Yesterday's dives were a bit "Meh" not that I am ungrateful for being able to dive, I certainly enjoyed the opportunity to be in the warmer water north of Fujairah. Bottom temps at 26C
Soap Box Time
I had chosen my dives partially based on the boat that was going to the destination (Martini Rock / Hole in the Wall) as well as the camera set up for these dive sites.
My first issue was that the boat going to the location had been changed to the another boat that has a shorter ladder, which is becoming an issue for me at times, and I prefer the other boats at BDC specifically because they have longer ladders making it easier to get back onto the boat with my kit on.
I was offered to go on alternate boats to different sites, but I was set up camera wise for wide angle, plus my gases were set up for shallower sites.
I mentally kicked myself as we (eventually) left the marina as I realised I had a twinset in the back of the car and could have easily dived with that. My gases for this trip were EAN33 in an AL80 and Air in an AL65.
Boats were supposed to leave at 08:30 but most of the people were either not there yet and others were still setting up their gear. We left 15 minutes later than planned, and this meant that we were also late in getting back (around 14:00) delaying the afternoon boat which was going out with people from our boat, who were in fact included one of the latecomers!
Myself and a couple of others were quite vocal about this, be there on time or tough sh!t
It was frikken hot >30C and humid.
The boat was full (15 divers + Instructor + boat driver) and fortunately three of us had the seats behind the helm as we motored north but with too many people closer to the bow the boat struggled a bit to plane the waves and move fast.
During the SI some divers left their gear all over the place, which was annoying when trying to swap tanks around. Why do people leave masks lying on the deck FFS.
Then on the second dive I see this