I was traveling with my family in Greece for two weeks. It was a family trip and it was not planned to be a dive adventure. We hoped to find hotels or camping as we arrive at places, but Athens. For this central place of our travel I reserved a room for four in Glyfada in the hotel Blue Sky. While traveling through Athens and finding finally the small street where the hotel was I spotted a house in the same street with the text Aegean Dive Center. I was at the right place in Athens I felt.
Again: I did not plan to dive in Greece. I was not an advanced diver by the time. (I am not one by the time I write it, but I hope I will be by the time you read it a few years ahead.) What is more I had no dive experience in sea water at all beforehand. Even all of this I could not resist, but went down the street to the DC one morning and fixed a dive for the next day.
The dive center is owned by Ilse Stroud. I also met Bert Van Den Brink (Dutch) and Michelle (from South Africa). The dive master I dove was Marion (she is also instructor for more than 10 years, 700+ dives) from Switzerland and there were also a DM instructor from GB with three English students, and also a French DM educating his son. I was Hungarian. The fishes, the rocks and generally the sea were only Greek.
They all speak English perfect and this helped a lot. (I mean the people. The rocks, the fish and the sea did not.) I was afraid beforehand to meet some Greek guy in the DC who believes himself speaking English knowing a few hundred words. When you meet such person being waiter in a restaurant or selling tickets in a museum you may have problems, it may be rather funny but should not be dangerous. If you can not understand your DM, well, you are in trouble.Recall that this was my fist sea water dive. It was also the first dive I made without the instructor I learnt diving from. I very much trust her not driving (diving) us into trouble. This was like the first time walking along the street to the shop when you are six without your mom. This time I was diving with people I did not know beforehand and I had no choice but to trust them or abandon the dive. Thinking about it for a while I realized that the second option was not realistic. On the other hand trusting them was easy. We talked about diving general, about the diving we planned and I was confident. I do not know how much they saw how nervous I was.
I rented the equipment. Michelle helped to find the right BCD, clothes and regulator. I had my mask with me and a pair of fins that I bought a few days before at discount price in the local LIDL shop. (LIDL is generally a low price a food shop. The fins were half price compared to regular dive shop price.) I had my mask because I planned to use it whenever I swam in the sea even if not diving and also as a last resort it could be used as a replacement when driving our car in case my glasses broke. You are right: my mask has dioptre (-2.5). My computer and log book was resting 1,500km away in the dark cupboard at home.
The dive location was Cove, Vouliagmeni. The DC home page (www.adc.gr) writes the following about the place:
8 - Camping Varkiza Shore dive All levels of experience Depth: 16m Sandy bottom with some sea grass. There is a small arch, where we have a resident grouper. Approach carefully and keep your eyes open!
We traveled to the place with a small van and a car. The van transported the diving stuff and other necessities (oxygen).
At the dive location you had to descend 20 meters on the rocks to the sea level. We decided to bring the stuff there and get dressed at the sea shore. This was a good choice. The air was 35C the water was 28C even at depth 11m. The neoprene clothe was so tight that I had to pour some water in it to get dressed. Finally we dressed standing in the water to cool ourselves.
The diving was easy and fun. I was so nervous beforehand that I could hardly get a sleep before night, and acid flooded my stomach. I had stomachache and felt a bit dizzy because the lack of the sleep. Being nervous was useless. As soon as we swam 10 meters from sore and descended to 4m I got relaxed, felt relieved, my stomach was ok. I was in the sea and the entire world was ok. It seemed that a few million years of evolution could not wipe out the attraction of the sea that was our original home. I felt home.
We had to follow the seabed from around 4m down to 11m to the destination of the dive. The distance could be around 50 to 70m. The bottom was rocky with some sand patches and there were two arcs providing nice hideaway places for fishes. I made some small videos and pictures. The videos are useless unfortunately, but you can see some of the photos retouched on this site. The grouper offered on the DC's web site was there hiding under the arch, and I have a picture that was supposed to show it, but all it does actually showing the shadow. Believe me, the grouper was there.
Marion was a good DM. I have heard many nightmare stories about careless DMs who dive for their own fun and for the money but do not care their guided guests. My dive instructor also advised me the evening before over the phone: If your DM seems to be crazy, leave him/her and come up safely to the surface. Trust yourself first, trust your DM second.
Marion was nothing like those DMs. We agreed on the sign before the dive. She used PADI signals, I used UEF signals and we found no real difference. Just to be sure. She continually made sure during the dive I was safe behind her showing OK and asking me to reply OK with fingers. She knew the place where to seek fish and she did show me the places. She even realized that I missed one special fish in the shadow and tried to attract my attention a second time showing the same direction. How did she know I did not see that fish the first time? Anyway, she did.
The way back ascending to the sore was only slowly swimming above the sea bed all the same way again. There was no need for the 3min/5m stop as we were swimming that time at that level as we reached approximately 3m. Making the turn around, raising right hand we came up to surface. Inflate the BCD and swim to the shore (10 meter of swimming, not a big deal).
So far I spoke about all the good things of the dive. There were some minor flaws of also. The rented equipment was old and inconvenient, well, let me say "not perfect" to dive with. I felt safe with the regulator and the bottle, thus they were generally ok, acceptable. However the bottle was waggling on my back no matter how I tried to fix it and the regulator sounded like if I was Dart Vader. Those did not influence my confidence and feeling safe during the dive though. The serious issue that concerned me for a while during the start of the dive was the depth gauge. It was showing three times the real value approximately. (Before you start to explain the difference between the feet and meter, don’t! It had clear letters on it saying: METERS.) When it showed first time 20m I worried a bit. I believed we were at 20. When we reached 30m (10m in reality) I was worried and but also skeptic regarding the read depth. After that I decided not to believe the depth gauge. I could get the proof that it was wrong when we reached 5m and I could see the students having their first lesson on the sea bed and also some people swimming above us at the surface. I was sure we were about 5m and not 15m by any means. The dive center should have not rented out such faulty equipment. On my side: I should have asked them to give me a dive computer for the dive. I am not sure, but I feel they would have given me one for no extra money. But even if it costs money: I should have asked. On the second thought: I should have had my own with me.
I reported the fault to Marion and Ilse. (Ilse recently informed me by eMail that they immediately replaced the gauge.)
I climbed up, and I got dressed to my above-sea clothes. I had some problem removing the regulator from the bottle but that is minor issue. I neatly packed the stuff into the sack and traveled back to the DC office with the English. The van with the dive stuff and -- as I realized that afternoon -- with my hat remained for the afternoon dive. It is still there in the DC office.
I paid 3EUR for all the fun in cash. That is, I believe a reasonable price. Do I recommend this DC to dive with? Definitely. If that is not clear from my story what is? If all this is too positive: note that I paid that 34EUR to them and not the other way around.
My dive ended next day when the no-fly-time expired.
Finally here is the list of the selected pictures:
That is the story about this dive.
