scuba

26 october 2012

this morning i did 2 dives at maria de la gorda, cuba.  the hurricane brought a lot of wind here but otherwise the morning was looking good.

i got to the dive shop and they told me to come back at 8:30 to see if we were going out.  i returned at 8:30 and he told me i had to go to the front desk to pay, but i should only pay for one dive in case the weather was bad and we couldn't do two.  so i ran all the way to the other end of the hotel, stood in line, paid, ran back, got equipment and jumped on the boat.  there was a uniformed man on the dock watching everything that was going on, i couldn't figure out what his job was.  i think he was counting people and tanks.  there was a huge scuba club from argentina that took up one full boat and the rest of us were on a second boat.  i met my first americans since i've been here.  

we dove a wall for the first dive and it was pretty nice.  lots of great corals and fans and colors, not a huge amount of fish.  not many at all, actually.  we did a couple swim throughs.  my buddy was a belgian guy named claude.  the dive master, martin, turned to check on us every 2 or 3 minutes, it got sort of annoying.  there's only so many times in a dive that i want to be disturbed to let someone know that i'm ok when i look just fine.  maybe that's a cuban dive thing, making sure at all times that everyone is good at every moment.  if i got too far from claude, maybe 4-5 feet, we'd get the sign that we need to buddy up closer.  super annoying.  

there was one new thing here i hadn't seen before, long green coral things that had black markings.  when they waved in the current they looked like snakes.  most everything else i've seen on other dives but it was super good visibility so it was pleasant.

during the break between dives i had to pay for my second dive.  julianna was out walking the beach and she left the key with reception.  so i had to run across the hotel complex, get the key, run to my room, get money, run back to reception to pay and leave the key, then run to the boat.  argh.

i watched the man in uniform again to see if he did anything but again he just watched.  my best guess is that he makes sure that everyone that goes on the boat comes back?  maybe one of the instructors has a grand plan to strap 6 tanks together and scuba to miami?

the second dive wasn't as good as the first.  because the wind was stronger we only took the boat a small distance out and had to swim a lot of sand before we got to any reef.  we didn't do a wall like the first dive, just swam over stuff.  mildly disappointing.  my buddy was the uk guy that we had drinks with last nite and he was a good diver, his girlfriend was pretty new so martin took her as his buddy.  whenever simon would get a few feet away, rattle rattle buddy up.  relax.

the diving was good but overall disappointing.  this was the most expensive diving i've done and the dives lasted the shortest amount of time, maybe 40 minutes each.  i had over half a tank of air when i got back from both.  they charged for equipment rental as well, which is not unusual, but they charged me not for a day of rental but $7.50 for both times i used it.  that's bullshit.

so i dove in cuba, its probably that i never will again, it was nice and i'm glad i did it.

btw, cuban people are not allowed to dive.  go figure.