Our First (and not last!) Zenobia dive

Last Saturday we had a great couple of dives. Ralph's friend, Mike, from the Embassy set us up with Sunfish Divers and we went out for 2 wreck dives. My first! it was amazing. Ralph did one in Mexico and in the DR, but said this was the best he saw. It supposed to be one of the top 10 wrecks in the world for Advanced Divers (meaning no enhanced oxygen or other specialty certs needed).

The Zenobia went down on her maiden voyage and sits on her port side. There are dozens and dozens of new lorries scheduled for delivery on it, or should I say, around it. It's only about 3-kilometers from the Larnaca harbor, so it's about a 10-minute boat ride out. Which makes it very nice, as between dives, we came ashore for a frappe and a sandwich.

The first dive was 30-meters for a total bottom time of 39-minutes. We started at the propeller and moved about 1/3 of the way up the open deck. The water was perfectly calm, amazing how far the visability was, maybe 30-meters. Crystal clear. The air temp was about 38-c, the water was about 28-c for the first several meters and there totally were thermals; cold if not over the ship, and when passing over empty spaces and warmer over the metal.

Second dive was 26.5-meters for 45 total water time and we started about 1/4 of the way from the front, went in through the cafe (which still has tables, carpet and needs a good cleaning!) and out to the very front. However, this was later in the day and the winds and swells had picked up.

Getting in wasn't too bad, just wait for the deck on the back of the boat to go up and jump out as far as you can. No problem. Visability had diminished, and getting out was very well assisted by the 2 dive masters and guides, however, it was the freakiest I'd ever done. After equalizing for 5 minutes, I had to take off the flippers, one dive master held my BC and we ascended to about 1 meter from the bottom of the ladder which was bucking dramatically in and out of the water as the boat bobbed on the swells. Another dive master assisted me in getting a knee on the low rung and as the next swell lifted the boat out of the water, I made it up the ladder as fast as I could with the guide on the deck lifting me up by the strap of the BC. It went quickly, and I saw several others go before me, so I knew what to expect. It confirmed my confidence in Jack, the Master Diver. We will go back to see him! (BTW, he has a Bachelor from CSU Sonoma in Environmental Studies, so it was fun to talk with him!)

It's truly amazing to see a 560-foot ship just laying on it's side with trucks littered around like toys. It actually makes me think more about the Titanic and the amazing pictures we've been able to pull from it and the way things there are preserved. In the Zenobia sinking, no life was lost.

I've heard stories of disorientation in blue water diving, and thought, "Why not just look at which way the bubble go?" While I didn't get disoriented, with everything at 90-degrees, I could totally see it happening. Very odd to see something like this.

I saw the biggest school of fish I've ever seen. Not the largest fish, but what seemed like a huge school. There were more Turkish Wrasse, AmberJack, a couple types of Grouper; very nice.

I'm off to Las Vegas this Saturday and Ralph has Monday off, local holiday, of course! So he is going to take another dive. Most likely a shore dive this time.