Working/ Diving on Santa Maria

22.08.21 - 24.08.21

Highlight: Challenging. Mobulas, definitely, but generally the past three days have been pretty cool.

5:50, my alarm goes off. The full moon is just above the horizon and it's relatively bright even though the sun hasn't risen yet as I crawl out of the hobbit tent.

Brushed my teeth, grabbed an apple, and put a cereal bar in my mouth, that'll do for today. Yesterday Clara and I had an ant problem that we tried to get rid of before we could go to bed, so it got too late and I'm a bit tired. But today is going to be a long day. Ouaaawww! I yawn heartily.

Joao, the responsible person here on Santa Maria for the diving trip from my diving school, 'Octopus Diving' on Terceira, picks me up at 6:25 in front of the campsite. We are both 5 minutes early and greet each other warmly. This is how we like to work.

'Ok, so what's the plan for today?', I ask Joao.

'Well, unfortunately, the weather is not optimal, but it's manageable. That's why we'll first go out to an offshore island group and try to dive at 'Ambrosio' in the afternoon. That's the dive site with the mobula rays. Theoretically, there should already be whale sharks in the area, but with the waves, we probably won't see any.' As Joao says that, he looks at the road, the waves down on the beach, and me skeptically, furrowing his brow, which makes his brown skin look striped. Joao is middle-aged, but it's hard to say exactly how old. I'll just estimate him to be around 40. His bald, wiry figure is slightly bigger than mine, tanned brown, and his facial skin can be described as weather-beaten. Leathery and firm.

'That sounds good, don't look so skeptical, it'll be fine,' I pat his arm.

'Phew, well. You have the experienced group, but I have some problem cases. Mafalda is not good with currents and some others will have problems with air. Plus, we didn't get a guide from the diving school, they're just terribly understaffed, so we'll have to handle it together.' Joao shakes his head unhappily. 'Do you think you can handle taking one group without knowing the dive site?'

'Well, that's not cool, of course, but Paulo yesterday was great and if the terrain isn't too difficult, I can do it, no problem.'

'No, the terrain is super easy, you can hardly get lost. Just be careful not to get caught in the current.'

Wow, I'm glad I have so much experience with currents and really challenging conditions from Australia. That makes me quite confident now.

'Joao, we'll handle it. Don't worry,' I smile confidently at him. The sun is just peeking over the hills, and the sky is turning pink, the sea is blue, and the waves form pretty foamy crests. With such a view, I can only be confident.

'And besides, I'm a lousy free diver,' Joao continues. 'But since we don't have a local guide with us, I'll have to dive to the buoy. It's not deep, 5m. But with the waves and everything, I don't know.' Joao shrugs.

Okay, seriously, this man worries too much and it's starting to make me nervous.

'We'll find a solution. I'm not a good free diver, but I can handle 5m without major problems,' I say and shrug as well. What else can I do?

Then we arrive at the diving school, and the inconveniences start. The diving school should already be open so that I can start preparing while Joao picks up the guests from the hotel, but no one is there.

'I'll call the owner,' Joao shouts out the window to me before he drives away.

Well, I calmly eat my apple, call my parents, and wait for someone to show up. And so I munch into the receiver shortly thereafter and tell my dad how beautiful it is here.

Joao comes with the guests and automatically switches to guest mode, at least that's what I call it. 'Hello everyone, all good? Ready for an incredibly cool day at sea?' That's how my greetings usually start.

At 9:30, everyone is finally ready and we get on the boat. The sun is still shining and the waves accompany us friendly out to sea. Everyone sits happily in the inflatable boat and looks towards the horizon with a squint. 'Look over there to the right. What is that?'

'Dolphins!'

Our skipper turns the boat to the right and approaches, and indeed. A large group of Atlantic spotted dolphins accompanies us for a while on our way. It seems to be a school with many juveniles just playing and frolicking. They jump out of the water next to us, dive under the boat, and seem to tease us. A few minutes later, they turn in a different direction, leaving smiling faces on the boat. Dreamlike, that's how every day should start.

When we arrive at the dive site, Joao puts on his weight belt with fins, grabs the rope to which the buoy is attached, and jumps overboard while the skipper tries to keep the boat steady in the waves. Suddenly, the waves don't seem so calm anymore, and it can be seen that Joao is drifting away, indicating that the current is strong.

He resurfaces and hands the rope to the skipper. He seems out of breath and is pulled aboard by the others.

'Oh no, shit!'

That came from the heart. The skipper let go of the rope before his fingers got caught between the rope and the boat. Better the rope than his fingers, but now someone has to dive down again.

'Regina, can you give it a try? I can't do it again,' Joao asks me.

'Yes, okay,' I say. Much calmer than I feel. But there's no choice. Concentrate and breathe calmly.

'I need a weight belt. I'm diving with pockets and don't have one,' I say to no one in particular.

As I sit on the floor to put on my fins and mask, someone brings me a weight belt. Mechanically, I buckle it up. I try to slow down my breathing and no longer pay attention to what's happening around me.

'Okay, so the rope is still threaded through the ring, I think, you just need to go down and bring it up. We'll drive a bit against the current so you don't drift too much.' the skipper says to me.

'Yes, okay.' is my short reply, and I sit on the edge of the boat.

'Now! Go, go, go!'

I plunge backwards into the water and resurface. God, it's cold! I grab onto the boat and look around in the water. Everything beneath me is blue, but a little distance away, I see an underwater buoy. The current is strong, but I spot the rope that's still hanging in the eyelet. Now or never.

I dive down and struggle against the current, I've already drifted too far, but I manage to reach the buoy. Grab the rope, Regina. Just snatch it, come on! Done. I feel a slight pressure on my lungs, I want to inhale, but I know I still have more than enough air. Stay calm. I try to swim to the surface as straight as possible and kick with my fins. Unfortunately, the boat has drifted over me, and I correct my course. Then I break through the surface only to be rolled over by a wave. Yuck. A hand reaches for mine, and the skipper grabs the rope while someone holds onto my arm. Many arms pull me on board. I smile contentedly. That wasn't so bad after all.

Then the little chaos before the dive starts again. Everyone gets ready, fastens their weights, and double-checks their equipment one last time. Joao is already in the water and diving to find a spot in the lee of a rock and receive the guests, while I am the last to go and assist.

Just as I am getting ready, I see one of the guests reach for the boat and breathe frantically. I grab her hand, physical contact is the first measure to calm someone down. 'It's okay, breathe calmly. Breathe. It's all good,' I try to calm her down.

She was startled by the current and drifted away, so she had to swim against it, happens sometimes. I quickly jump into the water and reach out my hand to her, we need to get out of the current.

'It's okay, I'm with you,' I squeeze her hand and hold onto it.

'Okay, are you feeling better now? Come on, the current gets weaker below.'

Her breathing calms down a bit, and I gesture for her to descend with me. And as always, everything is better a few meters underwater.

Oh man, this could be fun, I think.

But actually, the dive turns out to be really great. The visibility is unbelievable, we can see at least 40m, which is incredibly far underwater. I love the infinite blue color when sunlight shines diagonally through the surface, and I float weightlessly in it. Behind a large underwater rock, we are well protected from the current, and the underwater life is exploding. And we encounter some very curious giant groupers. These ambush predators can grow very large, and these ones are not even fully grown at around 1.5m. I would like to say that we watch them for a while, but actually, I feel like they are watching us more. Eventually, they decide to disappear and swim off into the depths among some rocks unknown to us. Besides the big fish, there are also countless smaller ones. Unfortunately, I don't know exactly what kind they are, but I especially like the curious small ones with elegantly patterned orange with green-blue stripes.

I'm leading a couple of divers with a little more air around an underwater rock when I see something rising from the depths. A big ray? I wave my arms to symbolize a ray when I realize it's not a ray. Turtle! I turn towards my divers and, while on my back, shine my flashlight to get their attention and make the sign for turtle. Cool. Turtles are awesome!

This one is particularly great because it's very curious. I've seen many turtles underwater. Usually, they just take a look and quickly swim away. This one comes very close to us and circles around us. The yellow octopus (alternate air source) of one of my divers catches her attention, and she tries to snap at it, so he gently pushes her away with his hand. She doesn't like that and swims off with one last look in our direction, regally. Oh man, that was definitely a first-class encounter! We swim back to Joao, the others will be very disappointed that they didn't experience it.

When the first diver in our group runs out of air, I hang in the current at 5m depth and monitor the safety stop. A somewhat thankless task, but I've had a great dive so far and I enjoy watching my divers from above and seeing the schools of fish reappear between the rocks as they move on.

After about 60 minutes, the last buddy team runs out of air, and all our divers are safely back on board. The skipper finds a slightly sheltered spot behind the rocks, and we take our surface interval with a light lunch. I have to say, it's definitely the best meal I've ever had on a dive boat. Fresh bread, island cheese and honeydew melon, traditional sweet bread from the Azores, and of course, cookies and tea in abundance. Can I dive with so much food in my stomach?

But until all the empty tanks are replaced with new ones and we head to our next dive site, it does take a little while. And when we set off again, we all realize that the waves have definitely picked up. And so, Joao and I bite the bullet and sit all the way at the front of the boat. Although sitting is not really the right word. At the front, the boat bounces the most over the waves, and with each wave, you would jolt your back. Standing up is not an option to not block the skipper's view, so I spend the entire journey in a kind of half-sitting, half-squatting position. Tomorrow, I will have a brutal muscle ache in my thighs, but when I look at Joao's grimace that he pulls at the crest of each wave, it's almost worth it. He looks ridiculously funny. And to be honest, I like being at the front. The wind whips the spray around my ears, and all I see in front of me is the steel-gray ocean. I love it!

And then we arrive at our next dive site, 'Ambrosio'. Unfortunately, some of the guests already get seasick and vomit overboard, so Joao assigns me the unpleasant task of diving down to the buoy again. However, this one is hanging at a depth of 20m, so I dive down with full gear and a tank. The current on the surface is relatively strong, but much weaker than at the other spot, and disappears completely a few meters below the surface. Only the waves shake me up to 10m. But the visibility is once again fantastic! Wow! Without any point of reference, it's actually impossible to estimate how far I can see, but I can easily see the buoy at 20m depth and at least twice the distance of the rope below it. So I estimate visibility to be more than 50m. Amazing!

Back on the surface, I give the rope to the skipper and hold onto the boat out of necessity. The waves are strong, and I'm just busy trying to stay as far away from the boat as possible without letting go and without getting seasick. I really can't get seasick now, absolutely not! When most of my group finally gets into the water, I can also dive.

My group is more experienced and hangs on a more distant and less stable line in the current. Although it is weak, everyone has strict instructions not to let go of the rope. Losing someone here, in these waves and current, would be disastrous. And so, I have to make some progress until I reach them. But then I can hang comfortably at a depth of 12m. Just deep enough to no longer be caught by the waves on the surface and keep an eye on my group from above. I'm in the middle of asking everyone from top to bottom if everything is okay when my divers frantically signal for me to turn around. So I turn onto my back and see a huge mobula ray hovering directly above me and then disappearing into the blue. And from that moment on, I'm done for. We spend the rest of the dive observing the huge, elegant, and majestic mobula rays as they circle around us. There must be at least 50 of them. They dive up from the deep blue around us in large schools. Sometimes from the left, sometimes from the right, sometimes from below, and very rarely from above. It's crazy. Some of them occasionally separate from their group and swim very close to us. No one knows exactly why they like to stay here in this exact spot and why they are not bothered by the divers, but the fact is that they are here, all summer long. Absolutely incredible. Just absolutely incredible!

Note:

This is a summary or selection of events from several days. In fact, we dived for three days with two dives each. Each dive was fantastic, beautiful, and of course had its own difficulties and exciting moments. I'll spare you the detailed description, you better come visit me, and we'll go diving together :)