Sea to Sky
 Day 3 - Diving the Rock Up at 7:30 & start preparing breakfast. Have a little potter while I wait for everyone to be up, lay the table, brew the tea, get things warming. With everyone settled on the terrace I serve a buffet of delight, eggs, smoked salmon & cheese for the grown ups and a selection of croissants & madeleines for the kids (& our second course). Clear away & a quick wash up before it's time for the dive pickup. Pretty uninteresting motorway journey most of the way until we near the boarder with Gibraltar. We pass through a grotty town where aparently one of the staff is from so there is much hilarity as they poke fun at his crappy village (actually it is, there's a massive sewrage plant that wafts through the place). The other three guys on the trip are all English / Spanish, they jabber away like locals, then switch to English speaking in London accents. Seem a nice bunch of lads. Funny little boarder crossing, the guard just seems content with matching the number of passports to heads he can see in the van. Across the runway (yes runway) & we're into Gibraltar, or Gib as everyone round here seems to call it. It's like going back home & back in time, narrow winding streets, union jacks & Gib flags everywhere. We pull up at a little car park which is to be our dive site today. It's a concrete playground with pools, football goals & a little bay. We will be entering the little bay today, the first time I've used this method of entry for a while, it looks rather rocky so will need to wear some extra protection when entering for the first time, it could be rather tight & wouldn't want anything to snag on the way in. Simply Dive look a professional outfit with top quality gear, good fitting wetsuits, booties, new tanks & BCDs. We've got an extra 5mm shortie to put on over our 5mm wetsuit, the water is only about 16C. The Anglo-Spanish lads go off with the head guy Simon, I think they're on instructor training, we go with our guide Robert, along with an assistant instructor & another experienced diver we picked up in Gib. The shore entry is indeed a tad tricky, clamber over the rocks in your heavy suit, bob up & down as you try to get your flippers on & clear your mask. Paddle out to our decending point & decend, except I don't, a combination of the bouyancy of all the wetsuits & not thinking. The assistant hauls me down but pulls me down too quick & I don't have time to equalise my ears so have to pull myself up a bit. After that we're swimming along to the first wreck, see an octopus on the way just sitting in the middle of the sand with all his arms crossed. Water a bit murky with the wash from the strong currents in the bay but good enough to see 10m in front of you clearly. Robert finds an another octopus under the wreck & tempts him out, he wraps a few tentacles around his arm & is clearly pulling quite hard as Robert has to push back against the boat to get out of his grip. Swim through many a shoal on our way to the next wreck which is also interesting, covered in coral, plants & loads of sea cucumbers. The boats has lots of turrents & funnels going down inside, fasinating to look through with all the life that's taken over the sunken vessel. Robert has another interesting find on the sea bed, a rare example of underwater life, I believe it's a Ford Escort, circa 1984, it has provided a home for a funky little crab, which I guess is further up the food chain than some pikey's front garden. Soon enough it's time to head back, short decompression stop at about 6m, it's hard to keep off the surface so close & with a bit of a tide bobbing you around. The clamber back to shore is equally tricky, fins off, stumble over the rocks with the heavy gear, then trudge up the slope to the van. Have about an hour stop to take on some fluid & the diving staple of muffins. Chat to Dave, the guy we picked up in Gib, he's an inspector for Monarch, get's to travel round Europe quite a bit which sounds cool, but has to travel on Monarch. Time to get our gear back on & hobble back down to the bay & bumble the rest of our gear on in the shallows. We've got a bouy with a rope to decent this time, much easier & able to go at my own pace, equalising my ears. Swim up to our third wreck of the day, all very nice covered in barnacles & teaming with all sorts of aquatic life. Onto the fourth & biggest wreck, we swim around then over, it's quite a tricky ascent, have to watch your bouyancy closely. Robert spots another octopus, this time he teases some ink out of the cute little cephalopod, I manage to grab a photo (posted on the blog if want to see). Then we get chance to swim through the boat, down into the hold, through a corridor & out the other side (photo of me doing that too). Jo & I get into a bit of a tangle coming down off the wreck, her air hose gets caught under my regulator, it's an anxious few seconds but I manage to unclip it & we're free. The swim back is a real struggle agains the current, it's real heavy going. Little rest on the rope for our safety stop then hauling our amphibious asses back up to base. Dry off & change, quick drink while we wait for the rest of chaps to finish then it's time to hop back on the bus & say goodbye to this charming little British outpost. Spot several large bush fires on the way home, big areas of on the hillside are ablaze with plumes of black smoke pouring into the sky. We see three helicopters dumping water on the flames. We're soon past it but must look out for any news. Jo passes out shortly after & I wake her as we're pulling into our Dominion Beach complex. Say our fond farewells to our new friends & head back to the apartment via the pool. The kids are swimming & behaving very well, even Rachael. Callum has been swimming on his own, without the aid of his float. We declined their kind offer of joining them in favour of feasting on snackage & washing the sticky salt water off us (Jo recalls many a day coming back from a day out with 7 blokes, all sticky & salty). Showered & in the jammies we call the kids up. I let Callum shower in our en suite with the Molton Brown good stuff, he rushes back telling Rachael to smell him. With everyone suitably clean we whack some pizzas in the over, which takes so long were forced to eat one of the children. Pizza devoured we put the remaining children to bed then settle to watch the agony of England's Euro Championship game. Well not so much watch as sleep through the first half, although the glimpses I did see were not that inspiring. Cup of tea for the second half & Rooney scores! I think we're pretty comfortable for the rest of the match, so are Rachael & Jo as they have lapsed into their respective water induced comas. 1-0 win, groups winners & onto a quarter final against Italy, for the girls though it is time for me to pack them off to bed while I blog & potter until turning in myself.
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Diary Photos
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Gibraltar, the sunniest place in the UK |
 Ready to dive! |
 Rob in the Wreck |
 Jo checking her air |
 Octopus squirting ink |
 Sunset on Estapona |
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