Day 5 - North Seymour Diving

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Today was the day Kirsten has been most looking forward to and Chester has been dreading. Diving day!!! Kirsten loves to dive and Chester tolerates it in exchange of making Kirsten go to a soccer game when we get home. The day started like most others with breakfast, and then we headed to the dive shop. The dive company was very efficient and organized which is not always the case in some countries. We met our other diver partners and good news there was only 6 of us diving. Large group diving is not fun. We started with introductions and an overview in the office. Then as it seems with everything here, we loaded into trucks and drove 45 min to the dock. This is the same dock we were at yesterday and the same we arrived at the previous day. Despite having done this drive 4 times, Kirsten has yet to see 90% of is as she falls asleep the second the drive starts.

We got to our boat and everyone loaded up. They had a guide, and 2 diver masters, plus a captain and a helper that stayed on board. So the help almost out-numbered the divers, which was music to Chester’s ears. We even started with a test dive near shore to check out our gear. This just annoyed Kirsten a bit but gave Chester some needed confidence.

We were finally off to our first dive. We were diving around North Seymour Island. It was a drift dive which means the boat meets you wherever you come up. We all entered the water at once and down we went. Within 5 minutes we see about 7-8 white tip sharks in a little cave. As much as Kirsten tried, she could not get Chester very close. The diving is a bit different in that there is not a coral reef, but rocks and a lot of big fish and awesome things to see. We saw some hammer head sharks in the distance, rays and eels. Chester in typical manner uses air quickly and Kirsten usually shares her air early in the dive to help extend the dive and get Chester some additional air. The second Kirsten gave her second regulator to Chester, one of the dive masters-in-training was on us like white on rice. It took Kirsten a second to calm him down and convince him everything was OK, and that this was just preventative so that Chester does not run out of air. Despite these efforts, Chester still sucked off 2 more dive guides’ air and went up a bit earlier than the rest of us. Some day she will learn to relax under water and suck up less air.

They were extremely organized getting us back on the vessel. We waited out our surface interval eating fruit and cookies. Chester seemed to be a bit relieved to be back on the boat but was ready for the second dive and to get it over with. The second dive was more of a wall and sand diver. Almost as soon as we got down, we see a school of hammer head sharks. They move so fast, but we got a great view of them. This followed by some manta and spotted rays (7-8) then about 40-50 more of them. They were everywhere. Majestic to watch them in the water, like birds flying. This was followed by huge schools of fish and another 10-15 white tip sharks all schooled up. Everywhere you looked there was something to see. Chester sucked off Kirsten’s air for a bit and one of the dive masters. This made us both run a bit low early, so we headed up about 10 min before the rest of the group.

Chester unfortunately ended up with water in her ear and is still fighting it. We stopped by the pharmacy to get some ear drops. We inquired about some Ambien since both of our prescriptions were out for sleeping. They offered us Xanax instead. We decided maybe it wasn’t that bad. We were able to get the pictures the diver master took. One of the young couples we dove with was from Austria. They just quit their jobs and are traveling for a year or so. And then they will go back and work when they are through with their travels. To say we were jealous would be an understatement.

It was still a pretty-early evening, so we headed back for some mango margaritas at our favorite spot and then to dinner. Chester is not feeing it with her ear so making it a mellow night.

Tomorrow we head to Isabel Island and more new adventures.

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