Day 4 in Vieques: Night diving

Date: 04.03.2014

Brandon setting up the gear, the pier is seen behind of the fence (by stnz)

I managed to get myself feeling better before leaving for the dive, I was only tired, and I was pretty sure I was going to wake up at the pier. Soon enough, changing the clothes and getting the weight on my back (added to the wetsuit scraping my knee like sandpaper) I managed to wake up.

We talked about the weights with Brandon and it turned out that the lead weights he removed weren't heavy enough, so he re-calculated the weight so it was the 14lbs like we talked earlier.

The darkness came pretty quickly and it was pretty fun to look at the sunset while floating on the surface paddling to our starting point. I could go down pretty well with the new weight and I got my ears popped easily. On the first dives at the same place it was a bit of a problem, but now my ears were starting to play along and not causing any troubles.

Little puff fish (screen capture from stnz' video)

Using the led light was surprisingly easy, and you could see a lot: it was much clearer than it was in the morning and there was lots of new animals hanging around. Added to the fishes and sea turtle we saw earlier there was another turtle, sea urchins, octopi, some "drunken fish" which came to eat little critters which were attracted of our lights, and hitting us in the face and all over the body with force. Seeing the rays during the night were also awe-inspiring that it was during the day.

The weights were now feeling good, because I could effortlessly float in every level and move around just moving a little my fin(s). Going to the bottom went more controlled and adjusting my level was more easier just with my lungs. The whole dive I didn't use my BCD anywhere else than during descending and at the surface, and it was empty in between. After admiring the bottom and playing with my lungs for a while, I decided to go little higher and stay as the last one of the group because the guys were diving in such way that I was afraid I would be hit to the head by them on some point. That's why I was staying ~1m higher than when I was diving my practice dives with Carlito, and mostly just staying put waiting them to go forward before moving forward myself. And I also spend some time showing light to stnz every time his light stopped working. Only problem with this lazy style of diving was that I was getting cold in 26C water in a full (3mm) wetsuit :D.

Coolest thing for me was a puff fish I spotted at the bottom right before we got up, it was a lot smaller than the ones we usually saw there and it was puffed all the way up. It was really a fascinating sight and it was fun to look at it.

After 52 minutes of diving we got back up. stnz had 750psi on his tank, halen had 500psi and I had something over 1300psi. It was a fun dive and I cannot wait to do more night dives in future!

Video of the dive by stnz:

"Could you fucking not?" (by stnz)

After the dive I started to notice a pattern - our taxi failed to come when it was arranged, so Brandon called us a new one and we stayed at the pier looking at the beautiful stars (I had no hurry to come up from the water earlier because of this, I was floating around in the water for a while when everyone else got up..). You could have a beer after the dive if you wanted, but because halen was the only one drinking - he had to drink the beers for us.

After the dive we decided to go to Esperanza and we needed to find some place with internet so we could find a car and a place where to stay in San Juan. Unfortunately the WiFi was as bad there as it was at our apartment, so no luck with those. I showed our DMs some pictures I took today, and from the reception, they were pretty ok :).

When it was time to leave, once again our taxi failed us (same driver again) and just drove by the bar without stopping even though I asked him to pick us up there at 11pm. The taxi service closed at 23:15, so I was feeling a little desperate: 3 dives in one day and 10kms of walking, with only one chicken salad bagel as fuel, wasn't sounding like a nice idea. I phoned like 10 taxi/bus operators, no-one was answering or working any longer and I started to think about the option of sleeping on the beach.. Then in some stroke of luck one of the nice cabbies we used earlier drove by, working extra time, and he agreed to give us a lift back to the apartment.

Before leaving I ran back to the bar to give a hug to Brandon and thank him for the fun dives, and missed Carlito because he was working; I hope Brandon delivered my hug to him, as he promised ;).

Brandon looking at my pictures and me explaining something (by stnz)

And Carlito  (by stnz)

Thanks guys, it was fun to dive with you, and I learned a lot of stuff from Carlito I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have learned if I'd went somewhere else to do my open water dives :).

It was a fun and eventful day, and I didn't need much effort to get some sleep when we got back.

Day 4 in Vieques: More diving!

Date: 4. 3. 2014

The turtle living under the pier was somewhat curious about me and swam close by

Yesterday I got my temporary papers from Carlito, and today I booked not one, or two, but 3 dives, and one of them was a night dive. Way to start something slowly Mia, again :D

Brandon

I woke up early, ate something quickly and waited for the cab - once again it was the lady who had been couple of minutes late everyday, which is pretty annoying as a Finn, because we like to be punctual and little bit early or on time. Now I solved the mystery why she was late, because the clock in the taxi was off like 3 minutes :D.

Scorpion fish

Of course, the taxi picked up 2 other persons on the same drive, which made us more late because the ladies weren't ready when the taxi came. I had an interesting discussion with them, both of the older ladies were from Michigan and we were talking about the "odd habits" their finnish neighbor has (making snow- and ice lanterns, and leaving her baby to sleep outside in the cold) and I confirmed to them that it was completely normal in our little country.

When I got to the pier, Brandon (Bob the diver) and Zach was already waiting for me. Zach was a tall dude (2m) living in Boston, who had dived 7 times before and was dreaming to get the chance to dive with the animals in Boston Zoo - you need 15 dives before you can apply for it.

On the two dives I got to photograph some stuff and try to stay calm and slow without Carlito. I felt that I had a little too much weight on me (which Carlito earlier said that he thinks there's too much) so I asked Brandon to remove some of the weights for the second dive. It didn't feel like it changed things though.

I started to get some grip with the buoyancy control even having too much weight on, so I had time to take and think about the pictures I took, instead of just pointing somewhere and shooting. Now I just need to think how to rig some lights on it, and get the red filter.

We had two pretty good dives, the first one was a little short because Zach was hoarding all his air - on the second dive he lasted longer, fortunately. I had a lot of air when we got to the surface, and I think I only touched once my BCD under the water, rest of it I did with my lungs, and BCD pretty much empty.

Lion fish, a long way from home, eating all the local species like the cookie monster eating cookies.
Beautiful, dangerous, and in completely wrong place.

This guy was way over 1,5m wide

On the first dive I somehow let go from my mask when I took it off from my head to adjust the bandanna, and lost it in the sea. Brandon took his fins and mask and found my transparent mask pretty quickly, my hero <3.

Brandon found a flooded maglite from ~11meters.

After the dive, the guys stopped by to snorkel, and Brandon gave me a lift to Isabel, while the guys were using the scooter. We ate (I ate my only food for the day - chicken salad bagel), and I stopped to sit in the park and drink more water because I was feeling a really woozy because I completely forgot to drink. I sat there like 40 minutes, drinking water and waiting for stnz to come and pick me up, but he never showed. So when I got enough strength and courage to get up, I walked the 1,5km or something back home. Stnz passed me by right near our apartment, he got distracted by a huge and colorful iguana this time. And got  a hit from it's tail - maybe he'll learn to stay away from those in the future, or respect their peace :D.

Finally, at the apartment, I felt really shitty and the world was spinning again - I had 3 hours before leaving for the third dive, I got some ibuprofen, magnesium and 2 liters of water and some milk in me. I can say that I felt really tired on that point, and scared if I'd make it. Otherwise I felt nice, without counting the dehydration.