Another day in paradise – someone should write a song about it!

The demise of my lairy leggings. At the beginning of the holiday a centimeter cut in the knee, after seven diving days, most of my left thigh was exposed. They have now been filed in the bin.

Plan B was put into action. Actually, I was rather pleased that I had a plan B. My old scubapro one piece has been bought out of retirement and saved the day and my embarrassment.

I am mindful that two days ago I mentioned somethings that I wanted to discuss but never got around to it.

• Bugs
• Bacon torrettes
• Boat buddies

I think I covered the bugs, apart from the six inch leech that was sliming it way up our wall when it rained.

So now on to the bacon torrettes…

A severe lack of bacon happened a few days ago. None to be had! No BLT!!

Whenever we asked, we were told, “we don’t know when we will get some”.

Everyone was asking. It got to the point that we were randomly shouting out “Bacon!”

Perhaps, you just had to be there…

It was hilarious.

On to the diving…

Delayed!

A diver that has joined our boat today, he doesn’t seem to know that if you are half an hour early then you are probably late. Brendan and Vicki, our boat buddies, understand. They are our type of people. New to diving (Dives numbering in the 10s rather than the 1000s) but they just get it. Actually, rather embarrassingly, they are often ready before us! I know, unheard of…

Manit Corner

Lots of current. Beautiful reef.
Having to hide behind huge pinnacles.

Huge turtle.🐢
Huge slugs, all different nembrothas

Such an amazing site.

Secret Bay

Muck dive.

Gentle bimble, very little current.

Same place as last night.

Saw lots.

Coconut octopus in a bottle. 🐙🍾

Peacock mantis shrimps, large to very tiny. Also, Richard spotted one in a tin can, looking very picturesque, that was up until ‘late diver’ stuck his gopro in its face and made it run away.
Pretty slugs, pink and spikey.
Shrimps in wire coral and hydrozoas.

Lunch for me waz the standard BLT with Coleslaw. Richard tried something new. The daily special, carbonara with garlic bread. Hmmm, considering this was lunchtime, I shouldn’t have been woken up by garlic breath, but I was.

Two lovely afternoon dives.

El Pinoy

I loved this dive. Lots of nicely placed slugs in the rubble.

Really enjoyed the photo taking.

Richard didn’t enjoy it so much, until we came across some pinnacles, which were very beautiful.

Twin Rocks – Night dive

A very beautiful site. Possibly even more so at night. The yellow and orange cup coral, that are hiding during the day, come out at night and the two rocks are covered.

We did the rocks, shallow, first then down to about 20 metres and gradually back up at the next mooring where the boat had moved to.

A nice long dive. Ears are getting a bit sticky.

Had a lovely meal with Brendan and Vicki followed by the arrival of Darrall and Dianne. I shall leave Richard to supply those details.

The last day of the first half our trip!

Thus far it has gone well, a little rain last night but now dry, sunny and flat calm, let’s go diving.

After a light breakfast we head out to Dari Laut which is the wreck of an old floating casino that ‘caught fire’ one day and sank. No evidence of any casino activity but what is left of the steel work is dripping with life and a group of bat fish regularly patrol the deepest part of the wreck at around 29m.

After that, a relatively shallow bimble amongst coral outcrops took us up to lunch time, BLT, chips and coleslaw, yum.

Back in for we what ended up being a 93 minute dive at Twin Rocks which is about 55 seconds boat ride, amazing dive, so much colour everywhere.

Now relaxing with coffee before the night dive.

A quick trip around to the corner finds us in Secret Bay for the night dive where we find some of the usual suspects including crabs (various), shrimps, nudis and various other night dwellers including squid at the end.

For tea tonight I wanted the soup, tamarind flavored broth with meat and vegetables, well, all that was true, or had all those things though the flavor was so subtle it was a bit lost on me, back to tasty food tomorrow night!

We have now retired to our room to deal with the consequences of spending over 5 hours submerged today. ZZZzzzzz…….

Yet another beautiful day.

Our captain getting the boat ready, ours in Buceo Two, the one in the middle.

Things we haven’t mentioned so far…

• Bugs
• Bacon torrettes
• Boat buddies

Starting with bugs. I find it rather strange that underwater we can get excited by the tiniest of critters, when above water the bugs can be huge. Butterflies as big as you hand (no photo yet as they don’t stay still long enough). Here is a picture of a grasshopper taken outside of our door.

He may not look huge but he was between 5-6 inches long!

Then last night we had this on our bathroom floor.

Size matters with scorpions. The smaller they are the more dangerous. This one was about a centimetre long. We are, however, safe. I put a glass over the top if and we are very bravely leaving it for room cleaning.

Dive 1

Great dive, no current.
Gentle slope, sand with coral outcrops.

Loads of nudis.
Lots for Richard to take pictures of, nice coral and featherstars.

80 minute dive.

Dive 2

A slope with coral. An extremely relaxed dive. A very slight current going with us. Just floated along taking pictures and shining my light in nooks and crannies.

Very large grey/pink painted frogfish.
Lots of Xmas tree worms.
Slugs.
Very best, at the end of the dive, a harlequin shrimp.

An 85 minute dive.

Arthur’s Rock

Great dive, no current.
Gentle slope, sand with coral outcrops.

Loads of nudis.
Lots for Richard to take pictures of, nice coral and featherstars.

82 minute dive.

Saim Sim – Night Dive

Very calm. No current.

Just us and Nanie on the boat.

Very gentle sandy slope. So much to see.

Six frog fish, including a bright red one about 2mm long.

Arrow shrimps, big crabs, little crabs. A family of cleaner shrimps on a beautiful feeding mushroom coral. A nudi with a huge mouth, about a third of its size.

Came up from the dive and there was a thunderstorm providing amazing entertainment on the 10 minute trip back.

79 minutes.

We joined our boat buddies, Brendan and Vicki for dinner, then work stuff got in the way to ruin a perfectly nice evening.

I woke up, it was 6 hours in to Tuesday, so I thought I better go and see the man. (The man being our dive guide). I said ‘hi’ he said ‘yeah, you got your kit ready?’, I said ‘No’, he smiled at me and said ‘I understand, but now we’ve both got problems, and gonna need to get wet’ I said ‘why don’t we just go’ he said ‘move quickly and don’t fret’, he said ‘look I’m an understanding guy, it’ll take 4 to 5, there’s no need to cry, sometimes it’s real hard to get out of bed’.

(Apologies to Mr Jones)

I had indeed failed to set the alarm though by some quirky twist of events, I managed to open my eyes at 06.01, good news indeed.

Upon packing things for the day I realized that my log book folder (which contains lots of important stuff) for left in the restaurant last night.

Is this an age thing I wonder, firstly the room keys and now my log book, or are we simply spending too much time in there 🧀🍞🍉🍍🍎🍓🍅🍕🍟🍔🍗🍖🍛🍜🍝🍺🍺?

For today’s breakfast I took the leap of faith from fried eggs on toast to omelette (with everything) and very tasty it was too. I shall be going there again.

Todays weather, all good hot and sunny etc.

On to the diving, the briefing was for the two morning dives, firstly ‘Bethlehem’ which is just off a fishing village on the other side of the main body of water and even ‘layag layag’ which is not much further on. When we arrive we find that the current is stronger than desired so we end to doing the same dives but the other way round. Both dives were relatively shallow <20m and were amazingly colourful thanks to the myriad of different colour feather stars that sit on every outcrop or lump of rock. There were shrimps (including peacock mantis), nudis galore and all manner of other critters to keep is busy. We spent the surface interval moving into (and then out of!) the brilliant sunshine whilst necking water almost continuously.

After the second dive we head back to base for a swift shower, dip in the pool and then a light lunch.

On the way back to the room we count what we now know to be 128 steps, which explains why we are a little short of breath each time we have to nip back to the room (we do try to minimise this for safety reasons). The moral of this particular story is to book your stay well in advance, we will next time!

In other news, Darrall has picked up a new 60mm macro lens in Adelaide and it will be with us soon, than goodness for Darrall, credit cards and international travel!

Just back from a dive on manit corner, only 2 minutes from the dive center, a spectacular slope with many outcrops turned out in the usual feather stars and other fauna. A turtle joined us briefly, otherwise it was a collection of nudi and Coral photo opportunities.

Back at base we are relaxing with coffee before the night dive.

The sea is flat, the sun hot and the coffee going well with Oreos.

For the night dive we will be heading west a little to a place called (name) which will be a muck dive in the black, just what we like. I will also be confidence testing the camera housing without camera or lens before I put the new (and yet to be delivered) lens in there.

Night dive completed, confidence test completed, all good. Along the way we saw many things including tiny coconut octopus, shrimps. Crabs, bizarre nudis and other critters.

In other news, in case it was not already mentioned, it’s 128 steps to our apartment which is almost 12 flights of stairs. This explains the huffing and puffing that is heard every time we reach the summit!

Outside, a very calm morning. Sea is almost mirror like.

Inside? Not calm at all. Remembering that breakfast is from seven and that the alarm goes off at six, I, incorrectly, had in my mind that I would have enough time to do all those things a girl needs to do before ambling down to a relaxed breakfast.

Not so!

Here is a quick recount of what happened in our room.

• “WAKE UP!”
• Coffee
• “Drink up”
• Alarm goes off
• “Get up”
• Rush, rush, rush
• Frog march down ten thousand steps

Just made it to the restaurant in time for twenty past six.

PHEW! ALMOST MISSED IT!! 🤔🤔

FYI -Breakfast doesn’t officially start until 7am

(It would be nice, if for once, breakfast wasn’t ready, but it was!)

Now, who would have guessed that after breakfast and camera stuff we would be at the dive centre 45 minutes early?

Shocked to my core! Didn’t see that coming…

😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱

Out on the boat again. This is a picture of us leaving the resort.

Red Rock

Wonderful dive. Amazing topography. Two huge pinnacles, going down to the ‘danger zone’ at about 30 metres.

We didn’t make it to the danger zone, unlike Tom Cruise in Top Gun.

We stayed on one side of the rocks, out of the current. Lots of current on the safety stop and whilst getting back to the boat.

We saw slugs, shrimps, brightly coloured featherstars, in a very lovely setting.

Quite choppy on the surface at the end of the dive.

A very good but currenty dive.

Saim Sim

Choppy on top.

A muck dive on sand.

I saw what looked like a whole nest of baby sea hares. Probably about 100. I was so impressed that I called Nanie over to have a look. Don’t think that he was quite as impressed as me. 🤔

Moved on about a couple of metres, saw another nest, and then another. It would appear that sea hare nests are a thing out here. Without any exaggeration, we must have seen over a thousand!!

We also saw a seahorse, four frogfish, shrimps cleaning Richard’s hand.

Oh and of course, a humongous current fish.

Regardless of the current, this was a super dive.

Never quite sure how, in a complete bare landscape, with a huge current, Nanie can get us back to the boat. We love Nanie. 😍😍

Back at the resort nice and early, so we decided to go for a swim in the pool. 33 degrees – Nice!

Then back down for a spot of lunch.

Just so you can get your bearings, here is the signpost to all destinations here at the resort.

It makes the resort appear bigger than it actually is.

After lunch we normally have a nap. Richard filled the water bottles whilst I went to reception to get our room key. “No mam, perhaps Sir Richard has it…” Back to restaurant, no Richard, up the 10,000 steps to find Richard outside the room. NO KEY! This is middle of the day close to the equator… Back down the 10,000 steps to reception. Got spare key. Up 10,000 steps. In room. On bed… Could we both have developed whooping cough in the last 10 minutes???

Then too bloody knackered to go to sleep!

Just as we were about to leave for the third dive of the day , we mentioned the lost key to Nanie, just in case it came to light. Within in moments it did! Nanie did the very thoughtful thing if checking in the restaurant. It would appear that was where we left it after breakfast.

Koala Point

Coral reef down to about 18 metres then sand with small coral out crops.

Gradually went down, nice bimble, and across the sand, where we saw a huge shoal of wide mouth mackerel (Willy you would have been impressed. It would have filled the Steel Princess) which came in really close but not quite surrounding us.

Lots of the usual suspects to see.

Secret Bay

Dusk dive just us two and Nanie on the boat.

Just me with a camera, which I really don’t like. Once I have my camera set up to take very small things, it is difficult to swap to something larger.

Small things – shaun the sheep slugs, nudis, skeleton shrimps.

Not so small thing – ambon scorpionfish, fire urchin, collector crabs, seahorses

Woke early this morning 04:45 local time (no surprise there I guess) and decided to go in search for coffee.

In this modern world of convenience they have decided to only put the all in one (white coffee with sugar) sachets of coffee in the room, which is great if you like it that way, we don’t, I am Julie Andrews and Jo’s a Whoopie.

I make my way down the path to the restaurant where 24hour beverages are available and proceed to avail myself of a cup of coffee powder and a cup of coffee whitener (love coffee mate). Half way through the heist the lights go on (it’s still dark) and I am surrounded by four members of staff who, as it turns out, use the dining and bar area for their sleeping quarters. Whilst I am trying to make excuses, they are all busy trying to adjust the lighting to make it easier for me. I am doing my best to complete the task and get out if there whilst the rest of the resort is being treated to an impromptu light show when most of them are still fast asleep.

Back in the room now, excitement over. I think I got away with it!

Perhaps a cup of coffee might be in order.

Nervous anticipation is rising as it is now almost 24 hours since the 60mm macro lens became friends with a bag of rice, we shall report the outcome later. If it all goes bad then we do have the option of having one flown in from Adelaide thanks to Darrell and Diane. Extreme measures I know but last nights night dive revealed so many very tiny critters that I just have to get myself back in full macro capability. If not, I can be a really helpful focus torch!

The lens was released from it’s rice bag and initial tests were mostly positive, focus it does!

After breakfast we head out for the first dive, Aphils Point 20 minutes later we arrive and drop in to an area consisting of a partially sandy bottom with large outcrops which are all absolutely brimming with some of the most brightly coloured feather stars that we have ever seen. All colours of the rainbow were well represented along with all those in between. The usual array of nudis were on display along with shrimps and crabs and pygmy seahorses but it was the feather stars which really stole the show. Better her back there quick with the wide angle lens!

The next dive is supposed to be Manit Point but on arrival it’s decided that the current is more than expected (still coming off springs) so we return to base for a swift lounge in the sun before heading back out in a different direction to Elmars Point which is another lovely bimble along a slope with outcrops covered in life.

Lunch consisted of B.L.T. and toasted chicken sandwich and fries, the food here is excellent but sometimes it’s nice to have a chip or two!

We manage to catch 90 minutes of sleep before we head out once more across the bay to Coconut Point which is a sandy slope / muck dive kind of thing which then reveals an oasis of hydrozoa which conceals many critters including nudis, shrimps and small crabs etc.

After a swift dip in one of the pool’s in full dive gear – (OK, rash vest, leggings and boots) we nip in for a sunset dive which, by the time you hit the bottom is fairly much a night dive) though this time it’s from the shore on the house reef which is teeming with all sorts of typical night time life (of the underwater variety).

Disappointingly my camera battery dies half way through the dive (hyper active trigger finger during the day) so I resort to tourist mode and enjoy what there is to see.

Dinner is sweet and sour chicken, rice and mango salad with a starter of Lumpia (spring rolls) which arrive (as usual) just after the main course had been served! All very tasty. We retire to our room, Jo works hard on weeding out the dross from the days pictures whilst I work hard on staying awake, Jo has more success than I do.

Looks like it is going to be another beautiful day.

Up early, well one of us anyway. The other? Still on UK time.

Took time yesterday to delete over 700 crap photos. Ahhhh, that feels better. What with Richard’s camera catastrophe and my inability to take my finger off the shutter before the camera has taken at least two pictures. Not the best day for photography, then again rarely do we show any pictures from the first day.

A little chilly in the room, due to the air conditioning working brilliantly. Been told I am not allowed to turn it off, as I broke it yesterday! My retort? Something to do with cameras and o-rings. Ouch! Moral of the story? Be nice to someone on the wrong time zone. 🕗

Breakfast now done and Richard is still playing with the 60mm lens. It is starting to focus now, but not consistently. We do, however, have a plan. Our lovely antipodean friends, Darrall and Dianne, have agreed to bring a new lens out with them, if required. Top people! 😇😇

Richard has just asked for a bag with some rice in to aid with the drying process. A lovely young lady brought out a bag with rice to feed a family of four for a year. A little overkill… Funny though. 😄😄

Kirby’s Point

Lovely dive site.
A cone shaped rock from the surface down to about 22 metres.

Down at 22 metres there was a little more current than one would hope for but we just turned round and zigzagged back to the surface.

We saw two frogfish. One large black and painted the other smaller and grey/pink.

Lots of different nudis. Big Nembrothas-always eating. Small flabellinas of different sorts.

Skeleton crab, shirmps, loads of bright yellow sea cucumbers.

Kaban Cove

A gentle rubbly slope down to about 20 metres and the sand with small coral outcrops.

Alsorts of strange animals. We saw a very beautiful spotty nudi. Very weird shrimps. The tiniest harlequin shrimp, only about 2mm long. sand eels.

Not sure how Richard had six minutes of stops and I didn’t. I’m pretty sure we were doing the same dive.

We spent a long time in the shallows. Sun was shining. So very relaxing.

Lunch was a BLT and fries. This was the view during lunch.

A most excellent dive. A bit of current and the viz was down to 10 metres but we saw so much.

Bubbles

This site is named after the bubbles that come out of the volcanic rock seabed. In places the sand is too hot to touch. Amazing to see geology working.

We saw a very big octopus, five squids, many barrel sponges, soft corals, nudis, shrimps.

Happy divers.

Heidi’s point – night dive

Just us on the boat with Nanie.

Amazing muck dive! Sandy slope down to about 22 metres.

It would probably be quicker to say what we didn’t see, but where would the fun be in that?

We saw, two tiny tiny frogfish, tiny lionfish, two Bobtail squid, three cuttlefish, one large and two small. two tiny flamboyant cuttlefish, two long arm squid, two sea moths, dragonets, nudis, tiger shrimps, tiny ghost pipefish.

😁😁

After a variable nights sleep we have just enjoyed a most excellent breakfast, basic but most excellent.

Now the first task of the day, order lunch!

Then there’s a whole other menu, more on that later.

The first excitement of the day of the day was watching an unusually significant number of bubbles come out of my camera when I tested it in the dunk tank. This was followed by a disappointingly large volume of water pouring out of the thing when I hastily bought it back to the surface. The net result being that the 60mm macro lens is not currently talking to the camera. This is far from ideal. The strobes also fire randomly and at all times other than when the shutter is released, similarly far from ideal.

The first dive of the day was at Daryl Laut:

As you can see, this is a ‘wreck’ of an old floating casino (apparently). Lots to see from small to large. Towards the end of the dive an electric clam was seen, we gave the infamous signal which has now been adopted by several though yet to make it in to the PADI manuals. Mrs Barnard, could you ask the chairman if he thinks this might be a good subject for a magazine article, perhaps you could upload a tasteful video clip of the ‘sign’?

After our 60 minutes we headed off over to ‘Olympic Point’, a shallower dive across a seabed festoon with life, lots of nudis and shrimp as well as peacock mantis shrimps. 72 minutes in water that is 28-29 degrees. Lovely.

Back to base now, camera open and drying, light lunch consumed. Currently fighting off the urge to fall asleep in the room for an hour!

We ended up in one of the pools where we bobbed about for a bit before it was time to get back to the diving.

After much blowing of dry air my camera strobes decided that they would play nice again so it at least I could take some wide angle pictures. We headed out to a nearby site only to find that when we got there, the current was a little too much so we went a little further to another site which was indeed bereft of fast flowing waters. This was known as Arthurs Rock, broken corals on the sea bed which then turned into outcrops and finally a wall before the turning point. Nudis were plentiful and a large title gave us a close swim by.

We returned to base for much needed coffee before we headed out for the night dive. With just the two of us on the night dive we went around the corner for a muck dive. Being without macro lens I went as macro support for Jo and before long we had found (well OK, or guide had found) all sorts of critters including shrimp, crabs various and three (count them), yes three nicely turned out good sized seahorses though they rarely want to pose for the camera, especially in the dark when they are being bombarded with blinding lights so we didn’t hassle them too much.

So far all the dives have been around 70 minutes and this was no exception, 72 minutes with a Max depth of almost 25 metres and it was dark, good job our guide knows the area, it all looks much the same at night, the black sand even blacker in the dark!

We return to base, set batteries to charge and I order the standard pre dinner beverage, Red Horse.

Dinner turned out to be remarkably well chosen. A salad of mango, orange and carrot, fried rice and a local pork dish which came with soy sauce and fresh chilli, it failed to disappoint in any way.

We return to our room and we have a new remote control for the air conditioner, this one is far more effective and allows is to turn it on, how cool is that? Well about 23 degrees if you want to know, trying not to over chill whilst hoping that the dried air might have some positive effect on the macro lens that went for a swim earlier.

Jo gets what few pictures we took on to the laptop (Jo won, over 500!) whilst I suspect I may have fallen asleep. I an catching up with the blog now just before the 06.00 alarm goes off, woken by the found of crowing cockerels and geckos which are making those gecko noises which geckos make so well at this time of day.

Nearly time to get up then!

A leisurely start. No 4.00am alarm call for us! Ibo collecting us at 9.45 for a 2.30 flight from Gatwick. I wonder how much stick Ibo will give Richard today…

Tony sorted us 40kg baggage each, so no stress about weight restrictions. Camera equipment safely stowed in the peli case (thank you Barry) and too large dive bags, although probably not as large as that one Keith brings on the rib!

Trip to the airport was uneventful, although possibly to much talk of nurses to be wholly appropriate…

We deliberated on the subject, to lounge or not to lounge. We opted for not. Unusual for us but we decided that the increased cost, now £20.00 each, was a step to far. We would struggle to eat £40.00 worth of food in an airport restaurant.

A very nice lunch in Wetherspoons. Any one tried the Wetherspoons app? Brilliant! Sit at your table, order your drinks, oh, here they are, already. Order your food, moments later a dairy free steak pie and chips and a fish pie appears. Yes, very nice indeed.

First flight done. Watched a number of films, Tag, Hatton Garden, Transformers, amongst others.

Following on from our last trip, four flights, four dairy free meals, four pieces of tasteless rubber chicken with rice, I took a great deal of care in choosing something different this time. On this first flight I chose vegan (oh no not vegan, I hear you say). Yes indeed and very nice the hot part was, a mild creamy bean and vegetable curry with rice. The starter was very uninspiring lettuce leaves, four pieces of cucumber and two cherry tomatoes. Nothing wrong with that if it had been covered in mayo! The pudding? Fruit salad! Way too many uncooked veg and fruit. Having seen Bake Off this week, I feel that they could have done so much more.

The second flight, Dubai to Manila, not sure where that went. We both slept for about five hours. I had chosen well in the breakfast department opting for the Jain meal. Jain being an vegan eastern religion. Wow, food was excellent. Breakfast was very spicy chickpeas with couscous and flat bread, followed by more fruit. Poor Richard! The omelette option was not available so he had to have congee with shrimps on top. Yuck, yuck, yuck. Congee is the white stuff they eat in The Matrix.

So flights are done, easy transition through passport control and baggage reclaim. Met our taxi driver for the two and a half hours bus trip to Buceo Dive Resort, followed by a five minute boat trip in the dark to get to the resort. Arriving by boat is arriving in style! Oh, no Richard, what’s that? Left your phone and glasses in the taxi!? Hmmm. Not so easy to get when the taxi can’t drive to the resort. Heaven and earth was moved and within 20 minutes the missing phone and glasses appeared. Excellent service, rather embarrassed that we had no money for a tip. 🙄🙄

As expected, we in the the top room, by top I mean the highest. I shall be counting the steps at some point. Hope my knees can cope (that makes me sound ancient!).

So we decide to get the dive kit ready and the cameras before tea and then up to the room after that.

Food is great here. We had a spring roll, sweet and sour chicken, chop suey and fried rice. Excellent!

The room is lovely. Two double beds and a single. Huge bathroom. Sleep time now. Zzzzzzzzzz

Going home today after a fabulous week in Alvor Portugal so it’s all about food, sun, beer, packing up and a mini bus back to the airport so we will sign off holiblog on a really high note and thanks for reading.

Graham, Sue, Malcolm, Carol, Tony, Ray, Jen and Jo