Day 2 - Baa Atoll

We did four dives on Baa Atoll today. The first one doubled as a the check-out dive that we skipped on Wednesday afternoon. This was the first chance for the dive guides, Zinah and Panda, to see how everyone conducted themselves in the water. Because we were sharing a room, Hans and I got paired up as dive buddies. I figured this would be the arrangement for the week since Hans said he had hundreds of dive all around the world and had spent several months working and diving in the Florida Keys. Boy was I wrong. He had no steady buoyancy control and kept going up and down and all over the place, he crashed into a few people a couple of times, and ran out of air well before anyone else did. Zinah, poor guy, tried to get me to go up with Hans since we were "buddies," but I refused. I paid good money for my trip and wasn't going to have my dives get cut short by someone else's poor diving skills. I apologized to Zinah once back on the boat, and he understood completely. Before the second dive, he told me I'd be diving with Hayat, a really nice young woman from Bombay, for the rest of the trip. That worked out much better.

Dive 1 - Nelivaru Haa
A pretty dull dive. The rain & clouds made for a thoroughly grey environment underwater. No real colors at all. We did see two mantas, though, so the dive was a success in the end. The second manta came cruising by us as we were doing our safety stop. Very cool to have it so close. Other highlights - eels, mantis shrimp, and a lionfish.

Hans ran out of air really early, so I stayed with Flo & Dusanka. How can he burn through a 15 liter tank so quickly? Yikes! Good thing I can hang with the Swiss.

Dive 2 - Vilu Haa
More mantas. Lots of sand. Took pictures of eels, scallops, and small fish. This dive would've been really boring if the mantas hadn't come around. We saw 4 at different points of the dive. Tons of them feeding at the surface too. The plankton that's bringing them in is why the vis is so poor.

Dive 3 - Dhigu Thila
Saw a whale shark next to the boat during lunch. By the time the dhoni got back with the snorkel gear, he was gone. At least we got to see him for a few minutes from the boat.

Morays, big blue jellyfish (medusa?), lionfish, 2 scorpionfish. Had great fun watching Hayat play with a few clownfish. It kept sitting and rolling around in her palm. A very nice & relaxing dive drifting along the wall with the current. My picture taking is barely improving, but I'm doing the best I can. Need lessons.

Dive 4 - Aidhoo Wall
Very nice sunset dive. The four of us are making a really good buddy group. We use our air at similar rates, so no one has to feel bad about going up early. Lots of good pictures of eels and lionfish. So far, those are my most common subjects. Need to learn how to change F-stop and other settings to try to improve how the shots turn out.

Great first day of the trip. The boat is wonderful, the crew is super friendly & helpful, and the cook has been making us curries (lentil, chicken)! Yum!

Day 1 - Arrival

My flight arrived at 7:45, and it took less than 15 minutes to go through immigration, pick up my bags, and leave Customs. A group of us then hopped on a bus to the hotel down the road from the airport. It wasn't the best hotel I've ever been to, but it wasn't a bad place to spend the day. $55 got you use of the beach, pool, bar, shower facilities, and a 10-minute massage. After flying and sleeping in an airplane seat, that neck & back massage was the best part of the day.

Finally around 2:15, we all went back to the airport to meet the boat's crew and head out to our home for the next week. The dhoni has more room for divers than most dive boats I've ever been on.

The Carpe Vita

My room for the week. It's only slightly bigger than the bedrooms at ARV.

The main lounge where we had all of our dive briefings. Thanks to a good naval architect, the dining area was up one deck outdoors.

The weather was starting to turn nasty, so rather than do a check dive near the harbor, we all agreed to have the boat make the crossing to Baa Atoll right away. Turned out to be a good choice because the weather in North Male was even worse the next day, meaning we'd have been stuck there for two days, and the diving there isn't nearly as good as in the outer atolls. Even leaving when we did, it was still a pretty miserable crossing, seven hours of pounding into rough seas. A few people skipped dinner because they were feeling nauseous, and a few more popped pills afterwards trying to ward off becoming seasick.

I met Hans, my roommate for the week, just before dinner. First words out of his mouth were "you better not snore. If you do, we're going to have serious problems." I'll give you one guess who snored like a freight train during the whole trip. Needless to say, he's quite a piece of work. German guy, 62, bodybuilder, with earrings, nipple ring, and two old, faded tattoos. He was literally a walking caricature like Hans & Franz from the old SNL skits. Throw in the goofy faces he made all the time, and we had almost endless hours of unintentional comedy to laugh at.

Trip Note #1

First interesting trip note: the flight attendant just came to introduce herself to me because I'm "a special Privilege Club member," and then asked if I wanted a newspaper or anything else. She didn't do this with anyone else that I could see. I guess being a high mileage Silver member gets you a pseudo-personal flight attendant, but not an upgrade to First. Go figure.  

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