Duncan brought breakfast at 0630 and coffee, fruit and eggs tucked away I walked up to meet the driver for Diani Marine Center, the dive resort recommended by Sofia.

The whole pandemic thing put a huge damper on SCUBA (and everything else) so I hadn’t been diving since September of 2019 when dove Caesaria harbor north of Tel-Aviv. I was eager to get back in the water.

At Caesaria, they were mostl only concerned on my insurance – so I made sure my DAN stuff was current and mostly didn’t worry about my certifications (assuming I could easily log in to the PADI website and retrieve them). Ooops.

So I met the driver at the appointed time (0700) and we got to the resort at 0715, but our dive master, Saidi, was anxious on time – there are really tight waters at Diani and we were in danger of missing our dive window. He had thought we would be arriving at 0700, so we started behind the power curve. Then he said “I need your Open Water Certification number” and . . . well, PADI doesn’t have that easily on the website, and I had forgotten my plastic card, so lots of rooting through email and anxiety later, I signed a “I promise I have this” waiver, then immediately found the ID.

Dive briefing, boat briefing, and my dive buddy, Jon, plus captains and Saidi all headed to the boat. The pandemic has hit tourism very hard, so instead of 16 divers on the boat, we had two, and instead of a captain and crew, we had the two captains taking turns crewing for each other.

As a client, this, and other experiences, have been amazing – whole resorts with only us there, etc. The service levels are astonishing, and Jon and I had the most experienced dive team you could imagine guiding us. That said, I really hope there’s a huge travel resurgence and these resorts can get back to fuller capacity. Diani Marine Center is really great – would love to see the boats full, the bar full after the dive, etc.

My dive buddy was really a character. I am not going to say much here other than that he was ex foreign legion and a huge, huge character – hard to believe if I hadn’t seen so many of his photos. The kind of person I think you only meet off the beaten path, a lifelong dedicated adventurer. Ask me about him over beers 😉

We hit two dive sites – Igloo (because the water sometimes brings cold currents) and Boabab (named for the resort visible from the mooring). Jon’s ear was bothering him so he bailed on the second dive, it was just Saidi and I.

The first dive featured a yellow spotted snake eel, some lion fish, and a horde of reef fish – lots of fun and it was great to get back in the swing.

The second dive featured a ton of sea turtles. I have seen sea turtles but swimming with them was super cool and calm.

After our dives we had a long slow journey back picking our way through the reefs. Once we got back I got my ride back to Alfajiri, where I did the totally obvious thing – had a Tusker Lager in the pool.

Before Duncan summoned us for an amazing lunch, then it was time to stare slack jawed at the ocean for a bit before massage. The massage, like a lot of things at Alfajiri was the best I have experienced. And this is a daily thing at Alfajiri!

A few more hours of total relaxation and it was time for G&T and a whole platter of raw Oysters before dinner starting with homemade spinach ravioli and a snapper carpaccio. I think? It all kind of delightfully runs together 🙂 I do recall that desert was the family Tiramisu recipe.

Time to rest from all the relaxing, more diving tomorrow…