Ziray Studio Labs

Time in: 14:34
Time out: 15:16

Max depth: 51 feet
Avg. depth: 37 feet

This was the second dive on Bushnell. Our dive boat was so tiny that it only held one tank per diver, so a support boat had to follow us out to Bushnell to exchange tanks so we could do a second dive there. It was 50 minutes away, so there was no way we could have gone back to the resort like with the other dives. We had a 36 minute surface interval, which barely gave us enough time to do a 45 minute no decompression dive. By the time we got into the water however, we had enough time to do a ~50 minute dive to 60 feet, but since we only went to a max of 51 feet, we were well within the limits of no decompression diving.

The Labyrinth  was full of canyons in the reef, most of which were big enough for one person to swim through. The reefs were high and filled with some beautiful fish. Three barracudas swam by to check us out.

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Time in: 13:18
Time out: 13:58

Max Depth: 54 feet
Avg Depth: 39 feet

The water temperature was a warm 84 degrees (according to the dive computer) while the air was only around 80. At those temperatures it’s so nice to jump in the water. Even so, Ana gets cold while diving and wore a 3mm wetsuit.

The dive site  was a 50 minute boat ride away towards the north west part of the island where the sea floor raised up to a depth of about 60 feet. It’s basically an underwater mountain (see map below) with a gorgeous reef that sits on top of it (see the sketch by our divemaster in the photos below).

The dive yielded gorgeous reef formations with spots of white sandy sea floor. The sandy floor allowed us to set down in a place that wouldn’t harm the reef so we could get better look at some of the sea creatures such as a Caribbean lobster and various plant life.

Isla Fuerte – Bushnell

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Barracuda

 

 

Lobster

 

 

Bushnell off the north west coast of Isla Fuerte. A mountain in the middle of a deeper part of the sea.

During our briefing on the site, our divemaster drew a rough sketch of the reef formation.

Time in: 15:09
Time out: 15:57

Max Depth: 36 feet
Average Depth: 23 feet

We spent the night at Moñitos, on the coast of Colombia, before  taking a ferry from Paso Nuevo with Just Elena, Juanca and Ana. The morning water was too choppy for diving so we waited until the afternoon. We made sure everyone was ready and equipment was setup properly since everyone except me hadn’t dived since Florida, which was about 6 months prior.

The dive boat we dived from was small and only held about 10 tanks. We entered the water with mask, snorkel and fins and were handed our scuba tanks. We then descended along the anchor line to the wreck which was a former lumber transport that sank off the coast of Isla Fuerte. It was 150 meters long, 10 meters wide and the deck was 8 meters high.

We saw squirrelfish, French angelfish, rainbow parrotfish, a lionfish and two creole wrasse trying to mate.

Even though I had 9 lbs of weight, I, as well as everyone else, was under weight.

Isla Fuerte Dive One

Ana

First dive we encountered a sunken ship, used to carry cargo.

Juanca and Elena

On top of the cargo ship

Lion fish are relatively new to this area of the Caribbean and started showing up after a hurricane swept through.

The top of the ship has rotted away

 

 

A latter to go down into the ship

 

Squirrel fish swimming on top of some brain coral

Top corner of the ship

 

Juanca

On Christmas day, we woke up early, packed the car and drove 9 hours to the coast of Colombia. Colombia is the only country in South America that has a coast line on both the Pacific ocean and the Caribbean sea. Next time, we’ll try to make it to the Pacific coast for some diving.

When we got there, we had to park our car in a poor little town with muddy dirt roads and garbage all over the place. It wasn’t my car, so I wasn’t worried, but we also parked in a fenced off area where other divers had parked theirs, so we weren’t too worried.

We then took a 30 minute boat ride to get to the island in a tiny little boat that would later become our dive boat. No one spoke English so I pretty much was on my own to figure out what was going on, which is a really good way to learn a language, but not a good way when it comes to important things like how not to die on the ride over.

When we got to the island, our cabin had no hot water and no electricity; the water they did have was undrinkable, but they put a 2 gallon bottle of drinking water in our room. Electricity ran from a generator from 6PM to 6AM so that you could use the lights, charge any devices, but most importantly to have the fans on in the room.

Every meal was something that was locally grown or caught, so we ate a ton of fruit (new fruit I’ve never even seen before but terrifically delicious), fish and vegetables. It was an amazing experience and a real eye opener to how you can have really delicious food, electricity and water and still be sustainable on a tiny island like that.

Luckily for us, it only rained a little bit and was well after our scuba dives. Otherwise the temperature was perfect, as it is year round. Enjoy the photos below!

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In the afternoon, we did our third dive of the day on a place called Captain Tom’s Ledge. This was a bit of a deeper dive at 59 feet max, so the top of the surface was a beautiful 86 degrees, while the bottom was a relatively frigid 70 degrees. There is actually a layer of water that you pass through where you can immediately feel the difference in temperature. This is called a thermocline. After coming up from below the thermocline, the water feels like hot tub water. It’s really refreshing since you can start to get chilled wearing such thin layers. The total bottom time was 52 minutes.

Scott worked to get Juanca finished up on his scuba certification while Ana, Laszlo and I explored the ledge. The reef stands along a ledge that drops of to several hundred feet into the abyss. On the other side is a flat sandy surface nearly devoid of life. We stopped to get a photo shoot of ourselves as you can see from the photos below.

Laszlo had to surface due to constant condensation in his mask. But when we got back down, we were treated to a lot of Caribean lobster, moray eels and fish all over the place. We didn’t quite make it to the ledge because the reef was so wide. No bother though, not much to see but black ocean below you.

Captain Tom’s Ledge

Ana and me in front of the reef near the sandy bottom of the ocean.

 

Ana sees something interesting

Maybe it was this Caribbean lobster

 

 

 

An eel poking his head out to see what was going on

Lobsters were everywhere on this reef. Wish they were in season!

Looks like this was taken in a fish tank.

 

 

Can you see it?