03/11/19 Day 4

Philosophical Quick Poll of the day: What's the best method for a man do to Number 1 on board a moving catamaran, with choppy waters, using the tiny baby sized toilet bowls provided on board??? 😛
1: Skip the toilet altogether and do number 1 over board...
2: Seated...
3: Standing, leaning forward until the head above one's shoulders rests against the backboard, providing 3 points of contact for extra stability...
Women have it so easy...!!! 😛 Ahem... 😛
Today, we are doing Greg's wall, which is supposed to be the highlight of this dive trip! Right from the onset, Arnaud announced that the tide was less than ideal and seemed to try to tamper our expectations. Shotline (Sort of guide line with weights at one end and a buoy at the other, used minimise the odds of missing a dive site) dropped hesitantly, and in the water we go.
We all follow the line to the bottom, on a plateau of little interest. Fairly strong current, and worried looks from Arnaud with the unimpressive seascape; damn, we must have missed the site! We crawl to the edge of the plateau, and BAZINGA, there's a sort of canyon that leads all the way down to the bottom, with HUGE sea fans covering the walls. As we literally blissfully glide down the sheltered (from the current) passage, navigating within the forest of sea fans, we reach the entrance of an opening located about 2/3 down, where we are welcome by a cloud of Gazillions of semi transparent juvenile fish!!!!! Carefully enter the tunnel, which must have been 15-20m in length (the guys say it was more), and try to fin as gently as possible to avoid raising silt and clouding the visibility for my fellow divers following closely behind. More giant sea fans at the exit of the tunnel, and we move to an adjacent peak in shallower waters. This must rate amongst one of the most beautiful dives I've ever done. It also rates as one of the most frustrating dives I've done as well. The dive was around 46 m at its deepest, which meant very little actual dive time before we reached mandatory decompression stops (in a nutshell, increases the risk of diving accidents), which we try to avoid in such setups, given dive medical care (or any sort of medical care) is hours away. A site like that in Mauritius, we would have been equipped with higher capacity air cylinder and a second high Oxygen content pony cylinder (effectively smaller cylinder) which would have allowed us to safely significantly extend our dive times and properly explore the site. Sadly, for both safety and logistics reasons, this type of diving on a Catamaran is not yet possible in Madagascar. My frustration though, can in no way match Michel's, since his dive casing flooded at the very beginning of the dive. 🙁 No wow dive pictures for this site! 🙁 Michel brought a spare camera, albeit slightly impaired. Let's hope it holds up for the rest of the trip.
Second Dive site of the Day On tombant Kalakajo West was amazing as well, with the largest and most dense ball of Fish (in this case Vivano Pagaie) I've ever seen in my life! Pierre, who spotted it from afar, initially thought it was a huge circular boulder, but got confused when the boulder seemed to move ever so slightly around the edges. Second mini technology based drama for the day; one of my dive lights ceased to operate on this dive... 🙁 On the bright side, no pun intended, this situation makes it much easier to manage the battery charging operation on board!
Planningwise, we decided with the crew to modify the itinerary and cut down one day in the Radama Islands to maximise our chances of whale shark encounters, which was one of the primary objectives of this trip. So we started heading back in the direction of Nosy Be one day Earlier.
Lunch: Zebu Bourguignon, Couscous
Dinner: Spaghetti with Zebu Bolognese, salad of tomato, lettuce, sweet corn, peppers and tuna, banana claffoutis for dessert
Mouillage for the night: Baramahamay

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