Memorial Day Overnight Dive Trip and Beach Camping

It is finally approaching the time when I will be able to remove the temporary label from the blog and I will finally return home to my family. But, before that happens, I must spread the word of my last adventure in Djibouti.

For my last adventure, I went on an overnight dive trip. After weeks of flopping back and forth over what I would do for our great two-day weekend,  an opening for the dive trip came about and I jumped in.

We left Camp Lemonnier Sunday morning and headed down to the fishing pier. There, we loaded up on the Farragallah and set sail for our first dive site. It took a couple hours to reach Shark Island which got its name from the shape of the pile of rocks that make up the island, not from any sharks swimming around the island. It’s located on the windy side of Ras Eiros and is a nice reef surrounding a tiny pile of rocks. This trip we mostly dove from the mothership rather than skiffs. At the far end of the reef there was an enormous school of tightly packed Ehrenberg’s Snapper. The dive ended and we headed towards Lake Ghoubet.

At Lake Ghoubet, we anchored at our dive destination and camp site. We made a sunset dive and a night dive with sleeping turtles before finishing up the evening with drinks, food and sleeping on the beach. I think I can speak for everyone when I saw that we were sleeping on cots rather than fighting for sandy beds with the crabs. I was also pleasantly surprised the temperature was bearable and by early morning the wind shifted and had an occasional chill to the air.

 

A small group of us headed towards The Crack to set the buoy and check the conditions. Along the way, we saw a pod of dolphin playing on the glassy water. With the lack of wind, I could tell that this tour of The Crack would be much better than the last trip. We dived down and found our buoy tie off point. After a quick swim through The Crack, we surfaced to find the Farragallah waiting for us. We briefed, suited back up and made another dive tour. We found a giant Eagle Ray and a Manta Ray waiting for us. The dive was great and I followed it with a quick trip to search for a lost weight belt and a knife while getting the buoy. No luck with the search and we headed to one of the best dives in Ghoubet.

 Our final dive would be at Red Virgin. This one is full of life and lasts forever. Finally, it was time to return to the surface and have a late lunch. The remainder of the day would be spent sailing back to port. It was a much better trip into the wind than it had been the day before baking in an oven driving with the wind.

It was a great trip and I could not have asked for a better way to spend Memorial Day. Or…at least spend Memorial Day over 8,000 miles from home…in Djibouti.

Here are a few photos from the Farragallah. The wind block you see at the front of the ship is the galley (cut down 55 gallon drum full of charcoal).

 

Memorial Day Overnight Dive Trip

Coming soon...

What a tease!

96 Hour Liberty Trip - Dolphin Excursions Liveaboard pt. 4

Day 3 – 3/28/12

I slept better the second night than the first, but I still managed to only sleep until about 6:00 AM. The morning started off the same as the previous morning, Ethiopian coffee, crumbly snack cake and the Deli heading towards ‘The Crack’.

This time, the site was marked prior to getting in the water and we submerged straight to the crack. Again, starting about 100 feet, we swam above, in and through the crack. It was a good dive but I have no photos. I have a lot of video that I took during the trip that I have yet to edit. Eventually, I’ll edit it, post it and you can see ‘The Crack’.

Next was breakfast and a cruise through Lake Ghoubet to Star Bay. The next dive was ‘Star Point’. After a couple hours of rest we jumped into the skiffs and headed to the site. This site was full of fish and colorful coral.

After ‘Star Point’, we took a short jump across Lake Ghoubet back to ‘Red Virgin’. We had one last dive there and explored yet another section of the reef that we had yet to see. It was another great dive. We finished up and the Deli headed through the entrance to Lake Ghoubet, back to the Bay of Tadjoura. The next stop was unnamed and we’ll call it ‘Christine’s Glasses’.

After painting a terrible picture, the realization that two people were doing a night dive became apparent and my buddy and I loaded up into the skiff. This site was packed with Elkhorn Coral (or some type of horn coral). Resting in the branches were plenty of sleeping parrotfish, angelfish and plenty of other fishes. The highlight of the evening was not the ton of blue spotted rays. It was not the crazy looking fish that I’ll have to identify later nor was it the lurking barracuda that hugged the edge of our flashlights. Nope, it was the filefish. Not only was the filefish nice enough to let me capture a great video of it taking anice long poop, but it was kind enough to let me pet it. I soon discovered that filefish have somewhat of a temper. Rather you say it was anger, malicious intent, or just simple self-defense; as soon as I grabbed it around the ‘shoulders’, it returned it's capture with a super hard headbutt/bite to the forehead. Maybe it was pissed about the candid video shot earlier. For more than a week, the top of my forehead would bear the proof of why you do not mess with fish.

After the dive, we enjoyed our last dinner onboard and followed it up with drinks, cigars and fishing. Several small fish were caught and then the dry spell hit. It didn’t seem to matter what we did, we couldn’t catch anything. After a while, everyone disappeared and that was when the monster struck. I instantly knew this was a nice fish. Once it reached the surface, I crossed my fingers that the line wouldn’t break while I desperately reached for the 6’ leader. Once I had the leader, I knew the fish was mine. This was a beauty of a Red Snapper and the crew would surely enjoy this. After a fish like that, it was time to call it a night.

96 Hour Liberty Trip - Dolphin Excursions Liveaboard pt. 3

Day 2 – 3/27/12

Sleep was apparently not important after the first day since I slept for about 4 hours. After the Deli started up, I got out of bed to a quite boat. The weather was nice, though it wouldn’t last. I had some great Ethiopian coffee and a crumbly snack cake. We were underway heading through the pass into Lake Ghoubet on our way to ‘The Crack’.

Once we arrived near our destination, we noticed a group of around a 100 people walking the shoreline. Apparently, they were migrating to somewhere. We briefed the dive and were cautioned that we may not find our underwater destination. Everyone suited up, headed into the skiffs and we took a pounding from the waves. The wind had kicked up quite a bit and made it difficult to hit our spot. Everyone hit the water and descended. The scene reminded me of the numerous dives spent at Lake Travis. Unfortunately, this would not be the day we found ‘The Crack’ and after a few minutes around 100 feet, we returned defeated and received another beating while loading up in the skiffs and transferring to the Deli.

The Deli took off towards more protected waters and breakfast was served. I’ve been stuck in Djibouti for a while and it was by far the best breakfast I’ve had. Breakfast the next few days would be a nice change of pace from the camp Galley. We found our new location near ‘The Red Virgin’ where we would spend the rest of the day. Our first dive at Red Virgin would start around 90 feet traversing the coral wall. The dive was great, as was the lunch that followed.

 

Time between dives here was filled with fishing for myself and a few others while most napped. We had a little luck and caught a couple small snappers and a small grouper. For our afternoon dive, we started on Red Virgin near our previous exit point and continued south. I was glad this was the reef we would dive repeatedly and could have spent several days here.

The night dive would be an area near Red Virgin, but farther north. Again, all kinds of critters were wondering on the reef, but there were not any Octopi to be seen. After the dive some fished while others hung out. As the crowd dwindled, one of the fishers managed to catch a cuttlefish with the help of the captain and a bucket. The captain insisted on keeping it and fresh, delicious calamari was served. The rest of the night I slept topside.