Lanzarote, Week 2. Relaxing & Scuba Diving.

Don't worry - I had a bikini on underneath the wet suit!

What have we been up to this week?

We have been on a few dives in Puerto Carmen with a company called Safari Diving, either from the beach or from a boat.  The underwater landscape was either lava with a developing reef, or along the sea bed, a wreck, or a lava wall with a steep drop.

Can you see the seahorse?

Each guided dive we did was an adventure, not knowing what we would expect to see however we were not disappointed!  We saw amongst other things, a shark, sea horses (including a very pregnant seahorse), a type of flat fish/bottom dweller that blended with the sand but had popping out eyes, a baby stingray, octopuses and squid, and much more.  One squid was quite funny:  Paul went closer to it to get a photograph and the squid eyeballed Paul up and swam sideways ~ it obviously didn't like having a full face photo!  (Shy?!)

At the lava wall dive, the group was mainly experienced divers and I am only certified to go to 18 meters with my Open Water Certificate.  So Paul stayed with me and our diving guide for a shallower dive but sometimes Paul went deeper while I watched him from above.  But it was still fun.

During a wreck dive I made friends with a damson fish.  I believe they are territorial fish but I'd like to think it and I had made friends because it followed me for a while as I swam around the wreck.  We didn't go inside the wreck but it was nice to explore it on the outside, and seeing what was hiding in the nooks and crannies of the wreck.

During the night dive we saw a water centipede like creature, hermit crab, shrimp and fluorescent sea anemones. It was an interesting 45 minutes!  Unfortunately my underwater light wasn't very good and then it finally died towards the end of our dive.  Fortunately we had been given an extra torch so I made do with that - and it turned out to be a bit brighter.  Our guide had a novel approach to being seen underwater - had a flashing light attached to the back of his BCD so we were able to distinguish him from other divers.

Each dive lasted anything from 40 to 50 minutes.  If I had had the chance - I would have sat on the seabed and watched sea life go by.  It's magical - life under the water.

Unfortunately the photographs Paul took are not terribly good because of perhaps having the wrong filter, but it's better than nothing!

In between diving we have been working on our all over tans and Paul is now as brown as a berry and his hair is whiter, even more bleached from the sun.  I burn easily so I tended to take an afternoon nap until the sun's rays were not as strong, and then sit outside for a bit and read.  We also took a walk a bit further along the coastline from the naturist village.  It's wonderful feeling the sun, wind and water on naked skin without a care in the world.

We have decided to stay in Lanzarote for an extra week.  The thought of heading back to wintry Netherlands sent a chill through our warm bones.  We have an extra week to play with so it was either a matter of taking a week's break in the snow or staying in Lanzarote.  The warm weather won the day.  We ended up extending our car hire and re-arranged our accommodation and flights with our travel agent, Euronature, who organise naturist holidays and accommodation.

PHOTOGRAPHS

An octopus very well camouflaged...

 

 

 

 

I see you but you don't see me!

 

Camouflage at its best.  Can you see me?

 

 

Going for gold in the underwater weight lifting
championships.  Er .... this was just a toy's axle!

Heading up the side of the sea wall to the waiting boat.

Fish hugging the sea wall.

 

 

 

 

This bottom dweller's eyes stick out of his head!

Can you see me?

This looks like 2 stick insects, but they are some sort of crabs.