Reef of Mourtias South Side

For our second dive of the day we did the sunnier side of the reef wall. Again something easy and mellow for our first day.

Dive Center: Triton Dive Center Alonissos

With all my sinus trouble on the first dive I was nervous to dive again. We talked it over and decided to cautiously and slowly try again. I’m thankful for such a patience dive group. Taking extra time for equalizing helped. Once under the water I still had headaches but not as bad as the first dive.

enjoying the boat

the aegean sea spray

GoPro fail:

All the underwater footage on this site so far has been shot with the GoPro Hero Sessions 5 + waterproof housing, borrowed from a friend. What it captures is decent but it is not without issues.

On this dive all but the last few min of dive footage got lost to the void. Something between operating it underwater, transferring the videos off the GoPro, the GoPro Quick phone app, or switching computers. 🤷‍♂️. There is one button you press to turn the device on and start recording. Its a short press for video and long press for starting time-lapse mode. The problem is underwater even when I press as quickly as I can, half the time it goes inadvertently into time-lapse mode. I think something like that happen but I double clicked instead and it stopped recording.

anchored

torch deployed

Mask trick:

Coming up from the first dive both Masha and my masks were fogged up. We had sprayed with our diluted soap mix and rinsed before going under, but no luck. Then our dive instructor explained that coming from the factory the masks have a film on the inside of the lease that must be repeatedly burnt off. The woman at the dive shop when we bought our masks last year had taken a lighter around and burnt off the coating. What we didn’t know is you need to repeat this process for first ~10 dives and they will fog up much less.

surfacing

Landscape:

Since there are no photos for most of the dive let me describe my favorite part.

The reef forms a kind of ridge underwater. Much like something we would hike / ski tour in the alps. Since we are in the Mediterranean Sea, it is more rocky and green then a true coral reef, even though there are some coral. Also dotting it in are patches of sea grass waving in the flow. Looking up the reef toward the surface with the light shining through was a stunning view. I enjoyed slowing swimming between the rocks making my own path up the reef.