Once again by invitation from a UK dive club, I was lucky enough to check out diving in Gibraltar a couple of years ago. The Brits all flew direct to Gibraltar from Gatwick, but my wife and I decided to make a trip of it, and drove down from Madrid.
This isn’t a travel blog, so I won’t bore you with the details of the trip, but if you want to repeat it, allow 3-4 days – Spain’s a big country! We enjoyed staying in Jerez and Sevilla en route.
Arriving in Gibraltar is strange – it’s a full on British colony attached to Spain. We caused some confusion, as we have British passports, Spanish driving licenses and a Spanish registered car. Unlike most European borders, checks are thorough and take some time. But we eventually made it to the hotel and settled in to wait for our colleagues. They had booked us into The Rock, which is one of Gib’s best. It’s a bit like stepping into an Agatha Christie movie set – you get the feeling nothing has changed at The Rock since the 1930’s. Small decanters of sherry and Whisky are left in each room every day, and Champagne cocktails are de rigueur each evening before dinner. There’s an excellent swimming pool, with superb service to the pool side. But we were here to dive:
I was surprised to find that all bar one of the other divers had come with dry suits – the air temperature was over 40 degrees Celsius, but I hadn’t reckoned with the cooling effect at the point where the Mediterranean and The Atlantic meet. They were right and I was wrong! The warmest sea temperature I recorded all week was 13 degrees, and I was always cold with my 7MM wetsuit, even with a hood. We’d booked to do two boat dives each day for three days, and all would be in or around Gibraltar's splendid harbor.
The history of Gib is closely associated with The Royal Navy, and it’s importance as a strategic naval base. In fact on our very first morning aboard the boat, we were held up by Marines as a nuclear submarine cleared the dock. Africa is clearly visible across the straits, and the shipping lane is one of the busiest in the world.
Our first dive was on the SS Roslin, a 3500 tin cargo ship which sank on south mole in 1916. Apart from the cold, the other thing that struck me about diving these waters was the poor visibility, often as low as 2-4 meters, which took some getting used to - I’m used to calling anything less than 20 meters poor! The Roslin is in pretty poor shape, having collapsed in on herself, but there is a short swim through which was pretty straightforward. The only sea life I saw of note was a large octopus. Dive time was 45 minutes with a maximum depth of 22 meters.
For the second dive we headed to Camp Bay, where there are 7 barges on the sea bed, which have been sunk for divers. Viz here was better, but my buddy and I only found four of the wrecks. One of them offered a good long penetration though, and all were well covered in fan corals, and an interesting assortment of soft corals. This time we spotted 2 more large octopus, and the dive lasted 42 minutes with a maximum depth of 16 meters.
Having broken our diving duck for the trip, we headed into Gibraltar to discover what was available there. The place is really small, and much of what there is, is given over to the military, but it does have a good selection of bars and restaurants, a Marks and Spencer and British cops!
The following day we dived the premier wreck in Gibraltar, HMS Excellent, but to read about that one, you’ll have to come back tomorrow for part two!
Have you dived in Gibraltar? If so, please tell us about it in comments.
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Nitrogen Narcosis
Submitted by Scuba Mike on Mon, 16/02/2009 - 17:40.Most of us probably haven’t really studied narcosis since we were rooky divers, aside from the usual “narked” jokes we all make about mermaids and dolphins. So it seems like a good time to cover the subject in an easy to understand format.
I’ve recently carried out a little informal survey with many divers, and there seems to be no obvious indicator as to when or why it should occur. It just sometimes happens, but most often doesn’t.
Let’s answer some basic questions about Nitrogen Narcosis:
What is it?
Dive A Wing
Submitted by Aussie Diver on Thu, 26/02/2009 - 12:43..thumbnail.JPG "2007 03 Lanzarote (686).JPG")
As Scuba Mike said there are a great many different styles of BCD on the market. When I first started diving it was with the normal style of jacket, large pockets loads of D’ rings etc, etc, but one thing that did bother me was the limited lift that it gave. Also it was no good when wanting to twin up as it just was not man enough for the job, so when a friend turned up with a Wing it immediately caught my interest.
AP Valves or better known by their name Buddy make some great kick ass BCD’s and along with their world famous Buddy Commando they also make a Tek Wing.
Scuba Mike's Dive Trip to Gibraltar - Part Two
Submitted by Scuba Mike on Thu, 05/03/2009 - 18:10.The following day, we once again headed into the harbor in our little hard boat, and out first dive was on the famous SS Excellent. The Excellent was a 1000 ton steamer that went down in 1888, and is remarkably well preserved, sitting upright on the sea bed at 27 meters. She’s split in two at the center, which makes for a fabulous and slightly spooky swim through. In one section, we were swimming along a pretty dark corridor and we came upon the biggest lobster I have ever seen!
Scuba Mike's Dive Trip to Gibraltar - Part Three
Submitted by Scuba Mike on Sun, 08/03/2009 - 11:04.
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