the street is not open yet, but a bit further around the corner she finds something for breakfast. We have two donuts: one with chocolate and one with normal sugar. That tastes not bad at all with a cup of coffee and a cigarette afterwards. She brings croissants for lunch between the dives, so we prepare those too. A bit of marmalade in-between and that will do good later on. We quickly take a shower and Alex of ABC Dive picks us up at the reception. We are there just on time when he arrives there.

He brings us to the dive center and there everything is wall arranged for us: all is ready in the trailer behind the van. The bus is almost full with Glenn, the instructor from previous dive, a Russian instructor, us two, another couple, presumably Russians too and two others who come along for I don’t know what. We drive through Paphos to pick up another diver: Thorsten, who also joined us the other dive. We need to wait for him a bit, because he was not yet ready when we arrive at his hotel. Than we take a short ride of about fifteen minutes to another hotel. Is this the divesite? That is something special, never seen this before. We get a briefing from the Russian instructor: very brief briefing: here you enter, you make a circle there and get back out. That is going to be interesting. What will that dive be. When Glenn is gathering everybody’s gear, he also briefs the DSD (Discover Scuba Diving), because that’s why the other two were here. We don’t wait for the two DSD-people and prepare our kits en can start. This dive site is a small bay with a sheltered part in the front of the bay and there we enter the water. When we walk up there we get our (better) briefing from Glenn, but that is not a lot anyway. We’ll see.

Our first task is to reach the sea over the rocks snorkeling and then the dive can start. We wait for the waves to be good and then we head very fast over the rocks and ensure you don’t get hurt smashing against the stone. Veerle has joined us too, not for diving, but for snorkeling and she’ll follow us. Hopefully she sees a bit more than we diving the first time. Everyone is still OK after the first part although it is a challenge. Without any problems we can start the dive. There is not a lot of marine life here, because we’re not very deep. We like the swim-through though that Glenn finds for us. When you swim under it you can see at the left side a smaller hole where the light pours through. That provides a great sight. The number of fish is a bit bigger than during the first dive and we see some damselfish, a few wrasses, but here between the rocks there is not really much to see.  And then suddenly Timo spots a small scorpionfish. That makes the dive a bit nicer. Glenn points our attention to a piece of rock that looks like an anchor and in the end it’s not a bad dive. Not too deep, because we don’t go deeper than eleven meters. Veerle follows us all the time and she’s happy she now also sees some fish. Glenn and Timo check the surface to see if she’s all right and that is the case, so everything is perfect. When we have been diving for about forty minutes Glenn spots a huge mollusk, Timo thinks it is a sea hare, but he’ll need to verify this at home. A bit later we see the rope again from the start of the dive, so we know it’s almost done. The last part is again a bit more difficult, because in some places you see nothing: the bubbles of the waves take away any visibility, so you need the rope to know where you’re heading. We work it all out, although Timo was swept on a rock and is pretty helpless. Everyone is safe on the side: Veerle is still intact, Timo has a small scratch and we look back to a nice dive, snorkel.

Now we need to stay at the surface for a while. Alex picks up the divers of the DSD and we drive to the next dive site: Amphitheatre. The trip takes about twenty minutes, but that is not a problem, then the interval is a bit longer. When we arrive there we see that there are a couple of waves, but certainly not as high as the first time we came here on Tuesday. We can dive there today, yes. Unfortunately Glenn advises Veerle not to go in the water, but she will keep her busy during the hour we’re here. We prepare everything again and one hour and thirty minutes after we came out of the water we’re ready to do our dive. A similar short briefing and then we go. We follow the rocks and after five minutes we arrive on the spot that deserves that name of the site: amphitheatre. The rocks are worn out and they look like seat in a Roman amphitheatre. It is very impressive. There are even two different levels, the first at five meters and the second at about eight meters depth.

We get some time here to look at the walls and we can enjoy the view of the theatre. It really is a nice site. There is nothing special as to animal life. The only thing Timo sees are damselfish, a lonely hermit crab and a beautiful blenny. Timo can’t take a picture of it, because the battery of his camera has dropped low. A bad timing, because the blenny was still and the theater really is nice. Hell yeah, shit happens: he still has not learnt from previous times. After half an hour we leave the theatre and dive round and round and round. Actually Glenn is looking for a place that should look like a nest with eggs, but he can’t seem to find it. So we return to the theatre and look at it again. After fifty-six minutes we get out of the water and the dive is over. Timo has done his best on air: diving so long with a ten-liter tank that is only filled to hundred and ninety bar is not bad. The two dives for the day are done and we go back to Paphos.

Veerle and Timo walk back to the hotel and stop on the way for a quick bite: a cheeseburger: we like it again. We don’t need the coolness of the swimming pool because we were snorkeling and diving, but we enjoy the fresh water and the sun. It still is hot and we’re going to miss that the day after tomorrow. The chlorine needs to be washed from our bodies, we have a short siesta and then we have a last supper at the Pelican. We have lamb chops and barbouni (red mullet) with half a liter of wine and then a coffee: a Nescafe and a Greek coffee with Metaxa. That was long time ago. As a goodbye we receive a bottle of red house wine that is a nice gesture from the guys.

Glenn had invited us this afternoon to come and have a drink in a bar where he regularly comes. A Brit who invites us to a bad; that will be something. And yeah, when we arrive there, we see a karaoke and a party. Also the name of the bar says it all: Charlie’s Bar. Wrong! We try to get a drink, but even after half an hour it has not worked out. In the meantime Glenn arrived too with his neighbor and he arranges everything faster than we can get it done. A bit later also Thorsten and his wife arrive and we have a drink and a chat about plenty of things, but mainly diving; it’s quite a nice evening on a wrong location. At about one in the night Thorsten and his wife leave, but we stay and have another drink. After that three Finnish ladies arrive and then the Casanova within Glenn comes to the surface, but he has bad luck, because there is only one straight girl and she has a boyfriend. The other two are already married for three years. We chat some more and time flies, because suddenly it’s three AM. It is about time to head back to the hotel: it’s already late and we have been drinking too much. We say goodbye and promise to send a mail. The walk takes about half an hour and we’re home at half past three and fall asleep. This night’s rest will do us good.

A wrong night like this, just one in the week should not do any harm. In the end we did have fun.