In September 2009 I went with the diving club from Ghent (Ocean Divers) to Estartit, Spain. This is the region of the Costa Brava. Just of the coast of Estartit, you have the Medes Isles, that are protected (marine national park). They are rather popular with belgian divers, some diving clubs make it their annual trip.
The deal was pretty sweet, combination of hotel and 5 days diving for some 400 euro. Not bad. And we had a nice group, lot's of fun.
But I didn't really start this holiday with a lot of energy. I was tired, most of all emotionally. Later I have realized that at least part of that fatigue was due to what I was eating. Not the fact that I am on a vegetarian diet, because that can actually be healthier than a 'standard' diet with meat and fish in it, but because I didn't pay a lot of attention to how much variation i put in my food. But apart from that I was emotionally burnt up. In 2008 I had been running like crazy, if you look at my overview of that year it was amazing: traveling a lot, both for work and private, buying a house, a re-breather (and trying to learn how to dive with it). And constantly teaching (which means you are very focused on your job). But the second half of 2009 was rather slow concerning teaching assignments and suddenly I was confronted with the fact that I had to find a new structure in my life. Ever since I lived alone I hadn't taken the time to built up my life for my own and kept busy with a lot of things. Just before we left to Spain I had a 2-day workshop called 'Self-Awareness' and that really opened my eyes that I had to start living my own life and not purely in function of external things or people.
So I was a bit edgy the first few days, but luckily that went better as time progressed.
The first day I used my re-breather (see picture above, which isn't my own picture, but taken by Serge Ego, thanks!), but the facilities at the diving centre weren't very great. A rebreather takes a lot of work, preparing, cleaning, checking, ... And you need some place to do this (and time to do it). So I decided to dive open circuit (i.e. just like everybody else with my tanks :-) ) the rest of the stay. And that was probably a good idea, since I was a lot more relax.
But at least I logged two more re-breather dives and under the supervision of very experienced divers I set a new personal depth record with my re-breather.
The weather was superb and we enjoyed our stay.
The underwater life at Estartit isn't the best I've ever seen, but still worth the visit (and you go there by car, so no flights and also you can take all your own equipment with you, which is worth a lot to experienced divers). Saw a lot of cod, those were huge and I personally enjoyed the little caves we explored as well as the wreck. For that dive i would have loved to have my re-breather.
Somewhere during the week, on Wednesday, we (Jan, Bruno and myself) skipped the dive in the afternoon, to go to Figueres, to visit the Dali museum. I had been there once before, years ago and then the crowd that was waiting to enter was too big to consider a visit. The museum itself is considered the largest surrealistic object in the world and it is something to behold and something you must visit.
Later in the afternoon we went to Cadaqués, at the coast. This is a quiet, almost quaint little fishers village and a delight to visit. The road towards it is rather tricky, full concentration is required. But the village is worth it.
I also sampled the night life of Estartit a bit, which wasn't so magnificent but in the end, if you had a good time, that is all that counts :-)
The drive towards and back by car was actually rather nice. We crossed the whole of France and especially the southern half is really nice to behold.
On our way back we were pulled over by the police (actually customs) who probably found 3 men in a white van a bit suspicious. Especially since the third actually emerged from the back (where an self made bed was being used by us in turn to rest a bit).
The best bit was that they ask what all the equipment was and when they heard it was diving equipment asked whether there was any air in the tanks. I immediately started giving a complete overview of all my own tanks and their exact content: both in pressure and air mixture. Only when they left (with a friendly goodbye) did Bruno tell me that it's apparently forbidden by law in France to drive around with dive tanks that are pressurized.
My guess is that since I was so direct and honest in my response about the tanks that they concluded is really unaware that I just violated a whole bunch of French laws ;-)
Later in the afternoon we went to Cadaqués, at the coast. This is a quiet, almost quaint little fishers village and a delight to visit. The road towards it is rather tricky, full concentration is required. But the village is worth it.
I also sampled the night life of Estartit a bit, which wasn't so magnificent but in the end, if you had a good time, that is all that counts :-)
The drive towards and back by car was actually rather nice. We crossed the whole of France and especially the southern half is really nice to behold.
On our way back we were pulled over by the police (actually customs) who probably found 3 men in a white van a bit suspicious. Especially since the third actually emerged from the back (where an self made bed was being used by us in turn to rest a bit).
The best bit was that they ask what all the equipment was and when they heard it was diving equipment asked whether there was any air in the tanks. I immediately started giving a complete overview of all my own tanks and their exact content: both in pressure and air mixture. Only when they left (with a friendly goodbye) did Bruno tell me that it's apparently forbidden by law in France to drive around with dive tanks that are pressurized.
My guess is that since I was so direct and honest in my response about the tanks that they concluded is really unaware that I just violated a whole bunch of French laws ;-)
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