'Out of air': a signal no diver wants to give/get

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  Flic En Flac, Mauritius
Friday, October 26, 2007

Diving day; normal routine. No midgets, no Austrians but a boat full of ... Germans. One other couple: which is exceptional. Normally only singles and only men. If I can be rude for a minute; you can play cards with 6 people on the butt of the lady of the German couple. What shocked me was: she has the same size wetsuit!!! What does that say about my butt?

We go to the diving site but not everybody can dive there.

Why not?

It is the Rempart Serpent: one of the most dangerous dive sites of the world. Most diving companies request at least 200 logged dives ... . The danger is in the stinging 'things'. Lion fish, stone fish, fire coral, ... . No, this is not the most likely place to DIE while diving but to get hurt.

Dr T and I get down (about 25 meters) and the first fish we see is a lion fish. Hubby finds a huge stone fish within minutes and we meet a moray before anybody else is down.

The dive is breath taking. Literally, Dr T gets me worried because he gets too close to dangerous species. He plays with Nemo in the sea anemone. They are poison! His hand is in it!!! I quote from Wiki: The poison is a mix of toxins, including neurotoxins, which paralyze and capture the prey, which is then moved by the tentacles to the mouth/anus for digestion inside the gastrovascular cavity. After 30 minutes and many lion, stone fish and other poison stuff later: I am VERY low on air. At my safety stop, my air is on zero. When we surface, 3 minutes later, I have to blow up my BCD with my breath: no more air left in my tank. Out of air. Nobody want to see the sign, nobody wants to make the sign! The boat takes ages to find us but that is OK. I am flooding and the dive was divine.

We go down a second time after 45 minutes to the Tug. A wreck sunk almost 30 years ago. We stay around it for half an hour. For the first time in my life I see 30 lion fish in one glance. No kidding. 30. Some of them are half my size. They spread their wings and tentacles and look impressive. Dr T finds a moray, who gets a beauty treatment by a couple of cleaning shrimps. I notice my diving computer warns me: I need 5 minutes to surface, safety stop included. Jean Marc, our diving master, looks at my computer. By that time it shows 7 minutes. The weird thing is: Dr T has the same diving computer and it does not give decompression dive yet. By the time we reach our safety stop, my computer shows ... 10 minutes. Jean Marc is professional: he signs me to stick to it. I am cold, hanging for 10 minutes.

But, it was worth it.

Routine sailing back, rinsing gear, lunch, talking to my girlfriends (always DELIGHTED) and then: restaurant. Sunset Garden. I cannot find any website for those guys. It was a very nice experience. It is international food. I choose very spicy Thai. Which was a disappointment: not even half way spicy. Red curry??? That was cream sauce with a hint of red curry. But still: Hubby shared his food with me, the waitress was more than nice, my fried rice was too much and I got to suck ALL the legs and brains of T's sea food. A funny thing about this restaurant: it has NO inside: what if it rains?

We do try to find the night life after in Flic en Flac afterwards: no such luck. So we go home to watch a movie and roll into bed at 2. Very satisfied of our day.

Also because we booked a car as from tomorrow for 3 days.

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My sexy Tomcat

And his office

The sucked out legs and brains

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