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25 June: Nha Trang

We left the guest house at 07h50 and headed to Octopus divers just down the road. Today would be our first dive in Vietnam. We had heard from our friends that they really enjoyed diving in Nha Trang and therefore had to put it on our list of things to do.

The trip was nothing like Koh Tao, firstly we were only 11 divers with 7 instructors going with for the dive. Secondly our group comprised of Leanne, myself and another instructor, that was it. Again we met up with a Dutch couple traveling Vietnam. They had come from the North heading South and we could all exchange hints and "must see's". The boat ride took us round about 30 minutes, after which we kitted up and headed to the water. The evening before we queried them on the gear seeing as they often misjudge our wet suit sizes, they replied that there are always spares on the boat and we needn't worry. They judged Leanne perfectly, but my size was a tad small, forcing my shoulders to be squeezed inwards by its disproportionate upper body.

We were in the water and headed down. It had never happened, but theres a first for everything. It appeared I was having an ear squeeze and couldn't equalize, I ascended slowly and tried to descend while equalizing. I continued to try to equalize while we swam slowly forward. No luck, at this stage I wanted to end my dive, afraid that I would damage my ears if I could no longer equalize and we continued down. I signaled to the instructor that I was going to surface, he went with me and I tried one last time equalizing as we descended again from the surface. This time it worked, I still experienced a measure of discomfort in my left ear, but at least it equalized.

The dive sight we had visited was Octopus rock, known for its swim through's and bolder bordering the island. The diving was significantly different to that of Perhentians and Koh Tao, firstly the fish were severely depleted. Thanks to three decades of dynamite fishing and poaching of the locals. Secondly, it wasn't nearly as colourful as the other two. But then again it wasn't Cape Town either. The highlight of the dive wasn't watching the fish of which we only saw, Angel, Bat, scorpion, barracuda fish and a tiny moray eel. It was the swim through's. It was almost as though we went to explore underwater caves, except instead of having to swim back to the entrance you swam through out the other side, the third one was particularly long. One of the most amazing pictures was the bubbles that collected into larger air pockets trapped on the roof of the tunnel, these looked like liquid metal puddles not affected by gravity. For a short distance I turned face up swimming ever so slowly to the exit admiring the puddles.

This was it for the first dive, we got out the water and were greeted by three men. The one held the back of my tank, another unstrapped and unbuckled me, while yet another removed my weight belt. In 5 seconds all my gear was removed except our wet suits, which we proceeded to undress a little slower. We spent about an hour aboard driving slowly to the other dive sight, while enjoying lunch. They had prepared rice with a "no bone chicken curry with potatoes and carrots". Then there were fruits to choose from and hot chocolate to keep one warm in the 35 degree sun, I opted for one. A strange thing, one would have expected to wear a short wet suit in 29 degree water, but we were given 3 mm long ones. At first we laughed about it until we hit the different layers of thermoclines, they can make one shiver even in tropical waters!

Our next dive was at Moray beach, this part of beach was filled with snorkelers and island dwellers enjoying the beach. We headed down, but this time Leanne was having trouble equalizing. I tried to help her for 5 minutes ascending slowly, but to no avail. After our instructor found we weren't behind him he headed back and tried to assist ascending a little more. This time she managed to equalize, but still experienced minor trouble throughout the dive. We saw two more scorpion fish, a white lion fish, large shrimp and the usual smaller dwellers. The dive site was literally a sand beach with clusters of coral littered over the area. We headed back to the boat after 60 minutes, our previous one having been only 50 minutes long. On the boat it was the same 5 star treatment we had grown accustomed to and in minutes we were sitting in the sun with a warm cup of hot chocolate, Leanne almost shivering from cold of the water.

We headed back to the dive shop and then to our room where we caught up with emails and watched the RSA vs Spain soccer game (we actually had a tv in the room), before heading out for dinner. Along the way we stopped for a Turkish kebab at a street corner, actually a quarter of a pita bread filled with vegetables and some meat, thoroughly enjoyable! After this we headed to a restaurant we had spotted serving only the locals. The lady assured us the rice had small pieces of chicken in it, at a third of the price of any other place it was a steal. We sat down and received a bowl of soup, before our main course came. Of course the chicken wasn't cut in small pieces, but it was probably the best meal we had received in a long time.

We were joined soon after by a mother and daughter, the daughter could speak to us, but not the mother. We tried to have a discussion with them while sharing and tasting their foods, much more spicy than ours. We returned home watching a movie before heading to bed.