Sunday, May 11, 2008

My dive vacation in Turks & Caicos!!


I’ve been home for about a month, and I figured it’s about time that I sit my butt down and write about my trip to Turks and Caicos, my dives, and getting my PADI Advanced Open Water certification. So, after about a half an hour of searching for where the heck I put my log book, I’m ready to get everything down in black and white (and color photographs!!!)

I’ve been going to Turks and Caicos (staying at Club Med) for years now, but have only been diving there twice before. But I would want no other place to advance my training from OW to AOW! I arrived at the village on Saturday early-afternoon, but my room wasn’t going to be ready for several hours. I actually had asked to switch my room so that I would be closer to the SCUBA dock, for those early morning dives. So in the meantime, I had a bite to eat and a drink at the bar, where I ran into the SCUBA instructor from my OW certification. She was on a day off, and was headed off into town, but it was nice to see her and do a little catching up.

My room finally ready, I got changed into proper attire (a bikini and flip flops) and headed over to the SCUBA shack to sign up. I filled out all my forms, and paid for the dives and the AOW classes. But, like always, I had one thing on my medical form that required me to see the Dive Doctor that evening during his office hours to get approved for diving. I’ve thrown my back out several times, and that just means that I need to get approval, which I always do. Even if my back were not in tip-top shape, I could always have the Dive Master put my BC with the tank on into the water, and get into it there, instead of having to walk from the bench to the “giant stride” point of entry.

The rest of the day was spent relaxing at the pool and going to the afternoon trapeze session (my other obsession). That evening, after a couple of hours at the beach bar, listening to the live music, hanging out with new-found friends and old buddies, and tossing back a few, I headed over to the “Sea Center” (where SCUBA classes are held, and where those of us who need to see the doctor have to present ourselves before we’re allowed to dive). I grabbed the form and headed down to the doctor’s office. Sitting outside on the bench, waiting my turn, I felt like I was back in elementary school, waiting for the school nurse to see me for a scrape on my knee.

The doctor called me in, and I told him about my prior back problems, and that I was not currently having any issues. He then decided that he wanted check my ears, listen to my heart, and take my blood pressure. He finally gave me the thumbs up to dive, and I headed back up the stairs to hand in my approval form. On the way up the steps …. I got an idea!!!

I walked into the Sea Center, and all the dive instructors sitting there turned to look as the door opened with looks that said “So? Did you get the OK to dive?” Without hesitation I said ….

“Is a pelvic exam customary to get the OK to dive?”

Every mouth dropped open in shock!

“Kidding!!!”

So, I was all set, and the plan was that I would do 2 dives the next morning, just for the fun of it, and start my AOW classes/dives on Monday morning. And then I would add 4 more dives over the two days after I was AOW certified. A total of 11 dives. I was PSYCHED!!!

I’m not going to recap all the dives individually in this blog, other than to post the stats later. But I will post the highlights.

My first two dives were with Elliot as our dive master/instructor. He wasn’t so much instructing as much as he was our guide. The good thing with that is then I don’t have to worry about navigating, and can focus on simply enjoying the dive and taking photos. He pointed out some cool stuff. Like the HUGE lobster that he was “playing” with.















He also not only pointed out the sleeping (or resting) nurse shark, but told me to move around to the front, while he went up behind it, and woke it up by slapping it’s tail. And I was able to get some pretty cool shots!










My AOW certification dives came next. They went very well. Even the night dive, which I was a bit nervous about, went very smoothly. I really enjoyed when we had to do the navigation part during the night dive. Not because I like navigating, because as a person who has number dyslexia, it’s difficult to figure out the 180’s to return. I enjoyed when OTHER people were doing their navigation, I got to wave my hand around and then watch the bioluminescence of the plankton!! Also, the tiny worms that spin in the light were very cool!! The only time during the certification dives that I was “less than happy” was this one time that we were at the safety stop on the safety bar below the boat, and this barracuda decided that he “liked” me. It was known by the dive instructors how much I HATE HATE HATE barracuda … so they were getting a pretty good laugh when they saw me slowly slide across the safety bar to try to get out of the line of the barracuda! I turned to look at them, and all I saw were bubble coming out of their regulators that were definitely caused by them laughing at me!! How mean, huh?

Anyway, on one other dive, after I was fully certified, I had another “run-in” with a barracuda. This dive was a sort of “reunion” dive. When I had originally gotten my OW certification, there was one other student getting his certification. My friend Alex. He works at the reception of the Club Med village, and had been on vacation the week we got OW certified. So this vacation, he and I went diving together on his day off. And we were lucky enough to get put with our original instructor, Adrienne, as our dive “guide”. We even were lucky enough to get to go to two of the dive sites we had been to when we were originally certified. One of these is called “The Crack”, because there’s a “crack” in the reef, which you can swim down through from the top of the reef and come out on the side of the wall of the reef. We weren’t able to do this on our first time at this site, because of the depth, but this time we were able to go through the crack! Well, of course, at the entrance to the crack was a “friend” of mine. Yup, a barracuda.

Adrienne gave a look over her shoulder at me, and I gave her the “OK” sign, because I HAVE to get past my fear of them! Anyway, that dive was so much fun! I even got a cute video of Alex acting silly!

The rest of the dives were great! That is, all except my final dive of the week!

The visibility was HORRIBLE!! Maybe 10 feet at most! Probably less. I had to stay right on top of the fins of the person in front of me, in order to not get lost. And there was pretty much nothing to see! AND, on top of that I had a LOT of trouble equalizing my ears. When they finally did equalize, I ended up with vertigo, which made me think that I had gotten narc’d (nitrogen narcosis). But since it went away without my ascending at all, I realized that it had to do with the equalizing. A somewhat sucky way to end a week of diving, but at least it did teach me to deal with poor dive conditions! Always a positive!

OK, now for the dive stats:

Dive # 11 – April 6, 2008 – Paradise Cave – Turks & Caicos. Boat dive. Dive Leader – Elliot Burlin. Max depth 64 feet, bottom time 40 minutes (no residual time, 53 minute surface interval). Visibility good (50+ feet). Weight – 8 pounds. Saw Yellowtail Snapper, French Grunts, Squirrel Fish, Butterfly fish, Damsel fish, Blueheaded wrasse, Stoplight Parrotfish, Nassau Grouper, etc.

Dive # 12 – April 6, 2008 – Catacombs – Turks & Caicos. Boat dive. Dive Leader – Elliot Burlin. Max depth 51 feet, bottom time 44 minutes (25 minutes residual time) Visibility good (40-50 feet). Weight – 8 pounds. Saw a HUGE Caribbean spiny lobster, nurse shark, Squirrel Fish, Butterfly fish, Damsel fish, Nassau Grouper, Blueheaded wrasse, Yellowtail Snapper, French Grunts, Stoplight Parrotfish, etc.

Dive #13 – April 7, 2008 – Coral Stairway – Turks & Caicos. Drift reef dive. AOW certification dive #1. Dive instructor – Juanita Powers. Dive Master candidate – Julian Halton. Dive buddy – Michael Perazzola. Max depth 71 feet, bottom time 41 minutes (no residual time) Visibility great – 100+ feet. Weight – 10 pounds (extra 2 pounds since it was a drift dive). Saw – reef shark! Squirrel Fish, Butterfly fish, Damsel fish, Blueheaded wrasse, Yellowtail Snapper, French Grunts, Stoplight Parrotfish, Spotted goatfish, etc.

Dive #14 – April 7, 2008 – Grouper Hole – Turks & Caicos. Fish ID, AOW certification dive #2. Dive instructor – Juanita Powers. Dive Master candidate – Julian Halton. Dive buddy – Michael Perazzola. Max depth 57 feet, bottom time 46 minutes (residual time 27 minutes, surface interval 46 minutes). Visibility fair (30 ft.) Weight – 8 pounds. Saw: Barricuda, Yellowtail Snapper, Blue Tang, Bluehead Wrasse, Stoplight Parrotfish, Queen Triggerfish, Trumpet fish, Fairy Basslet, Clown Wrasse, Nassau Grouper, Squirrel Fish, Black Durgin, Spotted Drum, Spotfin Butterfly, Bi-color damselfish, Queen Angelfish, Yellowtail damselfish, etc.

Dive #15 – April 7, 2008 – Cathedral – Turks & Caicos. Night dive, AOW certification dive #3. Dive instructor – Juanita Powers. Dive Master candidate – Julian Halton. Dive buddy – Michael Perazzola. Max depth 41 feet, bottom time 51 minutes (no residual time, as surface interval was over 7 hours) Visibility – well, it was night so it was hard to tell, but good for a night dive. Weight – 8 pounds. Saw Reef shark, barracuda, Queen Triggerfish (sleeping) Squirrel fish, Butterfly fish, Nassau Grouper, Black Jack (HUGE), bioluminescence, etc.

Dive #16 – April 8, 2008 – Ampitheater – Turks & Caicos. Deep dive, AOW certification dive #4. Dive instructor – Juanita Powers. Dive Master candidate – Julian Halton. Dive buddy – Michael Perazzola. Max depth 94 feet, bottom time 51 minutes (no residual time, surface interval 1 hour, 3 minutes). Visibility good (60+ feet). Weight 8 pounds. Did Nitrogen Narcosis test, and passed with flying colors! No narc’d experience yet. Got some cool shots looking up into the light. Saw:Yellowtail Snapper, Blue Tang, Bluehead Wrasse, Stoplight Parrotfish, Queen Triggerfish, Fairy Basslet, Clown Wrasse, Squirrel Fish, Spotfin Butterfly, Bi-color damselfish, Queen Angelfish, Yellowtail damselfish, etc.

Dive #17 – April 8, 2008 – Crocodile – Turks & Caicos. Navigation dive, AOW certification dive #5. Dive instructor – Juanita Powers. Dive Master candidate – Julian Halton. Dive buddy – Michael Perazzola. Max depth 36 feet, bottom time 51 minutes (residual time - could not calculate, since table didn’t take into account varying depths that computer was able to calculate). Visibility good (50 feet). Weight 8 pounds. Practiced navigation skills. Saw: Morey eel, Porcupine Puffer fish, Yellowtail Snapper, Blue Tang, Bluehead Wrasse, Stoplight Parrotfish, Nassau Grouper, Queen Triggerfish, Fairy Basslet, Clown Wrasse, Squirrel Fish, Spotfin Butterfly, Bi-color damselfish, Queen Angelfish, Yellowtail damselfish, etc.

Dive #18 – April 9, 2008 (Happy Birthday, Dad!!) – The Crack – Turks & Caicos. FIRST dive with AOW certification!! Dive leader – Adrienne Katz, Dive buddy – Alex Rivera. “Reunion” dive of the three musketeers!! Max depth 116 feet, bottom time 38 minutes. (no residual time, surface interval 1 hour, 4 minutes). Visibility good. Weight 8 pounds. Saw: Barricuda, Yellowtail Snapper, Blue Tang, Bluehead Wrasse, Stoplight Parrotfish, Fairy Basslet, Clown Wrasse, Squirrel Fish, Black Durgin, Spotfin Butterfly, Bi-color damselfish, Queen Angelfish, Yellowtail damselfish, Flamingo Tongue Snail, etc.

Dive #19 – April 9, 2008 (again, Happy Birthday, Dad!!!) – “Two Sharks” – Turks & Caicos. Dive leader – Adrienne Katz, Dive buddy – Alex Rivera. “Reunion” dive of the three musketeers!! Max depth 61 feet, bottom time 50 minutes. Visibility ok (40 feet). Lots of surge! (kept having to be careful not to get smashed into the coral!!) Weight 8 pounds. Took video of Alex acting silly! Really love diving with Alex!! And I miss him!! Saw: Yellowtail Snapper, Blue Tang, Nassau Grouper, Bluehead Wrasse, Stoplight Parrotfish, Fairy Basslet, Clown Wrasse, Squirrel Fish, Black Durgin, Spotfin Butterfly, Bi-color damselfish, Queen Angelfish, Yellowtail damselfish, Flamingo Tongue Snail, etc.

Dive # 20 – April 10, 2008 – Chimney – Turks & Caicos – Dive Leader – Elliot Burlin. Max depth 98 feet, bottom time 40 minutes (no residual time, surface interval 1 hour, 4 minutes) Visibility great (100+ feet). Weight 8 pounds. Went to The Dome, which was the set of a French reality TV show that never aired. Saw: Yellowtail Snapper, Blue Tang, Bluehead Wrasse, Stoplight Parrotfish, Fairy Basslet, Clown Wrasse, Squirrel Fish, Black Durgin, Spotfin Butterfly, Bi-color damselfish, Queen Angelfish, Yellowtail damselfish, Schoolmasters, Whitespotted Filefish, Nassau Grouper, Flamingo Tongue Snail, etc.

Dive #21 – April 10, 2008 – Catacombs – Turks & Caicos – Dive Leader – Elliot Burlin. Max depth 56 feet, bottom time 43 minutes. Visibility – HORRIBLE!!! (5 to 10 feet!). SO murky, like swimming through a snowstorm! Weight 8 pounds. Had lots of trouble equalizing. Experienced vertigo once I was able to equalize. Saw: NOTHING!!

Some of my favorite photos from the dives: