Diving the Tek & Dara

We almost had an embarrassment of divers last Friday. We were in the happy position of seeing the boat full up by 8.05 Tuesday evening but seriously over-full about 20 minutes later. Next time this won’t be a problem as Mike will have sorted out SP 125 but this time we were looking at 13 divers in SP 312 which clearly wasn’t going to happen. Rather than disappointing anyone we decided to do a shore based dive on the Dara, the only wreck close enough to land for this to be feasible.

Except that by Friday, a couple of drop-outs had reduced the number to 10, which the boat can carry provided you can get past the coastguard. Fortunately on this occasion they didn’t question the numbers so we made it out of the harbour. The first target was the Tek, a wreck we found at the same time as the Ajman Glory. Unlike the AG, nothing is known about the Tek which is a small tugboat that sank in circumstances unknown. Mike Dalton was first down the line and secured the anchor and we all followed and did a few circuits as well as some window cleaning. The fish life is abundant if perhaps not as spectacular as other places but there are plenty of snappers and jacks.

Having busted one fin strap last week, Cathy repeated the trick with the other one this time. For the second week running she emerged from the water looking very lopsided.

Approaching the Dara for the second dive, Chris being the nearest person was asked to get the anchor ready. Perhaps a tad over-enthusiastically he immediately flung it over the side even though we were still 100m away. Being new to us we can forgive him this lapse and I don’t suppose he’ll do it twice! The Dara is always a good dive although it can be confusing to those unfamiliar with it as it’s so broken up. This time everyone found the anchor line on the way back and the only DSMB had another anchor on it that Derek had sent up. Those on the first wave saw a large leopard ray but it had vanished by the time the rest of us went down.