My student and I boarded the MV Diverace for a weekend of wreck diving and a few dives at Mapor, but the conditions soon changed that plan. After leaving Nongsa bound for Igara, we hit the high seas only to be met by 2-4m swells. This and the other guy snoring in my cabin made for a almost sleepiness night. I managed a grab a few hours of sleep in the saloon.
Photo by Charles Page
We arrived at the Igara, secured the down line and Charles and I were the first ones in the water( I had a plan). We completed the mapping and deploying a line for the SDI wreck diver speciality. After the skills were done we headed into the rope room looking for the resident nurse shark and sure enough only moments after entering from the port side and swimming through the small opening turning left – there she was sleeping in the silt behind the cable drum. We checked her out and she was getting a bit angry with our lights in her eyes. Kinda like someone entering your bedroom at 7am turning on the lights and opening the curtains….anyway, we decided to leave her be and moved on. I estimate this nurse shark was at least 3.5m long and it is so fat there were many spares tyres.
We continued through the rope room and on the way out on the starboard side I noticed that the silt was stired up, I thought where did that come from? we are the only divers here, then I sure a nurse shark and then it dawned on me it was another smaller shark we had disturbed. Two nurse sharks at Igara I have never seen that before…woohoo
The second dive at Igara saw us exploring the crack, which was the only place out of the super strong current. It is always great fun diving the crack.
We headed to Mapor to get shelter out of the huge swell and did a dive at Mapor that was kinda average. We completed a bunch of rescue diver skills. Charles twisted my arm to do the night dive at the same site. I am glad he did, we saw 15-20 crabs, loads of shrips, one large cuttlefish, a small squid eating a small fish, loads of sleeping parrotfish one with two shrips on it’s back. Two very large hermit crabs were the highlight.
We stayed at Mapor on Sunday morning and completed two more dives and Charles completed the rescue diver skills, including a difficult panicked diver. After all the fun we headed for Nonsga and then home to Singapore.
Congratulations to Charles for being certified as a PADI Rescue Diver and a SDI Wreck Diver.
