Friday 8th July. Wrecks and Whales

Pics of the day are under the text.

We were up early and prepared for our first dive while Brent moved us off to the site of a wreck around the other side of the Bassas (but not quite on the wild side). With no landmarks to really speak of it’s quite difficult to tell where you are in relation to anywhere else here.

This first dive has to be one of the dives of my life to date with unbelievable vis, and a great wreck with fantastic fish life. It was fairly challenging dive with strong current to swim through to get to the wreck which is spread between about 15 and 40 metres on a sloping wall of the reef. I maxed out at about 31m to save deco and air, but there was plenty to see and photograph in spite of the surge which reminded me of Cape Town diving (don’t fight it, just go with the flow). It was a magical dive, hard to say why (unfortunately I didn’t discover a gold ingot or a chest of coins) – but probably because so little is known about what ship it was, and because so few others have dived this wreck or indeed any of the other sites at Bassas at all – so the chance of finding something really amazing always exists.

Breakfast was cereal and coffee after the dive followed by cylinder filling for others, and rebreather preparation for me – as the next 2 dives were my turn on the rebreather.

During breakfast and all the way through the day there were Humpback whales resting in the bay with us – I got some great pics when one of them passed right under the boat. Greg got some fantastic shots snorkelling a few metres from one of the enormous mammals. They are amazing creatures, and even more so when you can see them a few metres away, instead of through a telescope.

I did two dives on rebreather this day, and had a trouble-free 130 minutes under water – now officially the completion of my 5 hours open water rebreather training.

Between dives, Brent and Miguel pulled in some more fish including a lovely red snapper which was cleaned and roasted on the braai in tin foil – ready for us to devour for lunch a few minutes later. Fish this fresh is just unbeatable.

On our third dive we discovered a huge steel anchor and a chain attached to an anchor cable, snaking through the reef. George followed the cable to the edge of a drop-off – perhaps it leads to a sunken ship?

Dinner was a fresh tuna and tomato pasta (not canned tuna but chunks of tuna fillet – part of yesterday’s catch) – another award winning Bassas dinner a la Brent. Banter and laughter, accompanied by a few Spiced Golds and in bed by about 21h30, to get a few hours rest before my night watch – was woken at 12 by Eileen and have been typing ever since.

Tomorrow is day four of five days of diving, this trip is going so fast! Hope we can get in some dives on the Wild Side tomorrow if conditions are good enough.

The Wreck

Amazing Vis.

Greg with his camera on the wreck

More wreck



Old military cargo?



Wheel on the wreck

A distended bass. Pregnant?

One of many whale pics

A whale as it swam under our boat

taken by Greg while snorkelling

Beautiful

High Five

Snorkelling with a humpback

Me on one of the rebreathers

Table Coral. Pristine

Chillin

Blown

Water Frolicks

Chilling on the back of the boat between sites

Moray next to the cable we followed from the anchor

The anchor. Not from a small boat!

The anchor chain

Thurs 7th July

We hit the water at about eight fifteen for the day’s first dive – still in the cove, but because of the high tide the current was very strong and we had to claw our way along the sand from the boat to the reef about 50 metres off, for a second dive on this amazing reef.

Greg and I between dives... (Look how blue the water is)

A breakfast of bacon, fried eggs and freshly baked bread (Brent is amazing in the boat’s little galley) followed the first dive of the day, then we set off trawling for some fresh fish for lunch, using mainly the rods and tackle on the boat, under instruction from Brent, who I am sure was thoroughly frustrated by us divers...90% of the charters that Brent takes to Bassas are fishermen, and I’m sure he’s never seen the number of line tangles and lost tackle that he saw on our boat!

My line was taken first, and I’ve never felt a fish so powerful as the tuna that was on the end of my line. I fought it for what seemed like hours, and in the end, with chunks of skin scraped off my thumb from the reel winder and arms so tired I just couldn’t wind in any more, the tuna stopped fighting so hard (for reasons about to be revealed) and Mark helped me wind in the remains of what we estimated to be a 50kg tuna. I say “remains” because my weak arms took too long to get the fish on the boat and the ‘taxman’ – some large shark in the area - had bitten most of the tuna off (in what looked like one huge toothy bite), leaving me with only a head and the front fins (all the good eating parts gone) – but even those remains were heavier than any whole fish I’ve caught before – probably weighing in at about 7 or so kg for just the head.



Net Income after Tax



Fighting the tuna beast





"The Head" (all that the taxman left me). Look at those teeth marks on the left. This shark could easily bite through a large man's thingh!

 The others (not me as my arms were spent at this stage) pulled in four smaller tuna, but not without incident as Phil managed to get a hook right into his hand as he unthinkingly grabbed his lure with his hand as the tuna flapped on the back of the boat before it had been unhooked and “bagged”. Brent had to inject local anaesthetic and cut the hook out of Phil’s hand with a surgical blade, while Phil turned white then passed out briefly – some medical drama for the day. It was a relief to know that aside from tour guide, mariner and chef, Brent is also pretty handy with giving emergency medical attention too.



Phil looking a little white after surgery



Miguel and Brent filleted and cut up the freshly caught tuna, and we had the most delicious (and freshest possible) tuna sashimi complete with wasabi, pickled ginger and soya, followed by seared tuna with sesame seeds. I could get used to eating like this! Fresher sashimi would mean taking a bite of a living fish! We threw the remainder of the tuna carcasses (fillets removed) back into the sea, and watched the potato bass squabble over the huge scraps, taking almost the entire tuna in one mouthful (see pic on previous day's blog)



Tuna Filletting on the back of the boat



Freshest Tuna Sashimi ever



We dived a second dive in the cove – Brent (an open water diver), joined on the dive this time, insistent that he would only dive with his shark prodding pole (fishermen?!!)

Brent with his prodder

The Cove was a gentle slope up from about 30m under the boat, with outcrops of reef getting gradually closer together as you move towards the main reef. These outcrops formed lots of interesting gulleys and nooks and crannys, with each outcrop absolutely teeming with fishlife. There were several large Potato bass that followed us around on our dive, along with the amazing corals and huge variety of fishlife, and on this dive I saw my only Lion fish of the trip (unusual as we are used to seeing so many on our dives around Mozambique and in the Red Sea.)



Getting back on theboat after a dive



Do you recognise the coral in the background (see below)?

Freckled Hawkfish

Fusiliers everywhere

Clam

This hard coral was about the size of a large delivery van!

Saddled grouper (related to the potato bass - but prettier)

The only Lion fish I saw at Bassas

Yes - it is... FIRE CORAL! What is this doing here? Bassas has fire coral!

Tiny crab inside a hard coral



Swimming into one of the Gulleys in the cove



 That evening we had roast chicken and baked fresh tuna with salad and boiled potatoes dripping with butter. The food on this boat is truly amazing.

Miguel Roasting tuna on the braai



Angry Sky after a quick rain squall

 

Later on I chilled out watching a couple of DVDs on the TV in the Saloon with Ali. I was in bed by about 23h15.

Feedback? Game or Lame?

Should I continue with this Blog? It's quite a mission loading all the photos etc - so will only blog the rest of the trip if readers think it's worthwhile... Comment and let me know...(Of course I think it's interesting - but then I was there...)

Wed 6th July



Bassas da India from our Boat



 

 

After untying our dive bags from the roof and getting our gear ready, we has a quick breakfast of cereal before we jumped in for our first dive at Bassas at just after 8am.


"Team Bassas" - The eight of us before our first dive at Bassas da India



Our first dive was on a gently sloping wall which Eileen nicknamed “The Slope.” One of the first most noticeable things about diving at Bassas is the excellent condition of the reefs, and the huge abundance and variety of corals and fish life. Both soft and hard corals thrive without damage from humans and teem with mind boggling numbers of different fish species.

Excellent vis - the reef at 30m clearly visible from the surface

Diving is straight off the back of the boat, which depending on the dive site and current either stays moored while we dive, or follows our buoy line and picks us up as we surface.

Bassas da India is a roughly circular atoll (the extinct remains of a long-gone volcano), with a circumference of about 11km. Roughly 5-10 metres deep on the inside (only safely accessible or exitable during a spring tide), and sloping down from above the surface (during low tide) to the ocean depths on the outside. Only a few boulders remain above water level at high tide. The atoll is beautiful from the surface too, with the deep blue waters of the open ocean contrasted against the light turquoise of the shallow inside area and the white of the surf crashing against the reef on the windward side. In the lee of the atoll, protected from waves and current is where the boat anchors, ensuring calm conditions even during storms and wind, while the current facing side – known as “The Wild Side” has huge waves crashing over the reef. The Wild Side is only really able to be dived during good weather (and is where the huge abundance of sharks that we are so excited about diving with can be found – so we’re hoping for good weather!) however we spotted an inquisitive shark swim by on our very first dive which bodes well for the five days of diving that follow.

The shark we saw on our first dive at Bassas

Bassas is also famous for its population of huge potato bass -members of the Grouper family – which grow to the size of a man’s body (excluding arms and legs) – and hover territorially around their turf like aquatic blimps with thick frowning lips while we dive, often coming right in close and sometimes even giving one or two of the diving group a harmless gummy bite – more of a curiosity suck and a show than looking to eat though. I hope.



Me photographing a Potato Bass



Inquisitive Potato Bass at Mark's fins

 

Mark photographing a Potato Bass



 

Photo courtesy of Mark

The following day we experienced how wide their mouths can really open and how quickly they can move when they want to – when we threw the large remains of whole yellow-fin tuna back into the water (after removing the tasty fillets), and how the lucky potato bass recipients gulped the whole tuna carcass into their mouths and sped off into the depths under the boat while the losers chased the winners to fight for scraps.

Potato Bass with Tuna Carcass

In between dives we fire up the compressor and take turns filling air cylinders for the next dive, while others prepare the rebreather rigs.

Ali and me between dives



Cylinder Filling



Cylinder Filling

Is it full yet?

Our trusty Bauer compressor

 

After the first dive we ate fresh crumbed fried Whahoo with Thousand Island dressing for dipping for lunch, and moved off to the next dive site that would also be our overnight mooring point – the calmest cove on Bassas to protect us from the weather which was still pumping. We did an afternoon dive and then a dusk / night dive in that spot which were roughly 15m dives over the flattish table-top reef in that area.

For dinner we had braaied tropical skewers of prawns, green pepper and pineapple with fragrant basmati rice followed by drinks, banter and cylinder filling and preparation for the next morning’s dive and an early night. As it is winter and we’re so far east it is completely dark by about five thirty in the evening – so most people are asleep by 8 or 9 in the evening, but it’s still pretty warm weather – mid to high twenties -  (this place must swelter in summer) and we’re constantly in shorts and t-shirts when we’re not in wetsuits. It’s rained most days on and off, but it’s pretty light and passes in a few minutes and then the sun is usually out again. Sometimes you begin a dive in bright sunshine, then surface again into a tropical storm, but the rain passes quickly.