Woke up to Arek banging on our door at 7am telling us it was time to get up for our early morning deep dive. JJ dragged me to the brief and then I went back to the room and deliberated whether or not I felt up to moving again. JJ instructed me that I was to get ready and do the dive, so I followed orders. I think this surprised Arek and the other crew who had seen me looking worse for wear and had told me that I could do the deep dive later if I wanted, but JJ insisted that I get on with it!
Soon enough we were kitted up and getting in the water. Again, it was very choppy and we had to hold on tight to the line so as not to get lost. We descended and had to fight the current as we went.
Once at the bottom, the viz was pretty poor - about 3m, so we stuck close to Arek as we swam along. He then took us deeper - to 22.5m and there he showed us how the colours changed underwater, the deeper you go. He took a Coke can with him and at that depth, rather than being red & white, it appeared black & white. He also showed us the effect of pressure on a container of air. There was a very inquisitive fish hanging around us - no idea what it was, but it was large, squarish and pearl coloured! Arek had brought a tomato down with him and he fed it to the fish, which took a couple of nibbles of it from his hand, then it whipped it clean from his fingers and shot off with it! Arek then took us for a swim about and we saw some more fish, including a Moorish Idol - JJ's favourite fish! This dive lasted about 25 mins and then we returned to the boat once again, through the thrashing surface water.
Now it was at this point that I surprised myself and everyone else for that matter, as something happened that made me laugh, albeit for just a moment, but it was a laugh nonetheless... As I had been feeling so rough the whole time, I hadn't had the strength to be able to fully lift my tank in and out of the little space it lives, so Ben had been helping me with this on each dive. On our return back to the dive deck from our deep dive, I sat on the bench, still in my kit and waited for Ben to finish taking his scuba gear off before he was going to help me. As I sat there, I looked down at my wetsuit-mittened hand and something made me look again, something wriggly! It was a tiny, tiny, tiny shrimp! It was kind of a grey black colour and no bigger than half an inch - it wriggled about a bit, looking quite stunned - as was I! I yelped a bit and the others looked over - they saw the shrimp and everyone started laughing, saying I'd caught my lunch! I looked at it and then flicked it back in the sea, as it was no use to anyone for lunch at the moment considering how small it was! Slightly smiling, I undid my BCD belt and looked down to see something else alien on me - this time a little black-green crab sitting on my middle! Now this did make me shriek somewhat, as I am not a particular fan of crustaceans! Again everyone thought this was hilarious, even me, sort of, although I did yelp for Arek to rescue me and remove it! He came and picked it up, telling me that I had broken the rule of 'not removing anything from the reef'! People then pointed out that I almost had a whole lunch about my person and again I laughed (for the second time since being on board this boat!). I stood up from the BCD, with Ben holding in and low and behold, there was another of these little crabs still inside the BCD! How on earth any of these creatures got where they did, I most certainly do not know, but needless to say the second crab created more laughter, it then scuttled off to who-knows-where before I had a chance to remove it. I then became slightly paranoid and jumped about a bit in case any other stowaways were attached to me!
This momentary incident was soon over and once again I felt like hell. Captain Mark spoke to me and asked how I was feeling, I told him I was still feeling pretty ropey, then he warned that we were about to move off again, which would entail more choppy seas. I took this opportunity to go back to the cabin and lay down and soon enough we were moving and I felt like I might die. The new dive location wasn't that far away, but even in that short space of time I felt considerably worse and decided I really couldn't dive again. JJ went out and I stayed in the bunk.
A short while later, I heard voices and realised they were back. The boat was swaying in every single direction at once. I went to get up and go and see them, then I suddenly lost all sense of what was up and down, the room span uncontrollably and I felt so hot. I sat there not knowing whether to try and stand or lay back down, either seemed painful! I managed to open the door and tried to stand up using the bunk ladder, but it really wasn't happening. Rather than feeling like I was going to die, I started wishing someone would kill me to put me out my misery. I gave up trying to move and closed my eyes for what felt like an eternity, then a voice said "How are you feeling Bonnie?". I didn't know who it was and I couldn't open my eyes, so I merely responded "I have never felt worse in my life". The voice then said "Do you want to go home?", at this I opened my eyes and saw Captain Mark - "Please don't joke". He told me it was no joke and asked me again, to which I said a definite "Yes". He said I would be leaving in five minutes on a ProDive boat that had gone out earlier in the week and was passing our boat to head back to shore. I cried - with relief!
Captain Mark went and got JJ, who came and packed up my bits and pieces. Between her and Dan, they managed to get both me and my bags down to the dive deck and propped up against some boxes. The crew were really sweet and wished me well, before I had to jump (literally) into the tender and then whip across to the other boat. There were 5 of us who left, all of us had felt horrific, but out of us I had managed to do the most dives! We sat on the dive deck of the rescue boat (pictured above) and waved to everyone on the other boat as we departed. The Captain of the new boat told us that it would be a three hour journey. It was already quite rough, so I went into shut-down mode sat on the deck (basically what I had been doing on the bunk, except not laying down - eyes closed, ipod plugged in, listening to music and trying to concentrate on that and forget about what was going on around me). The waves were thrashing and lots of water cascaded over me - one of my fellow evacuees gave me his waterproof jacket which I put on and did up - all wrapped up like Kenny from South Park, then continued my shut down status. I was vaguely aware of people speaking around me, I think it was some of the crew asking the others if I was ok.
After a while (2 hours) the motion seemed to slow and I found I didn't need to hang on for dear life to the bench with white knuckles to stay upright. I kept my eyes closed just in case and remained 'shut down'. I heard voices, then someone tapped me on the leg - I opened my eyes and it was one of my fellow refugees, he said the Captain had just told them it would be 40mins until we arrived. Wow! I suddenly realised that for the first time in a day and a half I wasn't actually feeling as horrific and I managed to speak more than three words in one go. Before long, I was actually chatting to the other refugees and we were all laughing and feeling much better - mostly because of the prospect of soon being on dry land!
Sure enough we saw land and then we were docking at the marina. It felt a bit like something out of the tv show 'Lost' as we were definitely a very separate group from the original people on the boat - we were 'the others'!! We grabbed our black sacks (which our bags had been thrown into for the tender transfer and hopped off the boat - rejoicing at being back on land!
We were herded into mini buses and ferried to the ProDive shop, where I was told that because I had done the dives that I had, I had qualified for the Adventure Diver qual! I was really pleased, as it meant that the trip hadn't been a complete waste and although I hadn't got the full qual I had set out to do, at least I had achieved something! That cheered me up even more! I then felt grateful that JJ had forced me out of bed on each of those dives - if it wasn't for her, I doubt I would even have done one dive! Thanks JJ!
The ProDive bus then took me back to Globetrotters where I had to wait for an hour for someone to arrive at the office so I could beg for a room for the night! I asked for a private room as I still felt pretty poorly and didn't really want to have to expend energy talking to people! My temporary room was basic, but it was good enough for me! I had a shower and then chilled out on the internet.
I still felt pretty rough, with headache, shakes, tingling and general pantsness, plus it was blowing a gale outside and chucking it down with rain (hurrah for cyclones!) so I didn't think going out for food was a good idea. Instead I ordered Dominoes Pizza and had that delivered! It was not half as good as UK Dominoes, but in the state I was in, anything was good!
When I finally went to bed, I still didn't feel like myself, but a LOT better than I did and certain that I had made the right decision to return early.
No comments:
Post a Comment