Dive Report - 7th August

Time : 14:29
TBT : 44 mins
Location : Coral Gardens dive site in St Lucia.

Coral Gardens is described as
"The unusual sargassum trigger fish can be spotted in the deeper areas with the odd barracuda. In the shallows you can swim through dense sea plumes forests. These forests are great hideaways for the juvenile offsprings of the reef"

It's been raining virtually non-stop all day (it even woke me up at 6AM!!)

There was only 5 of us diving, plus the DM (Terry). After diving in, it was so nice being back under the water again. Due to the weather, there was quite a strong current. For whatever reason, I drifted away from the rest of the group and the DM was trying to beckon me back, but even though i was kicking my fins like anything, I wasn't moving - in the end, he had to come and get me and pull me back to the group :)

Saw a few fish that I haven't seen before, so i'll have to look them up and try and see if i can find out what they are. Saw loads of Sargeant Majors, Yellow stripped snapper, smooth trunkfish, four-eye butterfly fish, juventile spotted drum, bluehead wrasse, puffer fish, yellow trumpetfish, blue chromis and a few christmas tree worms

Plus, I finally saw the elusive turtle - think it was a leatherback. Okay, so it was 15 feet away and the viz was about 20/22 feet, but I still saw a turtle and that was definitely the highlight of the dive :D

As i haven't dived in quite a while, I had a few buoyancy issues, but i'm sure i'll get them sorted out once I do a couple more dives and do my AOW in a couple of weeks time.
I also think i need to get some new fins - i'll probably go for the strap ones - i've got full-foot fins at the mo (cheapish ones from my LDS) as i keep getting cramp (or it becomes more visible) when I do my safety stop at 15ft.

I'm booked to do another dive on Friday to the Pinnacles Dive Site
Here's a link showing the dive sites on the island
http://www.caribdiveguide.com/st_lucia.htm


Lottie has had her diving fix and is well and truly happy :D

welcome back!

Aaw thanks..its great to be back (in the water anyway!)

Sounds like you had a good time.

Did you tell the DM the issue you had with the current after the dive? I am sure he could have helped you understand the problem and help you get past it. It may be your fins like you said, but then again it may be something else.

Remember if you do go with strap stye fins, you will need to wear booties as well. I tried wearing my fins without booties on my first dive during my honeymoon and for the rest of the trip my feet were all cut up. I still have scars on my feet from it. Did you notice what type of fins the other divers and especially the DM were wearing?

SOOOOOOOO Glad to hear you are back in the water again. By the way, how did your ears do?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by acelockco

Sounds like you had a good time.

Did you tell the DM the issue you had with the current after the dive? I am sure he could have helped you understand the problem and help you get past it. It may be your fins like you said, but then again it may be something else.

Remember if you do go with strap stye fins, you will need to wear booties as well. I tried wearing my fins without booties on my first dive during my honeymoon and for the rest of the trip my feet were all cut up. I still have scars on my feet from it. Did you notice what type of fins the other divers and especially the DM were wearing?

SOOOOOOOO Glad to hear you are back in the water again. By the way, how did your ears do?

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The DM actually knew as a couple of the other guys once they'd surfaced said that the current was strong, which was due to all the rain we've had today (about 9mm), we were supposed to do Turtle Reef, but that was a no-no due to the weather.
Plus all the DMs and Instructors know me quite well and know that i'm a new diver.
As for the fins - the other divers were mainly wearing strap (the ones that i noticed), i have no idea what make they were. The DM was wearing full foot.

I've been looking at booties as well as strap fins on the net - so it looks as though i'll have to add those to my list of stuff to get in St Maarten, along with a 3m wetsuit and a new camera...looks to be an expensive trip, but i'm not complaining in the least.

Oh it is sooo nice to be back in the water after all this time. The ears did okay. I made sure that i equalized every minute or so, more so on the first 15 feet..just have to keep remembering that each time i dive.

Roll on Friday (only 42 hours to go!!! - not that i'm counting or anything :))

Sounds like great fun! Thanks for the nice report!