Main Homepage: http://www.vancestevens.com
This site has a NetWord: http://www.netword.com/*scubavance
More Scuba: Back to Vance's Scuba Page | Return to Vance's Logbook contents
Navigate logbook: previous dive | next dive | Most recent dive in logbook

Dive Logs for Vance Stevens PADI open water scuba instructor #64181 Dives 372-373 December 2, 2000 Musandam, ADSAC Dhow Trip

Diving with: ADSAC
Dive sites: The Stack and Fishhead Rock
Dive buddy: Bobbi and Dusty,
Others in dive party: ADSAC divers
Conditions: mild
Water Temp: 23-24 degrees C
Visibility: 5, 6, 7 meters
Wetsuit combo: typhoon top and thick farmer johns
Weight: 8 kg
Diving from: Dhow

Training conducted: none

Dive 372, The Stack

Data from dive computer:

Dive buddies: Bobbi and Dusty
Interval from dive the day before: 13:45
Time started down: 10:00
Max depth: 24 meters
Time started up from chart: 29 minutes
Dive time from computer: 00:32
Min Temp: 24 degrees C
Nitrox 21% (normal air), no deco

PSI/Bar in: 210 bar
PSI/Bar out: 90+ bar
Pressure group out: using computer, did not calculate

Description of dive:

We started at the Stack and I took us down the easterly side where I know all the big fish school. I've swum around the rock a number of times and that's always the most interesting part of it. I've also done a couple of deep dives on the stack with students, where we ran out deep, and the students ran low on air, forcing us back up the rock. I also did a fairly aborted dive with Charles there once, a year ago, the day before flying to South Africa. I also did a nice dive with Dusty there last year where we came upon a devil ray.

So I was surprised on surfacing to be the butt of a few aspersions cast on my navigation abilities, as I'd veered with my family in tow back under the dhow and into the waters between the stack and the Musandam. I had thought I was heading back alongside the rock and had expected to come up its far side, and I'd thought we were on track because we'd even encountered divers (probably ones who'd just gone in under the dhow). The dive was very pretty, with lovely coral and fish, reasonable depth, and alleyways for us to meander through. But on surfacing, I had to get Al Smith to describe to me where one should go (head east over a long stretch of sand till you come to a second stack, where he'd seen a shark just now - Al said he'd show me around the Stack himself next time we were there).

I had gone to some trouble to top up our tanks on the boat ride to the site, but Bobbi had had a leaky reg, and ran low on air just 25 min into the dive. I attempted to have her use my octopus, but she task loaded and let her BCD inflate as we came up the rock, I couldn't reach her dump in time, and this caused the rapid ascent evident in the chart above.

Surface interval: 3:27 according to dive computer
Pressure group in: diving from computer, did not calculate, but should be an A

Dive 373 Fishhead Rock

Data from dive computer:

Dive buddies: Bobbi and Dusty
Time started down: 14:02
Max depth: 17.5 meters
Time started up from chart: 42 min.
Dive time from computer: 00:44
Min Temp: 23 degrees C
Nitrox 21% (normal air), no deco

PSI/Bar in: 200 bar
PSI/Bar out: 50+ bar
Pressure group out: using computer, did not calculate

Description of dive:

Fishhead Rock is the point you head for when leaving Dibba heading north, the one you think is Lima Rock if you don't know that Lima will come into view past that. The site is honeycombed with swim throughs. I don't recall that we saw much of anything on these swim-throughs, though it was pleasant meandering about. There were lots of pretty coral patches and schools of tiny fish and fry.

Vance Stevens, vstevens@emirates.net.ae | http://www.vancestevens.com/
Page updated December 25, 2000 in Hot Metal Pro 6.0