The Eighth Wonder of Freediving
Posted By Emma Farrell on 6 April 2007
I had visions of the ocean being similar to the Red Sea but had a series of surprises when I first got into the water. The first was the visibility. On the first day, a recce for myself and a chance for Sara and I to test the set-up, I looked down the line and realised that I had more visibility in Vobster, the quarry I teach at in the UK. “It’s a bad day for vis, it comes and goes,” Sara told me, but I couldn’t believe that I had come half way around the world to find worse vis than back home! The visibility did change, however; within a dive session it could go from eight to twenty metres and once you were past the plankton layer, beautiful clear emerald water opened up.
The second shock, or series of shocks, came from a family who hadn’t visited the waters for a while: jellyfish. The dive centre, divers, EDA and locals all told us that they hadn’t seen them for over three years, but as soon as I arrived, so did they, and proceeded to fight for the right to sting any available part of my skin and that of my students. Some were very beautiful, but they wreaked havoc on some students, blowing the lips of one of the boys up like balloons. Needless to say, he wouldn’t let us take a picture…
More harmless wildlife was also a feature of the diving and we were lucky to dive with and see, amongst others, a baby whale shark, a sea snake, fusiliers, morays, mating cowries, sea stars, grouper, Arabian butterfly fish, and a family of black tipped reef sharks. The corals were stunning and the water warm and mostly still as a mirror; a perfect destination for all divers.
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