Day 8 -- Wreck dive, Nitrox dive and Bengt's birthday
Saturday 2/28/2004
Today was a big dive day for the Hamnqvists. After a quick breakfast we headed down to the dive center. The meeting was at 7:45AM down at the dive place, which meant we had to leave up here around 7:15AM. Karl stayed behind with Bengt and Lotta. Erik was going to have a training lesson. A bit unsure what I had signed us up for, I walked around at the diving place looking for information about what was called "Two Tanks Dive". I soon realized it was a combination wreck-dive followed by a Nitrox reef dive. This would be two new diving things for us with our limited diving experience.
We were a total of six divers and two instructors departing on the "2 TD", representing two families. The other family was from Bruxells and had a daughter about Isabella's age. The two girls did not talk at all during this trip. We used a rather small aluminum boat. It departed at 8AM and headed south along the shore of Basse Terre. Our first stop was at a wreck, about 5 km or so south of the dive shop.
The boat was called l'Augustin Fresnel. It was sunk, on purpose, to create a reef, about a year ago. The boat was a large service vessel used to handle buoys and light houses around Guadeloupe. It rested at a depth of 26m at a fairly flat bottom. It was sitting upright. When we reached the location of the wreck, you could see it from the surface. The water was rather clear. We had to do a free descent to the ship, which had its highest point at about 17m. We were broken up into two dive teams, one per family, with one instructor each. I had a bit of a problem with my left ear to get down to the depth, but by going slowly things worked out fine. We started at the head of the boat and swam around the side of it. The instructor took us around the ship's outside and then inside the ship. Corral had just started to form on the ship. We went through all sorts of passages in the ship. We now got a feeling for what it is like to squeeze through places and even get stuck with the tank in things overhead. One of the first mistakes was to stay above the floors of the boat a bit too much, meaning you come to high up into passages, increasing the chances of getting stuck somewhere. There was also a lot of silt already in the boat. We had no gloves and in retrospect it would have helped a bit against the rusty and somewhat sharp edges of the now corroding boat. We got down as deep as 24m (85ft) into the boat. Getting back up on the dive boat was easy. The only hard part was to decompress while suspended in the water without clear points of reference. Fortunately the dive instructor helped us.
Once back on the boat we headed in to a nearby bay (Baie des Tortues), where we had a light snack. This was very pleasant. This was part of the extra fee for this trip (20€ supplemental charge per person). We had hot tea, pineapple, cookies, etc. We stayed above the surface for about 1 1/4 hour. When we got ready to head back out we had to prepare our Nitrox bottles. The preparation consisted of each person measuring the quantity of oxygen in their respective bottles. Each bottle was labeled with the intended mix, but each person was responsible for verifying their own bottle. Mine was marked 35% but came out at 35.5%. In addition, each bottle had a number stamped into the metal so that we would not confuse our respective bottles once we got out. They told us that the safe limit, given how long we had stayed above, was often computed to be max depth of regular air divided by 1.4. They also talked about how the mix was prepared. Some places full oxygen first, then top it off with regular compressed air. This place had just installed a new compressor that filtered the air that got compressed such that it reached up to 40%.
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| Isabella and Lilli verifies their O2 content in their Nitrox bottles |
The second dive was in the bay outside where we ate, about 200-300m out. We would follow a corral ridge on one side and then wrap around the outside and follow the other side. There was some amount of current, so we had to paddle a bit. But it was not that extreme. We got down to about 16m during this dive (our safe limit for this dive was 28m, I think). This was also an enjoyable dive. It did not feel any different to use Nitrox, at least not to me. And that was the whole point of it. Basically the same as regular air but more safe (provided the right precautions were followed). Isabella thought the Nitrox tasted better and Lilli thought the bottle was lighter. Both of those observations did not appear, to me, to have anything to do with Nitrox, but I could be wrong.
On our way back to the dive center we saw fly-fish skimming the surface in front of the boat. When we got back, Erik was waiting, reading a book. He was hungry and had had a good dive himself. We packed up and headed back home to the bungalows, where we relaxed. This was quite an experience for at least me and Lilli. Isabella also enjoyed the wreck dive, but I think she enjoyed the reef dive less. When we got back to the bungalows, Bengt had prepared hamburgers and pasta. We went to Carrefour in the afternoon to get a cake for Bengt and snack for the hike tomorrow. I also got a newly published trailbook and a machete knife. The trailbook was quite good and covers many trails on Basse Terre.
For dinner we were going to eat Pizza. That was Bengt's request. To prepare ourself for the eventuality that the pizza lady was still out of pineapple, for the Hawaiian pizza, Bengt had bought and brought a can with him. She did have pineapple and laughed when we showed her the can. As with the last time, we had to come back a 1/2 hour later to pick it up. We enjoyed a good meal together and topped it off with some Rose Champagne. Interesting to note that Champagne is more expensive here (in France no less) than back in the USA.
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| Lilli adds a bit of salad to the pizza |
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| Bengt turns 40 and gets a belt with belt buckle |