Page 44 - QARANC Vol 14 No 10 2015

42 QARANC THE GAZETTE
EX NEPTUNE SERPENT 29 March to 5 April 2014
It is a long way to the Maldives. Long hours scrunched up in a plane watching your ankles swell before transiting through the complex series of dusty roads of Qatar’s barely constructed new airport. When you arrive blinking in blinding sunshine reflecting off a turquoise sea and get handed a real coconut to drink, you realise why so many honeymooners make the journey.
But when you get taken to a yacht, given fresh fish and a dive leader tells you what to expect; that is when a challenging week of diving adventure begins. Every day was a surreal series of perfect weather, calm seas and beautiful dives.
We began with shallow coral garden drift dives with thousands of tropical fish darting through colourful coral and turtles silently finning off into the deep blue, progressing on to wreck dives allowed depth, torch exploration and strengthened buddy teamwork for air consumption and time management. Controlling buoyancy at vital safety stops suspended in infinite blue water was disorientating, although often the ever-inquisitive Bat Fish was a welcome 3-minute third companion.
As the week progressed so the dives became more challenging but expectations were also exceeded. Sharks swam amongst divers literally ticked by our bubbles, manta rays put on a private show gliding just above our heads allowing every diver a chance to be centimetres away, eagle rays hovered, and sting rays hung around to feed.
We dived three or four times a day, always seeing something new. Night dives were scheduled in to test the
resolve of the divers jumping into inky waters full of sharks and moray eels, something I never have enjoyed (and doubt I ever will) but know is a test of moral and physical courage alongside the realisation many fish are simply asleep.
Despite never letting us down, we barely dared to hope for the dive leader’s promise of a whale shark. Yet 5 minutes after setting out we were rewarded and jumped into ‘snorkeler soup’ with fins and snorkels as our weapons to fight off other divers desperate to swim alongside. A deep breath and a duck dive down enabled a side-by-side swim with an unperturbed 8-foot shark for as long as your lung capacity lasted. Even between dives, dolphins joined us more than once, dancing in the wake from the stern as we transited between dive sites.
Despite delivering on every sea creature promised, the one thing you learn diving in the Maldives is not to trust you dive leader’s assessment of
the current. If a Maldivian tells you it is ‘mild current’ it is best to get your reef hook out, be prepared for pieces of coral to hit you in the face and engage your finning legs. There is no such thing as a mild current in the Maldives.
The descriptions conveyed here are very poor substitutes for reality. Even those members of the team with extensive dive experience saw new things or ticked off their dive ‘wish lists’. Sadly, it was not all without incident. One of our more experienced divers got Decompression Sickness after a few dives and had to be evacuated to a hyperbaric chamber where he continued to receive treatment long after we had flown home. As with all adventurous training there is an element of risk you cannot control for, no matter how experienced you are. However, for the remainder of the expedition members, it genuinely was the dive trip of a lifetime.
Anna Crossley
Capt QARANC