Palm Mar Cave

2018-12-28 Dive-3 Palm Mar Cave 15:11, 43 min, 29 m

The 3rd dive was a special treat just for me, there were no other divers coming. So it was just me, the “fresh new” guide Greg Delmas, and Ray Vonk driving the boat. I just swapped a fresh tank, and we drove back to the wall, but now we were going to dive the cave. Anchor was dropped to 20 m on the rocks. There was no current, visibility +20 meters, so me and Greg dropped down to anchor and then continued along the underwater rocky edge towards the cave entrance at 29 m. On the way we saw again a big ray, and there were more of those inside the cave. In front of the cave there is an iron cross in the memory of 2 divers who drowned at the cave many years ago. We did a quick round inside the cave and dove around a center rock pylon. There is a kind of swim through or swim around inside. At the end the cave gets pretty narrow horizontally and it has sandy bottom. Inside the cave a good light was a must. Then out of the cave, and along the rocks. On the way we saw a shark, squid and octopus. After 33 min I got 9 min of deco, so we ascended to 6 m, and Greg shot up an SMB. I completed the deco and then we got back to the boat. Dive time was 43 min and I had 70 bar of gas left.

Then boat back to harbor and van drive back to dive center. The center was closing down and I was the last customer left. I disassembled my gear and got a lift back to my hotel, just in time to enjoy the sunset.

It was a great day of diving, plenty to see and well worth it. If there had been more days, I would have done many more dives.