Diving 2012

Diving

     

Photoalbum Madeira Garajau

 

Monday April 23, 2012: GarajauDivingCenter: Day one of scuba diving on the house reef of Garajau

It’s diving day, always nice during a vacation. You can see everything above water and thanks to the diving permit also under water. It’s great. This morning a large bus of tourists left the hotel, but the restaurant is still very busy. We need to crawl around, under and over people to get our coffee and bread and cheese. We take everything with us to a quiet table in a corner. We like the fact that everyone wants to be seated centrally at the restaurant. After breakfast we return to the room to take our diving gear for our dives today. We did not bring all our gear, because that’s not needed just for a couple of days. We take our masks and snorkels and also the camera for the first dives in Madeira: the first dives in the Atlantic. We look forward to that. We walk to the diving center following the road at the roundabout at the end of the Dom-Pedro-Street and then it descends steep. We had already done the first bit on foot and all the way down on our last rent-a-car-day. The distance is about two kilometer. Walking downhill is OK, but if we need to do it the other way around, that will be a different story. Half way down the road is very narrow and there we see the gate is still closed. We wait fifteen minutes. It took us fifteen minutes to walk this part down, so the rest will be another fifteen, we think.

We’re only waiting here for about ten minutes when the first car comes down to open the gate. Surprisingly (or maybe not) this is Felix, the instructor who is going to guide us today. We get a lift and a couple of minutes later we’re there. Nice! We show our PADI-licenses and logbooks. Felix gives us the suits, BCD’s, fins, boots, regulators and we can start to make us ready. This is going fast. We thought this would at least take an hour, but that’s not the case. We’re ready at ten to do our first dive here, but first a short briefing. We need to pay attention when we enter the water, because the waves are high and heavy. We will then swim on the surface towards a yellow buoy in the middle of the bay and then dive left and later on back this way. We put the tanks on our back and walk to the beach, as always this is a rocky beach. Nowhere on Madeira there is a natural sandy beach, so the same here. We’re careful when we enter the water and we need to be. Just before we hit the water we put the hood on and then carefully walk into the sea. We walk on until we’re out of the highest waves and then as last thing we put the fins on. We swim on the surface as briefed and then we start the dive.

Twenty meters out from shore it’s five meters deep and there we descend. We have enough weights for these five millimetre-suits and twelve litre tanks, because we go down easily. The first things we notice are the massive amount of sea urchins and fire worms. Two animals we better don’t touch. Even better: don’t touch anything, that’s the best. We’re only five minutes in the dive and from the left is a giant barracuda passing by. This is a very good start. We swim over and between rocks. Some of them are only a meter high, but others have the size of a house. It’s really magnificent. The damselfish swim next to the blocks and we spot dozens of scorpionfish on the rocks. If I say we saw then each dive, I’m not even exaggerating. The small black and blue damselfish (canary damselfish) are also very cute. The adults apparently have had nests, because the rocks holds many small fish. Nice. The Turkish wrasses are present in the dozens. We see so many, that we almost even miss the large grouper that Felix sees. It’s not the house reef grouper, but another animal. We see these dusky groupers three times this dive. They are very friendly towards divers and they even like to be petted. They even seek divers-company.

After half an hour we reach the deepest part of the dive, about twenty meter and go left here to follow the rock at our left side. At the right side it’s becoming deeper and we only see sand. As an elegant bird a small stingray flies off. It’s a small one for the size here, because it still is about thirty centimetres. We see a couple of crab-like things: a triangular body with very long claws, neither of us has seen this, but they’re nice to take pictures of this arrow crab. Many breams swim with us and when Felix hits a rock with his knife they all come to that place. A type of anemone has found it’s place between the rocks as well and is very pretty. Lizard fish lie motionless on the sand and other sand creatures look in the sand for food, for example the mullets. We see another large grouper and a big school of bream. We like this dive. When Veerle reaches eighty bar we return towards the shore and little before forty minutes we start our safety stop. Very good diving, V! We have our safety stop between small rocks and then go back on land. A quick shower and dry the gear and then rest for a couple of hours. We already fill out the logbook on the terrace of the restaurant here, have a drink and chill out. Veerle lies in a comfi sun bed and Timo finds a place on the beach. If the sun comes through the clouds, not so often, it’s quite hot. We stay here for about two hours and then walk to the diving centre in the cave and prepare for our second dive. A bit more on the cave part: the centre is located in a cave that was created by whale hunters. They used the cave for shelter and stocking the whale oil. Now the diving centre is here and it’s just a great location, in a cave, completely decorated and painted blue. Very nice.

Back into the wet wetsuit and it’s a good experience again to dive in a wetsuit after the last drysuit dives in Belgium. We start the same direction as the first dive, but a bit more to the right and descend with the three of us. Veerle brought one kilo less than the first time, but this way she can equalize easier. Well done! We just reached the sand and another grouper comes our direction. The animals are really great. Felix caresses and scratches the head and you can almost see the fish enjoying the attention. We see the same stuff as the first dive, now two large schools of fish: we see bream in a small cave and a large school at the deepest point of the dive. We think these are snappers and it’s a pretty huge school moving as just one single object. This is a beautiful sight. We then go diving shallower, because we came from twenty eight meters. And then Felix sees something special: a flatworm. This is very nice for Timo, he can take a couple of nice pictures of this purple-blue flatworm with white stripes on the body. Thanks for spotting the candy striped flatworm, Felix! And then we see the house grouper, Elvis. A very old grouper, about fifty years old. We can recognize it’s him by the back fins. The first four fins are still there, but the fifth is gone, very easy to see if he sets the fins straight. It’s a very large animal of about hundred and fifty centimetres. He does not come as close as the others, but it’s a pretty sight, especially if you see him next to us in the blue waters. If you compare the size to the damselfish, you really see it’s a huge beast. We then go less deep, because we’re on our way already some time. We see the same crabs, a couple of scorpion fish, but that was it for this dive. After our safety stop we clean the gear and let it dry and then Felix gives us a lift to the hotel. He’s very friendly and gives us a very nice day of diving here in Garajau.

On our terrace we immediately check the pictures and we see there are a couple of good ones. Tomorrow the next ones. We’re not really hungry, although we only had fruit for lunch. At about seven we go to a restaurant. When we see the food we get hungry anyway and order: tuna steak and fish casserole. They’re both very good, especially the fish soup: this is a winner after zarzuela. Veerle has a desert ice flambé and then we return to our room. We’re pretty tired and go immediately to bed, watch TV and then sleep early. Tomorrow Felix will pick us up at about ten at the hotel for the next two dives. We’re looking forward to that already.

 

Tuesday April 24, 2012: Garajau Diving: House reef

Because we went to bed early yesterday, we wake up a bit earlier this morning: at seven we’re up, not yet alive and kicking, but enough to get out of bed and go for breakfast. Today the breakfast table is less busy, still more than the first days, but less than the last three days. We have bought salami and cheese spread to have something different today. We love it and have a new flavour than in the previous days. FDL already had warned us that breakfast was basic, but this way we solve it. When we booked the trip we had sent a mail to Frans to get some background on Madeira and he read the message here at the hotel a couple of months ago. He was at that moment in the same hotel that we just booked. We were surprised about that. After breakfast we take our stuff and Timo prepares the camera and the under water housing. A few minutes before ten we’re ready and Felix picks us up from the hotel. He takes us down and then tells us we will be diving with another guide this morning in a different location. He had checked Reis Magos as site and it was OK to dive. We put everything in the boxes and Douard (hopefully I’ve spelt this correctly) is our guide today and we leave to the dive site. We go with Rainer, the owner of the diving centre and the father of Felix. It’s only ten minutes away. When we arrive we see high waves and see it’s not OK to dive here today. We check a bit closer, but it won’t work today. So we go back and will dive on the house reef with the same guide. When we arrive there, Felix just enters the water with someone else.

We have the same ritual as yesterday, short briefing and we’ll have a nice dive with the guidance of Douard, also an under water photographer. We’re calm and relaxed and get into the water easier than yesterday, since we’re already used to the waves. There are only two obstacles here: rocks on the beach and high waves. It’s going nice and the visibility looks great. It’s not thirty meters like they have here in summer, but we like it. All three of us are ready to start and we descend about thirty meters from the shore. When we come closer to the sand we see a strange form: this is a common stingray. He’s beautiful and stays motionless so we can get closer and take some great pictures. We did not see the stingray yesterday a long time, but this one stays here until we leave. We again see the small scorpion fish and the school of bream and of course the beautifully coloured Turkish wrasses: yellow, blue, orange and they have nice stripes on their heads. The guide also shows us many anemones and we see them now in different colours: yellow, orange, almost red and white. We even see two close to each other: a large animal and a smaller one. He spots them well, although he knows where they live. With one of these anemones there is an arrow crab and also these are beautiful. And then we spot two cornet fish. We had not seen them yesterday and we fear we won’t see them long. Just like the stingray this couple swims right in front of us and stays with us and we love the view: it’s just great! A bit further we see a moray between the rocks, only the ehad comes out. The sharp teeth make us scared (yeah, right), but we have nothing to fear if we don’t come too close. The dice is great and he dives slower than Felix yesterday and we’re very calm both of us. Veerle loves the feeling to float in the water between the bream and the damselfish.

At a certain moment Veerle needs to turn around and dive higher, because she almost hit one of the large groupers with her fin. Luckily he was fast enough to swim away. We both signal her, she turns around and then she looks surprised, because the giant grouper swims right in front of her. A magnificent moment that she’ll never forget. We swim through a small cave and here are some more anemones and a “at a starfish staring’ fish. Right outside the cave there is another moray and then we start our return towards the beach. We see some more scorpion fish, a large orange starfish and a small hermit crab. We continue the dive and eventually reach the place for our safety stop. No problems with buoyancy here, we’re all right. Between the rocks there are two more scorpion fish and a couple of wrasses. The small canary damsel found cover between the boulders. It’s nice to end the dive like this. After the safety stop we look up and see a very large jellyfish. It’s about twenty centimetres, but the large tentacles is what we notice the best. If now the sun would be shining, this would be a great picture, but this is not the case. A couple of meter from the jellyfish we go to the surface after fifty one minutes. We were very relaxed and very happy we get to shore. We did not see any sun; it even was raining when we got out. Not really the weather we’d prefer, but we had a great dive.

We get ready and arrange that we can still do a nightdive tonight, Timo that is and then after a quick bite and some water we start our way back, because we only do one dive today. Timo is doing maybe a second one, but we’ll see about that later. We return to the hotel on foot and Felix says we’re crazy, but this should be manageable within half an hour. And indeed, with a couple of stops we’re getting there well. Before we leave here we check out the small path along the rocks, spotted a falcon’ nest and are really impressed with the high rocks. We don’t go too far, because it’s very slippery and as always we put safety first. So we head up to the hotel. From halfway down the winding road we see Felix and the other diver as two small dots entering the water. It is a great dive spot here; after only half an hour we’re at the end of our street, withdraw quickly some money and then rest on our terrace in the sun. it can be every type of weather this month, from cloudy to rainy to a very bright sun. Rainer told us this morning: April, April macht was er will. And this is also true in Madeira. We had two nice dives yesterday and also today a very nice one, maybe another one tonight. A late siesta and write some of the report and then have a small snack. And that’s how we do it: Veerle has a siesta, Timo tries to rest, but can’t. at about six we start to move again and have our snack. We have spaghetti and macaroni. If we dive tonight the food will already be digested and Timo needs to take that into account. We’re not having a long dinner, just a snack and a cola and then off to the reception.

Duarte (I found the correct spelling on Facebook) had told us he would pass by the reception to let us know whether a nightdive is OK today or not. In order to pass the time at the reception we surf the internet and check what options we have the next days. We arrange our plans on high level and surf the internet and wait until Duarte comes by. At a bit before eight he’s there and says the sea is even rougher than this morning, so no nightdive, maybe one of the next days. Maybe we’re lucky the rest of the week, we have four more nights, so never fear. We don’t want to do anything else today, so we sit down on our terrace and have a drink, chat about the dives and the days we already had and discuss some more the plans we made for the next days. It’s already Tuesday and we think time was flying, because we’re already half way the vacation. We must not despair because we have some great days ahead of us. We watch some TV and at about ten thirty we go to sleep. It has not been a busy day, but we can use the sleep until tomorrow morning.