Day 61 No time like the present

04/05/13
The bus left late, unsurprisingly, and drove through the night, depositing me, after no sleep, just after 7, in the middle of nowhere. I walked up the stretch of road that had a few shops on, certainly there was nowhere to stay so I went down another road in the direction of the coast. After a couple of km a bloke on a motorbike, with a homemade sidecar slowed and gave me a ride 500m down the road, another couple of kilometres further on an empty minibus stopped and let me climb in, the driver took me the remainder of the way to the port, the only thing at the end of the road, 6km from where I was dropped. Thankfully there was a couple of dive centres which I had been hoping, but there wasn't anywhere to sleep... At the second place I asked for prices I also asked if I could join a liveaboard dive trip today, the answer was yes but it left in 10 minutes, true to his word, I had just finished paying and I was whisked off to the boat. So by 08.30 I was on a speed boat heading off for 2 days diving with 12 strangers. It took an hour and a half to reach the main boat, where our first dive of the day was. The first dive was odd because I used my air much slower than the others in my group, 2 Russians went up after half an hour then 10 minutes later the guide took a French lady and an American lad to the surface and spooned me off on another group who had come down later, I didn't complain as it gave me more time below, although I still didn't see anything special. The second and third dive were as good as the first, all three we had exceptional visibility and the water was very warm (29 degrees), we saw Giant Moray Eels and a number of Stingrays which was cool, plus thousands of interesting fish. The fourth dive of the day was a night dive, the first one I have done, it felt very special forces as we drove to the site in the dark then rolled off the side. One of the best things was the free food and drink, I haven't eaten so well in a long time, I think tomorrow I will try and stock up and maybe save myself a meal!