Victor, Bea, Kate, Gabe, and I met up on the 6th deck dining hall for breakfast at 0715. Two other guys were supposed to be diving with us, too, but they were staying off the ship so we had no idea if they’d meet up with us or not. They had been out partying at the villas so we really doubted they’d show up.
We got a cab to Tamarin down in the southern part of the island, about 45 minutes away. It was near Flicken Flac. We were diving out of a hotel. We filled out all of our paperwork at a little shack and were a little doubtful about the quality of this experience. We signed our lives away in French forms that we couldn’t really decipher. Oh well.
We were taken to another shack to get all our gear and wait to see if the other boys showed up. Once we were all ready we headed to the water to load it up with the tanks. We were gonna do two dives in the morning and see if we could convince them to do a third in the afternoon. The boat was pretty small. We were diving with a young woman from Austria named Isabella and a guy named Riere or something along those lines. Looking at the boat we were a little doubtful, but the weather was absolutely perfect.
They took us out about 20 minutes to the first dive site. It’s a pretty famous site off of Mauritius known as the Cathedral. Isabella briefed us and we geared up. Victor and I would be diving together. We back rolled off the boat and into the water and descended immediately to avoid the current. We couldn’t see the bottom. It was going to be a deep dive down to 30 meters. We all got down with no issues and followed Isabella.
We explored the mountainous reef and rock formations. We dove through some overheads. We got down to 30 meters and went into a cave. Isabella took us in 2 at a time with her light to show us the small domed cave. It probably went up about 5 meters. Along the walls were tons of lionfish just chilling. Also, at the top was a huge puffer. Like 2 feet long! That’s the biggest puffer I’ve ever seen. It was so crazy to just keep seeing lionfish and admire their beauty rather than have to worry about reporting them or thinking about the fact that they’re not native to Caribbean waters.
Next we followed Isabella to another area, this is the place known as the Cathedral. It’s a bunch of rocks overhead that you go through and at the end the sunlight streams down in an Cathedral-like glow. It was so pretty. Fish were swimming through and everything was illuminated. In this area there was a 2 foot statue of some Indian-like man, perhaps a god. It looked like some sort of spiritual symbol. It looked like it had been there as it was partially covered in algae.
We spent a good amount of time on the reef and checked out the coral. The fish were amazing. The snorkeling from the day before had gotten me so excited for diving today. I was so happy to be underwater. There were so many fish. Most of the coral was alive. It was an incredible dive. We spent 49 minutes down total.
On the way up on our safety stop Victor somehow managed to run out of air. So we had to share. What great siblings we are. He’s my brother in my extended family. Bea had his camera during the dive and got some awesome pictures. There’s a few of everyone during our stop. We also had to wait for the boat to come and collect us.
We de-geared in the water and passed everything up then hoisted ourselves up over the side. We switched over all our gear and headed to the next site. We spent about 50 minutes on the boat getting everything ready then heading to the next dive site.
Our next dive was to about 30 meters again, but this time it would be all on a reef with no caves or anything special like that. While we were getting briefed for this dive, another boat approached us and said they’d just see bullsharks in the water. So we moved quick in hopes of seeing them. No such luck. We rolled off into the water together and descended immediately.
This was probably my favorite dive. It was so relaxing and I was so happy. This was where I had my moment. I’ll explain. Apparently everyone on Semester at Sea has a “moment” where they think to themselves, “Wow, I’m really here,” and they get the chills and reality really hits. Some people had there’s on the Great Wall, some at the Taj, some in Cambodia. Well, mine was underwater when I finally had some time alone to think and just be.
The reef dropped off to a sandy flat and on the sand was a huge ray. I hovered over it and it was bigger than my wingspan. So probably 6 or 7 feet across. It was definitely the biggest ray I’ve ever seen in the wild. We saw it swim off into the distance. The visibility on both these dives was about 30 feet. So it was good, but not incredible. That has to tell you how awesome these sites were. We just chilled around the reef and drifted with the current for the most part. I saw so many crazy fish with spectacular colors. I saw some type of spotted eel just chilling in a hole. There were so many lionfish on this site, too. There were tons of boxfish with all sorts of spots and patterns, same with the butterfly fish. We saw a few scorpionfish as well. One of them was huge!
As I was reflecting on everything underwater I realized how comfortable I was and how great my buoyancy felt. I mentally thanked Rick and Noelle for this.
We ended up staying down for 50 minutes. This dive was so great. We did a safety stop and waited for the boat to come and get us again. We swam over to it and handed our gear up then climbed up. This time we decided to jump off the boat into the water before we headed back to the island to switch our tanks and grab some lunch. It was already 1300.
We asked them where to go for lunch. They told us we could find a Mauritian fast food place on the street. We never found it, but we did get some great Italian. I got a chicken panini. It was so good and totally hit the spot. It wasn’t too big either, so I didn’t think I’d feel like I was gonna die while diving.
We got back on the boat around 1400 for our last dive. We had a new divemaster this time named Michelle. She was actually born on Mauritius and lived on the other side of the island. We stopped at a site but they determined the visibility wouldn’t be too great so they took us to another site about 10 minutes away. The view from the boat back onto the island with the mountains and palm trees and greenery was breath taking.
When we got to the other dive site they determined that they visibility wouldn’t be much better, but we’d do it anyways. We told them we were just happy to get to dive. They said the visibility would probably be only 10-15 feet. They weren’t lying.
Before we got in the water we saw a ton of squid at the surface. We figured that had to bode well for our dive. So we geared up one last time and rolled back in. This dive would be a maximum depth of 20 meters.
The dive started out and wasn’t anything too special, the corals were more on the dead side and there weren’t a ton of fish right where we’d dropped down. Then all of a sudden we came up what I can only describe as fields upon fields of egg-like polyps on top of rocks and hard coral. This is known to them as Bubble Coral. I’d google it if I had internet. It was absolutely crazy. It was pink and green and blue and orange. It glowed and took on all these crazy hues. I don’t think I can do it justice in words, but fish were swimming all around it and through it.
We spent forever just looking at it and resisting every urge to touch it and play with it. We didn’t know what it was while we were underwater so we didn’t touch it. It was beautiful. Bea got some obscene pictures of it that I’ll post on facebook when I’m back. I saw a few juvenile lionfish. They were the cutest things I’ve ever seen. I also saw some broadbarred lionfish. They have smaller pectoral fins that are more like sticks than fans, they’re just as beautiful and intriguing as the common lionfish.
Gabe spotted another eel. Bea got a sick picture of this Geometric Moray sticking its head out of a hole in the Bubble Coral. We spent forever just looking at the coral. This dive was about 45 minutes.
We surfaced and took a bunch of pictures at the surface with a mountain in the background. These pictures came out awesome. We handed up all our gear and got back into the boat and jumped off one last time.
This was some of the best diving I’ve done in my life. It beat out diving in Roatan, Honduras for me. And I loved Honduras. The Indian Ocean and all its life intrigues me so much. I wish we had more time there I would have loved to do more diving.
It took us about 15 minutes to get back and then we had to unload the boat. By now it was about 1600 and we needed to be back on the ship by 1800. A few people didn’t have enough cash on them to pay. We couldn’t pay by credit card here. They had to take a cab to an ATM. The 3 dives only cost us $108 each. So ridiculous. Gabe and I paid and ordered drinks while we waited. We finally had a chance to try out the rum that the island is famous for. I got a mixed drink and he got 2 shots to sip. One was tamarin and one was banana. They were actually really good. By 1630 they were back and paid for and a few minutes later a cab came and picked us up.
It took us forever to get back to the ship. There was massive amounts of traffic and the driver took us to the wrong port. We were freaking out because we had to be back on by 1800 or we’d be in trouble and it was 1750. There was a huge line to get back on to the ship. Our cab driver didn’t speak to us the entire way back and we had tried to ask him questions. Finally when we tried to get out he started to ask us questions about the ship and our semester. But we couldn’t talk for long, we were late.
We managed to get on just in time. I would have been so mad if we got dock time. But in a way it would have been worth it. The diving was so amazing. Stacey, one of the LLC’s, was outside the ship waiting to take down names for those who were late. She was being such a cruel human being about it, too. I believe there are a few people who need a lesson in community and human personal skills. I’d recommend her for that class.
We were all so amped up from our dive. We went up to the 6th deck to check out dinner, it was breakfast for dinner. I’m not much of a breakfast person so this was a fail. No one seemed too excited by this. We decided to shower and get ready then meet up for chicken sandwiches and real food up on the 7th deck at 1900 and exchange pictures.
I got to call home and talk to Mom and Dad for a little while and let them know that I went diving and that I’d made it back safely and alive.
Becca, Bea, Victor, and I met up and looked through all the pictures. Becca was stoked to see our dives. She even bought me a fish ID sheet! I literally bought nothing in Mauritius in terms of souvenirs due to lack of time. What a great friend. So we poured over this to see what fish we’d seen. In this fold out sheet we’d seen most of the fish on it. That rarely happens when diving. Or at least from my experiences.
We ordered a Hawaiian pizza to split, too. It was so good. We had gotten so caught up in diving and the excitement of the day that we hadn’t even thought about eating. We spent a long time up there. We showed our pictures to Dr. Abel and told him all about our dive and experiences. He was just as excited to hear about them. We spent forever up there and chilled with the people who came through. We pulled out of Port Louis and the lights faded off into the distance. It was beautiful in the dark.
I even got to talk to Dom for awhile.
What a great day. I was so exhausted that I just passed out the second I got back to my room and laid down.
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