Our final day’s diving began with a return to Excellent on the harbor wall. Now that we knew the layout of the wreck better, we were able to really exploit our knowledge, which resulted in a 52 minute dive to a maximum of 26 meters. I loved the long swim through again, although the giant lobster wasn’t there this time. As we left the wreck to head for a harbor wall drift I spotted what I think was a very large sunfish through the murk. I couldn’t be certain and nobody else saw it, so it went down in my book as a “possible.” Once again, we had to contend with very poor visibility, and a strong current. Drifting down the wall was fun, and again we were able to hang on to rocks and examine plates and bottles as we passed.
For our final dive of the trip, we headed to Camp Bay, where there are several wrecks sunk for divers. This time we dived three small vessels which were sunk in the 1990’s and chained together to make movement to each easier. The wrecks themselves were moderately interesting, although they had been “cleaned” of interesting artifacts prior to their sinking. This dive lasted 54 minutes to a maximum of 23 meters. With the accumulation of diving over the three days using air only, my buddy and I went into 7 minutes deco, which required us to stop for that time at 6 meters. At that depth visibility was pretty much zero, and it was an uncomfortable first for me to spend 7 minutes on a buoy not being able to see a thing!
So after three days of good and quite challenging diving. I’d accumulated 31 hours of desat time and 19 hours of no fly! We were told in no uncertain terms that we shouldn’t ascend the mountain at Gibraltar until the following day, so we spent the afternoon joining the wives at poolside.
On our final day, we became tourists and thoroughly enjoyed visiting the sites of the rock. The whole of Gibraltar is basically a maritime museum, with some fascinating places to visit, including the famous 100 ton gun. This is one of 12 built in the late 1800’s and was designed to stop enemy shipping entering Gibraltar. The gun was capable of firing a 2000 pound projectile up to 8 miles, and the missile could penetrate two foot thick steel!
The town was designed to withstand a siege and the rock is criss crossed by an elaborate tunnel network, with amazing storage facilities and dormitories for hundreds of people. Some of these tunnels are now part of the road system.
We went to the top of Mount Europa on the cable car, where there are simply amazing views to Spain and across the straits to Africa. This area is home to the famous Gibraltar apes, who roam semi wild around the mountain area.
This was a good short diving trip, and I would recommend it to anyone, although divers used to British conditions will be more at home here than those of us who are blue water divers. I’d certainly go back.
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