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.