I had read, on the internet, that Cyprus was quite an interesting place for diving. It has over 200 different species of fish and above all, it has got the Zenobia wreck, ranked as one of the 10 ten diving spots in the world. I just couldn't miss that!
My plan was to do one day diving to work out the right weight for me and also to get acquaintanced with the equipment and another day just to do the Zenobia.
The Zenobia is quite a deep dive, starts at 18 metres and it goes all the way down to 41 so you need to pay close attention to your air consumption and you do not want to be checking your equipment that day, you want to make sure all the small problems get sorted out and everything is right before you go there with the aim of not having to worry about anything but enjoying the dive.
I chose a local company that was in Lachi by the harbour, they looked busy (always a good sign) and after I chatted with them and enquired about prices and services I felt pretty confident they were a good choice. As it turned out, I have no regrets. They were professional, helpful, friendly and the prices were quite reasonable.
I must admit this was without a doubt the most disapointing diving day I've done so far. There were no fish except for some small ones here and there. No coral either. I can't blame the diving company, nothing to do with them really. Not many good places to dive in the area it seems. They do with what they have.
In the end I didn't mind too much because my aim was to do a couple of dives before going to the Zenobia, just to get the weight right and get confy with the equipment, but you always hope to see something more than just rocks.don't you? hence my disappointment.
On the positive side, St. George's island was only 15 minutes away by boat... so it was a quick trip to the diving spot therefore I am glad to report that the sea sickness medication was not required. :-).
They took us to this tiny island
and we just dove by one side on the first dive and the other side on the second dive. Both dives were quite shallow although on the second we got to go through some small caves which made the dive a bit more interesting.
The water was warm and of a very intense blue, really tempting
Our dive master was the one below
My dive buddy was a nice russian chap called Naeel Tazetdinov
who owns a villa in Cyprus and likes to come and dive every now and then. Luckly he had a camera (this time I was unable to get one myself).Thanks to him you can see a few underwater photos in this post. :-)
Mental note, once you have a job, buy one!
And this is it... St. Georges Island...as there wasn't much to see we spent most of the time taking pictures of ourselves. :-) That and the caves made the dive more fun.
And on the next one you can see some fish!!
By 13:00 we had done the two dives and were heading back to the harbour.
The rest of the day was just to relax and get ready for tomorrow where I'll be doing the Zenobia! and for that, I'll have to get up at 5 am but that's another story...
Before going to bed I managed to take a few snapshots of the sunset
Not a bad way to end this post. :-)
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