Tuesday, May 10, 2016

Malapascua 2016 Day 6

Malapascua Day 6

Today we got up around 6:30 and Eric got the cameras ready and we headed to breakfast a little after 7.  By now you can probably guess what breakfast consisted of…

We were scheduled to leave at 9 am for a day trip to Gato island for two dives with lunch in between.  Gato island is about a 45+ minute ride from Malapascua.  After we got in the water it was a slow start, but then we saw quite a bit of stuff—a flamboyant cuttlefish, a frogfish, sea snake, among many others. 

This dive was rather interesting.  About half way through the dive we were all in a larger group in one area when I looked over and saw one of the dive group with no regulator in his mouth, kneeling down on the sand, attempting to reach back to his tank.  He looked very calm, so I was not sure what he was doing.  One of the other members of our group (diving with double tanks, as she had just finished a tech diving class) who was a bit closer noticed this as well.  When she approached him, he gave the out-of-air sign and she gave him her regulator.  Apparently his tank had not gotten turned on all the way and worked fine until he got to a certain depth and then due to the pressure it could not provide any more air.  The dive guide came over and made sure his tank was turned on and then his pressure went from 0 back up to 2000.  He went back to breathing off his tank and continued his dive.  I think we were all a bit shocked.  He was so calm we all thought he was kidding—but obviously not.   

After the first dive, we got back on the boat and had a surface interval of about an hour and half, during which time we all had lunch.  The second dive was also at Gato Island, but on a different side of the island.  The dive started by entering an underwater tunnel, which went all the way through to the other side of the island.  This dive we saw Harlequin shrimp, frogfish, huge crabs, eel, ocellaris clownfish, another sea snake, sharks, and various macro shrimp, etc. 


After two good dives, we headed back to the resort.  We got back around 3 o’clock and headed to our room to get cleaned up and check out our video and pictures from yesterday and today.  Then we headed to the restaurant to have some dinner so we could get to bed early for the shark dive again tomorrow morning.  Prior to turning in for the night we played a round of “worms” with the two couples we had met from Oregon.  After the game was over we wished the well as they would be leaving tomorrow morning and we would be out on the shark dive early in the morning.

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