Diving Portugal

Finally got out to dive this weekend. On Saturday we did a dive off the jetty in Sagres (just in front of the red/white lighthouse below). The visibility was not great but we were just looking in all the cracks and crevices along the rock piles so it was good enough. Nuno called it caldo verde (thick green soup). I saw many critters I have never seen before, including this very cool translucent colonial tunicate with bright while edges (yes, Jarrett, that's right). Also, really colorful anemones, nudibranchs and blennys and even a moray and a conger fish. Afterwards we had crepes and tosta mistas at a local bar.

Sunday we met at 8am and set out for Armação de Péra where we were meeting Miguel, a dive instructor there, and his dive boat. The boat resides on the beach and can only be launched by being pulled, then pushed by tractor to the water. So we got ready in the staging area and loaded up all the gear, got in and tractored into the sea. (Note: that is not Jean Renu strutting up the beach as sunbathers gape, but Pedro, the University's dive officer)


We motored straight out for a mile or so to a 5 mile long rock bench that extends the entire bay mouth, around 60 ft. The anchor was dropped and so were we, right in the middle of the blue. There was a pretty strong current so we were all too happy to descend and get to calmer depths. Again, the vis wasn't great but it did not matter because we spent most of the dive with our heads stuck in small caves and rock holes illuminated by the red glow of dive torches. There were 8 divers and it felt a bit like an aquarium where one team would stick their head into some hole and then the next would be waiting behind to do the same thing. But the sights were worth the brief wait. We saw lots of small fish, more nudibranchs and some really interestingly colored algae, new to me. Many of the species here resemble CA spp. in form but are in a different genus. Luckily Esti was with us, a PhD student studying algal taxonomy in Portugal, who could rattle off the names like she was naming her siblings.

When about 50 minutes had passed, the 4 of us who were together started looking at each other, checking our air, and I assumed, pondering heading up. I was beginning to wonder what the plan was, realizing I had not been listening when it was said on the boat. We had done a drift dive so the boat was going to have to locate us in a different spot from where we descended. I have never done this type of dive and did not know how this would happen. Anyway, the 3 guys I was with started shrugging at each other back and forth for a good 5 minutes and I wondered if this indicated that they did not know how this was going to happen either.

We started going up and I kept a hard eye on all of them hoping we would be safer in numbers if we ended up in an "Open Water" situation (when we surfaced unseen by the boat, which had surely already started heading back to land not noticing that half of the divers were not on board)...and anyway, the tallest would certainly be picked off by sharks first, and the tallest was not me....This would give me some time to kick to shore, a mile isn't THAT long, right?....I would be ok.

My fears were assuaged when Nuno pulled out an inflatable safety sausage, and I realized they had come equipped for exactly this situation. This was released before us so the boat would see it and would be there when we popped up. Then we finally surfaced after a safety stop (or two) and the boat was right there, with Miguel smiling down holding out his hand for my weight belt. Then he gave me chocolate on board and everything was ok. I was ready for another. (below: Filipe and Rita practicing for their upcoming debut in a "ScubaPro for couples" commercial)

We did a second dive, further along the bench. We had lost one diver to seasickness so the 3 of us (Nuno, Leonardo and I) explored the new area together. We saw much of the same critters except there were also a bunch of very large spider crabs and a cuttlefish. The descent was mentally uneventful.

Landing the boat was another affair. Paired with a tractor launch is a crash-the-beach landing where the boat accelerates towards shore and as soon as it literally crashes into the beach, everyone jumps out and the boat is quickly hooked up to the tractor and pulled all the way up the beach as lazy sunbathers look on. This is no rubber zodiac, it is a 25 ft fiberglass boat. It was all very exciting.

After we were dressed, we ambled over to an outdoor seafood place where we ingested much wine and salted whole grilled fish (perfect for re-hydrating after a dive). It was the most fabulous post-dive meal I have had. By the time we had finished, it was about 4:30pm and the heat was increasing every minute, or at least it seemed so with my stomach filled with fish and alcohol and my head starting to feel the latent dozy side effects of a sea sickness pill I had taken earlier. We stopped in for a coffee two doors down, but instead small shots of medronho were produced which was touted as an important Portuguese tradition in the Algarve, so I couldn't pass it up, although I feel as though I have heard this line a few times in the last few weeks as some type of shot was placed in front of me...(below: Esti and I at lunch, Nuno digging into his sea bass, the dive crew).

Finally we made it back to the cars, loaded up and after one more beer at the staging area (where did that one come from anyway?), we got in and made it back to campus. I was home and on my way to bed by 8pm. What a weekend!