Day 11 -- Family dive and then a night dive
Tuesday 3/2/2004
We got up around 7AM. I drove off to the bakery to get some bread. We ate a nice breakfast. My legs were still aching from the hike the other day. Lucas was still feeling a bit sick. He only ate a little bit. We payed Jean-Jacques the final amount for the bungalows. Shortly thereafter all of us headed towards the diving place in Bouillante. Today would be the first dive for Erik after having completed his training. This meant that myself, Isabella, Lilli and Erik could dive together. We had also arranged for both Karl and Louise to take their "Bapteme" or first dive. Bengt came with us on the boat, too, to provide some company for Louise. His plan was to snorkel around the boat while the rest of us were in the water. Prior to this dive I had arranged for a photographer to come and join us to take some underwater video. He started filming us before we got into the water. Instructions on the boat were rather interesting. The French had to be translated into English for Karl and into Swedish for Louise and Bengt.
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| Per getting instructions in French and translating into English and Swedish |
It was overcast when we got out to the Ilet de Pigeon. There was a slight wind. No sooner had we got into the water until we realized there was a very strong current. We had to hold onto the side of the boat while we waited for our whole team to get out into the water. It was hard. I was not sure what to expect when I got down. It was actually quite a strong current even below the surface. Even as I paddled, I could be working very hard and not make any progress relative to the bottom. It was quite exhausting and my air was spent much quicker than normal. While we were out in the water, the photographer swam with us, taking pictures. The current made it much harder to enjoy the dive. But it looked clear. We could see several schools of fish that were just parked in the current, stationary relative to the bottom.
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| Louise and Karl getting ready for their bapteme |
As soon as we got to shake hands with the newly installed Jacques Costeaux statue, Isabella complained she had problems with one of her ears. It was bad enough that our dive instructor had to take her up to the surface and towards the boat. We had to follow, of course. And we also had to get up to the surface, something we hoped we could avoid. After the instructor had let Isabella up on the boat we went back down together again. The current did not seem as bad, but it was still very strong. We stayed at relatively shallow depth.
When we returned back to the boat, Louise was in the water with her instructor. Karl was already up. He had stayed down for a while, but complained that he had ear problems. Louise was out for a while. When she got back she was in very good mood. It had worked out very well for her. Back at the shore we met up with Lotta, who had taken Lucas and Adam on a glass-bottom boat from the bay next to us. They had also enjoyed their trip. In fact, their boat had come very close to ours (without us knowing it) while we were anchored at the island. We headed back to the bungalows for a late lunch/early dinner. We ate BBQ:d pork chops, with potatoes and tomato salad. Even Lucas ate a good lunch. It rained on and off a bit. It was more overcast than not. Adam fell into the pool by accident. Isabella found a very large toad, who relieved some very stinky liquid on her clothes.
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| Isabella finds a stinky toad that pees on her!! |
Bengt and Lotta departed for Carrefour while we stayed back at the bungalows, catching up on school work and diaries. We now had full overcast and drizzle that came and went. It was not exactly warm (by Guadeloupe standards). For this evening we had arranged to do a night dive, another first. We were supposed to meet at the dive center around 6:30PM, to prepare for the dive. Bengt and Lotta were going to meet us around 7PM at the dive place. Karl stayed behind at the dive place, because the dive boat was not returning back to shore after letting us off.
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| Sunset at the diving place before our night dive |
I must admit that this was a bit scary. The boat anchored about 1,000ft off shore. We had a debriefing on the boat before we headed down. It was about 40ft (12.5m) deep where the boat was anchored. We all got flash lights. We descended into darkness from the boat until we reached the bottom. Our eyes were slowly able to adjust. I think I was one Kg shy (2lbs) on my belt and could not lay completely down on the sand. We put out our lights, for a moment, by holding them down into the sand. After that we started swimming towards the shore in a zig-zag pattern. We were in a group with myself, Lilli, Isabella and Erik. We saw all sorts of things, including many sea-turtles and sleeping fish. We followed a small ridge along the bottom. After the initial rush of going down into darkness wore off, it was actually quite comfortable down there. The flash light helped amplify the colors of the fish and other things on the bottom. The hardest part was getting up onto the ladder by the docks. When we got near the shore the waves were strong and tossed us back and forth. It was hard to get up on your feet, with the added weight of the tank and with the instability of the fins plus slippery rocks. Yet another experience. At the ladder, Bengt helped us up. He had come over to watch us from above, seeing the flashlights in the water. They served us some Planteur (from a big plastic container) and some freshly made acras from the restaurant next door. It tasted really good.
The drive back to the bungalows was interesting. The weather at the top of the pass was windy, heavy rain and fog. Visibility was perhaps 5-10m (15-30ft). I drove very slowly. Isabella sat in the front seat with me. It was almost comical how we both sat close to the windshield in order to see better, as if that would help! When we got back to the bungalows we had a little snack.