Gran Canaria - Puerto Rico (November 2019)

Time again for Puerto Rico and nice diving.

We've booked into Montesol via Tui.

The apartment was quite okay except for the beds which were very uncomfortable, and you got pain in the body and woke up countless times during the night to find new sleeping positions. Otherwise, the apartment had everything that we need with kitchen alcove, balcony (this time on the first floor), bathroom m shower, safety box and living room and the apartment was clean.

This trip will only be at the diving boat which in itself is convenient even though we love the beach dives here at Grancan as well. For those of us who like to see octopuses, beach dives can be an advantage.

It is always so cozy when we get to the hotel, we install ourselves, switch to more summary, take a walk down to the center and eat a good dinner. We decide this time to eat at a restaurant called La Bolero which we pass every night we are here and have our evening walk. It turns out to be a stroke of luck. They have super nice service, it's fresh and they have Angus meat. For me that being hyper fussy when it comes to meat can only say it was tender, no shred of fat streak. SOOO Good!

Now I can possibly be a bit monotonous when I like something, so this trip had many evenings at La Bolera with Angus meat. Good thing it's not only angus meat they serve, so my husband could try different things ;p

Then the diving days start and we get picked up in the morning and go to the boat located in Pasito Blanco. Good to see Wouter and the gang again.

We get ourselves a little funny and unexpected surprise first dive. When we go down, a jellyfish comes swimming, and it's a bit exciting because it's not so common. The tentacles are certainly up to 1.5 meters long. Trying to take a little card and continue down. Lovely dive, and on the way up we realize that now it is no longer just one jellyfish ... It's... Hundreds...

Now the brain activity is on, I can promise. At a depth of 5–6 meters, we're going to do our safety stop for 3 minutes. The problem is that the jellyfishes are at 7–0 meters.
Right now, I'm glad I'm wearing a full suit. Because it's a little cold in the water, I also wear headbands and have a hood hanging at the back of my neck that I pull on. Now only the face is exposed. But it's crazy to see all the super-long tentacles everywhere, and the jellyfishes seem to be drawing to us. I don't know if it's our body heat or if it's the exhalation they're reacting to. It will be a few long minutes to look around and fend off both the jellyfishes and their tentacles that lie as long bands behind. One second we get some room around us for the next moment almost non.

We'll get up to the surface and breathe out that we've made it without getting burned. One of our poor instructors who belongs to those who never freeze has dived in a shorty had to go straight up and did get burned. Wouter also got a little burn when he pulled up the rope the anchor is attached to :).

The second dive had to be in a bay where the current that the jellyfishes follow does not go. It is very rare to have these jellyfishes in Gran Canaria  and the first time we see them.
It continues a bit like that rest of the dive days. The first dive we get down and when we start to get up they start coming. So we hurry to get in the first dive every day and tried before jellyfish meeting. And the second dive had to be out of the stream, which is fine.

This period, Angelsharks are in the area, and we were lucky enough to see them.
When we dive, it is obvious with the safety mindset, there are some things you do in some order and things you do not do because it can be dangerous.

When we talked to a diver on one of our previous Thai trips he told us that one of his friends investigates diving accidents and on all the investigations he did there was nothing wrong with the equipment, it was due to the human factor. And I believe it is..
On our trips we get to meet many divers with different experiences, nationalities which is great fun.

Some are incredibly talented, and you can learn something new, and it is usually a very nice atmosphere. It's extra fun when you meet these nice divers again.

Sometimes you meet divers that we've seen divers do things which is not so good, it has usually not been a problem and have not been dangerous that time. Once in Thailand, we were down for 4 minutes, and suddenly we see a guy drop his weight belt at 15 meters and go up to the surface at full speed. It turned out that he forgot to change the tank between the first and second dives, and off course there wasn't much air left in the tank and it ran out. It's a good thing this time it wasn't deeper. For me, it's unthinkable not to have had time to look at my manometer about 10 times before I'm down to see that the amount of the air is correct.

Last dive day this trip we experience a couple from Poland who were something out of the ordinary we met. During the briefing before the first dive, the man begins to laugh and tell that his air has run out during a previous dive, and he had to swim straight to the surface. But he laughed a little bit more and said everything went well and nothing happened. This is not something that impresses a normal diver, but rather becomes a little thoughtful.

We go down, and we're in two different dive groups. The couple have got their own instructor as they have not dived with "Lets go diving" before. Stefan and I start freezing after 30 minutes and tell our guide that we were back to the boat and get to the surface. Our guide asks if we can take the Polish woman with us because her less of air quantity. It was okay and we started to show her the way back to the boat. Then something incredibly strange happens. Because it’s a little bit current, we are going up through the line, take our 3-minute stop at 6 meters and then go up to surface. This is also told at the briefing before everyone's gone into the water. We'll take the rope and ask the woman to do the same. But she starts to swim up to the surface like a rocket. If we hadn't had the regulator in our mouths, we'd probably have looked pretty snoopy. We hear a banging and could see our instructor come at full speed towards the rope while he slams into his tank to try to get the woman to stop, but she is already up. Good thing we've just been approximately 15 meters, but things can still happen.

When we come up, it turns out that nothing special has happened and made that reaction necessary. Her partner also turned out to have made his dive outside the manual. Firstly, he quickly consumed air and when the manometer showed it was time to swim back to the boat, he rejected the guide and swam away from him. The guide tried to get him up several times, but he waved away the guide and then the air was exhausted, and even he made a direct ascent.
The crew wasn't happy when everyone came up. They tried to talk to the couple, who were not at all interested in talking further or taking any advice.

Dive 2 everyone hoped the couple had come to their senses, but exactly the same procedure that had occurred the dive before was being repeated. Then you get a little thoughtful if the couple really had an education? No more dives on this boat anyway.

Last dive day and last dive for this time, we started freezing quite early and chose to turn around before the others. When we arrived at the line, we found a little friend. A delightful Cuttlefish :) We just had to stay in the sand and look at her as she looked at us. The little Cuttlefish swam forward poked a little on my hand, swimming backwards and came back and poke again while we studied each other. It is so intoxicating to be so close to another creature who take contact with you on your own. Being able to look deep into your eyes and almost into the soul. We lay like that for several minutes until she seemed to get tired of us. Then she swam forward, bumped her wider tentacles into the sand, so it sprinkled up sand on my hand and backed off. That's when we realized it was time to go :)

We were lucky enough to see a moray be at the dentist and have his sharp teeth cleaned. It is very cool with the symbiosis many animals live in.
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During this trip, Puerto Rico had a major opening of the new center. Fountain games with colors and various water spectacles.

Happy with the week, we go home and start planning for the next trip :)