Saturday, September 12, 2015

Fun diving Daymaniyat Islands, the usual buddies and a leopard shark

My logged dives #1378-81


Another September rolls around and was time again to go diving with our usual group of friends from around the UAE for this time of year. Jay Fortin kicks us off by announcing he'll be flying in from Bahrain, and David Muirhead and Bruce Ora agree to meet him wherever he wants to dive. Same as for this time last year, we chose Daymaniyats in Oman


Rhea Lynn had just moved from UAE to Muscat but was pleased to drive the two hours west to meet us coming down three hours heading southeast. Kelly Harris drove down to Al Ain from Abu Dhabi and rode the rest of the way with Bobbi and I. Walter Crammerstetter turned up with his lady Roberta, and a few others I hadn't met before joined us as well. 

The weather showed a moderate breeze from the north which could be a problem when diving from a sandy beach facing that direction, according to Windyty for Daymaniyat Islands https://www.windyty.com/spot/location/24.102/57.412?2015-09-11-09,23.785,58.586,10
except we would be diving from a proper marina, and there was no swell, both good signs, and in the end, we had no problem:
http://screencast.com/t/6SczWrYs

Euro-Divers had just abandoned their base at Al Sawadi Beach Resort, which was gouging them on commission for using the premises to the point where they had decided to shift operations to the Millennium Hotel in Mussanah, Oman, 30 minutes by boat or car from the resort. At this writing Al Sawadi is now without a dive center for the first time in recent memory. Mussanah is that much closer to us in UAE but that much farther out of Muscat, and a twice as long a boat ride from the western Daymaniyats as well, see map http://screencast.com/t/avj4aBt3I. 



Because of this it was not possible to persuade Euro-Divers to take us even further away to the Aquarium or Police Rock. Even when diving from Al Sawadi the preponderance of our diving has been in the western Daymaniyats, Sira, Jun, Waleed Jun. Those are great sites but we've dived them dozens of times. It's less likely diving from Mussanah that we'll be able to break that routine. The alternative is to add two hours to our drive time, 4 hours round trip, to use the operators in the Seeb / Muscat area, whose focus will be on the eastern Daymaniyats.

We caught Euro-Divers at a transition time, one of their boats had just been sent to port to fix a faulty fuel pump, the boat they were able to send for us was a little rickety (e.g. top canopy jury rigged and unstable, a supporting bar worked itself loose, fell unexpectedly, and hit Bobbi square on the head, not good to let that happen to the wife of a blogger :-). Stan, the graying but ramrod fit French dive pro, was fun to dive with in the end but annoyed us at first with trying to keep everyone strictly together at the surface (became a problem in current) before descending en mass, though he lightened up as we all learned to get along during the course of the weekend. 

One thing we all love about diving locally is the operators mostly know us, we know the sites, and as long as we all get back on the surface in an hour everyone is happy. This is what I have come to realize is my greatest disappointment in diving internationally, the control they place on you, which I accept and understand to be necessary, since they don't know you and deal with a lot of characters ranging from inept to cowboy. But diving on our turf, it's usually a different atmosphere, we are trusted, the guides take a laisez-faire approach, we are all responsible and usually follow the same current anyway. 

In retrospect, overall, Stan did his best with what he had and I hope to dive with him again. For the record, Oman Sail also runs dive trips from the Millennium marina and has good reviews on Trip Advisor: 

http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g2440932-d7171219-Reviews-Oman_Sail_Dive_Centre_Day_Adventures-Al_Mussanah_Muscat_Governorate.html

As we continued our dives, I found I stuck pretty close to Stan. He knew the sites well, enjoyed diving as much as I do, and was good at finding the micro critters. Hopefully as Euro-Divers settles into the Millennium they'll get their boats in order, not tell people they don't have gas to to get to the farther dive sites (the remedy for that is carry more gas, assess a per-diver surcharge if you have to, if it's competitive).

As for the diving, it was excellent. We started on Jun Island, north side, heading west with the reef on our left, and winding up in the bay with the white sand beach we aren't suppose to go onto, except some people do. The next dive was on the small island to the east, Waleed Jun.

Next morning Stan chose Sira for us, which started out with a leopard shark and ended shallow over lovely table coral. Our next dive was in the part of Waleed Jun where the artificial reef has become overgrown with table coral. 

The video above speaks for itself, - it's a compilation of best clips from the four dives over the two days.

Bobbi and Rhea were glad to be diving together again


Euro-Divers website shows a lovely manta on its blurb for Oman http://www.euro-divers.com/scuba-diving-oman/. We see devil or mobular rays there sometimes, but never mantas.

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