Dive 6 Temple, Sharm El Sheikh, Night Specialty Dive 1. Dive 106 movescount/moves/move42246102 This is another dive that will live with me forever, as it was my first night dive, and I was not sure what to expect. Kaare and I are both doing our night specialty on this holiday and luckily there were two other divers, despite all the erstwhile enthusiasm from other divers, only two actually showed for the dive. We were joined by Don who I was really pleased to have around on this experience, as he was also doing it for the first time. We had a long wait between dives 3 and 4 of the day and unfortunately, because the authorities would not let us off the boat, we had to go into the evening dive with no food in our stomachs. This gave me a build up of acid in my stomach and I was still suffering from it days later. It should have been planned better. The dive centre were a bit upset that two of the divers who had planned to make the dive did not do so in the end. They normally need 6 divers to make it pay, but we were only 4 in the end. The same thing happened to the Thistlegorm dive on Saturday, where despite loads of bravado from the club members, when push came to shove, only 4 people were up for it, so the dive was cancelled. Oh well, at least Kaare and I will get to finish our specialty, which was my priority for the holiday after the disappointment of last year, when not one person wanted to go out at night (and there also needed to be six people). Kaare had a headache and this was not helped by the lack of food. I was also worried that Don had not eaten, but Dave the centre manager very kindly gave me his banana, claiming not to be hungry. We dozed on the deck, despite the noise coming from the transistor-yob youngsters on one of the adjacent boats. They were cooking a barbeque, which did not help us in our hungered states. Unable to rest completely, despite lying down for a long time, I opened my eyes to see that dusk was falling. It falls very quickly in Egypt and by the time that I thought that I had better start prepping my kit (I did not realize that the others had all done this already), it was too late and I inevitable ended up prepping in the growing dark, by torch light and at the exact time when Alex our teacher had planned to do the briefing. I had assumed that kitting up together would be part of the course, with lights and etc. but instead I had no option than to hold everyone else up. This put me in a really bad mood too, as it would have been so, so easy to do this in the daylight during the 3 hours or so after the previous dive. Alex gave our briefing assisted by Dave, the center manager, and wanted to take me and Kaare out together, while Don teamed up with the other diver on the night. This would have enabled me and Kaare to focus on the simple exercise of navigating away from a point, then turning around and coming back to that point. However the other diver at the last moment assertively re-assigned Don to dive with us in such a way that neither Don, the trainers, nor me and Kaare were able to refuse without causing embarrassment. I was very happy to dive with Don, (it would have been really nice if he had been doing the specialty with us) and doubt if the teachers would have done anything different in any event, so the dive went ahead with a party of one teacher, two students and one pleasure diver, while the other party comprised of just two (pleasure diver and DM). Kaare had some green lantern lights which were absolutely perfect for this night dive experience. I really must get my hands on a pair, as they were so useful to keep track of where he was. Alex our teacher wore a highly visible white t-shirt on top of his thermal protection, with fluorescent yellow fins, and me and Don were going in more or less as usual, but with at least two torches each, one for using and one for reserve. I was using my Intova, which gives a narrow beam, and the Goby light in reserve, as it is so bright that it would actually spoil the element of the night dive. Alex was right when he said that some torches are so bright that they take away the element of exploration and fun. Don also agreed with this, and after the dive I too could see the sense in this argument. From the surface, we could see that there were lots of people from the boats moored alongside in the water already. This was a comforting thought on the surface, but I was quickly irritated, once in the water (no food = a grumpy diver ) by the sheer number of people around and the number of lights everywhere. I had naively thought that the dive would be a solitary and peaceful affair, with us being the only fools out that evening, especially given how almost impossible it is to try to find someone who wants to dive at night after several day dives. Not a bit of it. Russians had descended from all around and it seems that if you want to dive at night you will have no problem if you can be-friend them! They were everywhere. We went in together and descended down to about 10 metres fairly quickly reaching the bottom. The dive site was called ‘Temple’. We went around in a general anti-clockwise direction. My first impression was that this was a strangely familiar experience. Although I have never dived at night, I have dived several times in the pitch black of Stoney Cove’s Hydrobox and with this as my only reference, this was actually much, much easier. Firstly it felt odd but comforting that I was in a wet suit, rather than a dry suit. Next, when you shone your torch it actually landed on something at distance, rather than disappearing into the mirk just 3 metres away. Next there were other lights absolutely everywhere for much of the dive. Next it was a pleasantly warm 27°C, which after my previous Stoney experiences of 8°C is not to be sniffed at. It was slightly disconcerting at various points of the dive that there were so many people that it really would have been easy to get lost and end up in the wrong group. As far as I could make out, at one point in the dive there were at least 4 distinct groups in the same place and there was little wonder that Don nearly joined the wrong group before our instructor Alex pulled him back to join us (well done Alex). At one point I took stock and there were douzens of lights visible in various directions. I often shone my torch on Alex’s fins, which were fluorescent yellow so that I and the others behind would have something to aim at. I shone my torch on my SPG, which lit up with a luminous display as a result. It was easier to look at your wrist computer though, and I tried both lighting up the display with the watch’s own light or with the dive torch. The dive torch was both clearer and easier. My OLF (Oxygen Limiting Factor) was only at 13 or 14, even though this was the fourth Nitrox dive of the day. We had been shown the torch signals to give… circle with the torch for ‘OK’, wave side to side slowly to get someone’s attention, wave quickly side to side to quickly get someone’s attention to say that something is wrong. I needed to do this for real when we could not keep up with Alex on a couple of occasions as he sped off to the next pinnacle, and Don and Kaare (and me too) were not able to keep up. It was difficult to judge distance and Don and I bumped together on at least one occasion, and I was surprised by my closeness to the coral at two points early on if the dive. We had been warned of this in the briefing, and it was definitely a good message to learn in the labyrinth of coral structures that Alex led us through. We were supposed to navigate our way back to the ship (navigate away and to a given point) but in the end we just followed Alex round until the end of the dive. The deepest that we went was 16.2 metres, which was fairly shallow and therefore I considered this to be an easy dive. We ended up in the water for over 50 minutes in total. I tried turning my torch off for a moment or two, but there was no point with all the pin points of light and close beams knocking around. Kaare was looking really good from the front with his green lanterns marking him out. I could see him in my mirror as well as Don with his beam of light. The fish that we could see were clearly a different set from the usual daytime fare. There were many Lionfish, (I mused that Kaare had no worries about going home without seeing one now) who were hunting for little fish and who are assisted by the light. At one point I could see the obvious distress of a small fish in the light, who could see the predator bearing down. I immediately moved my light away as the Lionfish are the bad guys as far as I’m concerned and I never saw the outcome of that particular attack. There were also lots of orange coloured fish that could have been soldier fish, but I am not sure. Wrasse and Groupers were asleep in the coral. As we got higher and higher I had a sort of dreamy feel as we finished the dive near to one of the coral structures that rose towards our boat. Back on the surface and inside the boat I quickly de-kitted and stood in my trunks in the warm breeze that came from the land, and felt like standing under a warm fan heater to dry off. The other two divers were a bit late back which irritated the boat captain, but this overall was a landmark and interesting dive. One that I will remember forever. I am looking forward to doing the last two dives of the specialty, and it is very nice of the centre to run the courses for us as there are only two students. My SAC rate was 16 LPM.
Posted on: Sun, 05 Oct 2014 17:32:20 +0000
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