To all members and divers wherever you are:
The Friday trip June 29, 2012.
Greetings to all in the Gulf and around the world. Up nice and early Friday morning car loaded and off to the boat. Another beautiful sunny and warm day with a slight breeze to keep the humidity at bay. Just a ripple on the water as we left the dock and headed out to 3 barges. With a wave to the coast guard we rounded the corner of the main lee-water wall at Ras Laffan and out to sea. One small fishing boat at the site as we arrived but no problem in dropping the anchor about 15 feet from the second barge. I found the site about 4 years ago with the help of some divers who are still here and some have moved on. The site is made up of 3 barges and large concrete rings which run for about a mile. The depth ranges from 18-20 meters making it a dive even our junior divers can do and enjoy. We did two dives on the site. Visibility was not great but the dives were still very good with modest to no current. The usual suspects were there, batfish, snapper, shari, barracuda etc. We also of course enjoyed 5 separate anemones on the site complete with clownfish, two of which had juveniles. The site also had a lot of nudibranch but the real highlight over and above the clownfish was the soft corals around the site covered with all different colors of brittle stars. At the end of the second dive I sent the anchor up with a lift bag and then did a drift dive across what we call ring town. What a pleasure. David and Kelly our dear friends who are now gone would have loved the drift over ring town. The diving here in Qatar is still very good and thanks to all for your support.
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To all members and divers wherever you are:
The Friday beach trip July 6th, 2012.
Once again greetings to all in the Gulf and around the world. Up nice and early Friday morning car loaded and here we go again. Due to the seasonal high winds a beach trip was in order for Friday morning. Sun and sand. Not necessarily in any given order. This if one of those days where you need to remember to bring “Sandblock”. Sunblock is optional. A very invigorating sand massage was enjoyed or should I say tolerated by those less seasoned to our sometimes blowy conditions. Enough. Today’s dive was to Peter’s barge. It consists of a barge that was purposely sunk to dive on a few years ago. The problem with that was the fact the barge was somewhat uncooperative and instead of sinking straight down it went out to sea. It makes a very good navigation and challenging dive as it is a good 7 minute swim from the shore underwater to get to it in about 20 meters +-. I took the new Bladefish 5000 out for a solid trial run towing another diver behind me. It passed with flying colors although we missed the barge on the way out. I believe we overshot it by at least 300 meters. No problem found it on the way back. The visibility was not great but the marine life was very enjoyable. A lot of trevally, fiskar, angels, one nice hamour and a resident turtle to join the dive. Back to shore and the battery ran out on the Bladefish after a grueling torture test. Second dive on the same location was the normal swim out and back with a leisurely swim around and on top of the barge. Another successful dive day in Qatar.
The diving here in Qatar is still very good and thanks to all for your support.
You will find Pearl Divers to be the busiest and most popular shop. QDive can be convenient since it is right off the Corniche (across the street from HSBC). Pearl Divers may still be the only shop that pumps EANx.
