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Dived Feb 08 and Nov 08..

A nice early flight out of Bristol International airport with Easy jet 6.30am, so that was a 3.15am alarm call which was allowing time for a quick cuppa and a piece of toast before the 25 minute to the airport.  It cost £32 to park the car for the weekend which is a saving for me as I know that it costs at least £30 in a taxi each way from my home. Obviously check in was nice and swift that time of the day but be warned, as usual the prices on the other side seemed to be inflated some what. I checked out the price of a hamburger in the fast food burger bar and asked if that was the price for a quarter pounder and was told “no it was the small size” I was horrified. I reckon it was at least a £1 extra; this was one of the top high street fast food retailers.

On arrival at Palma International airport it all went as smooth as it could of, luggage arrived nothing missing, no doubt this would not be the case in the height of summer.
Taxi’s out side in the rank waiting to take us to the hotel in Palma Nova which incidentally was a steel at £90 for 3 nights in a double room half board (D’or Tobago). It’s a 3* hotel over looking a beautiful beach and mountain range and if your not a fussy eater then there is an absolute abundance of food both at breakfast and evening meal, if you are fussy then you will still survive easily. All parties checked in and back down to the reception area for pick up at 12 noon, unfortunately the mini bus would only take 8 people so 4 divers had to wait 20 Spanish minutes (which is at least 40) for the second wave. Port Adriano is where the dive centre was located (www.zoeamallorca.com) and if you look at the site you can read all about the dive sites in the marine park.

Our dive on the Saturday was a nice casual dive at Malgrats, with viz of about 20 meter’s from the surface to the sea bed.  We had moored up in a depth of about 5 meters so a roll in off the side, quick OK and off we go with the reef to our right on the way out and on the left on the way back. We managed to get to a depth of 21 meter’s after about 20 minutes to a grass land then done a U turn. On the way back at a shallower depth there was a lot more to see including a beast of a Grupa but you know how it is, by the time you get the camera out it has disappeared into the rocks.  We had some time back on the boat before the group of trainee’s retuned (advanced open water) so in for a snorkel along the cliff edge. Back to base camp for a few beers and log books.

Sunday’s dive was a new dive site to me, El Toro East.  We had a full boat this morning as it was Sunday; another 8 divers that I believe were local Spanish divers. After the briefing and kitting up the local lads and lasses went in first, this left more room on the boat to kit ourselves up. My Buddy for the weekend was Pete who I dived with in February so knew how he dived and was comfortable with his kit, still buddy checked each other obviously, over we went, quick ok and descend. We didn’t take long to locate a rock formation that had been mentioned in the briefing which was cool as there were Barracuda but it was down at a depth of 32 meters. Not sure what happened to Pete’s air but the next 10 minutes his air went from 180 bar to 80 bar so we had no choice but to start making our way back to the shallows for the last leg of the dive. It wasn’t a bad thing as there was a lot more life at 5-8 meters. Pete had enough air to surface but not to stay down any longer, so out came the octopus as I was in no hurry to surface yet. Back on board and back to the dive centre to drop the local divers off and fill the tanks with air ready for the next dive.

Sunday afternoon’s dive was El Toro West which was one that I had dived in February, a lot of octopus in Feb but unfortunately not in November. Marine life was much the same other than that there were a few more Barracuda. Sunday’s diving was over so back to the dive centre for a couple of beers and fill in the log books. Funny thing, even though this was a Marine park we were diving the locals are allowed to fish there between October and March.

Monday’s dive was at Befubeitx, this was a wall dive and from surface to sea bed was about 25-30 meter’s.  There were a lot of morel eels on this dive in and on the wall, shame there wasn’t a good current as it would be lovely to just sit and drift this wall.  There were more Barracuda on this dive site which looked bigger than on either of the other sites we had been on. The strangest thing happened on the dive as the 3 buddy pairs dropped over the side and descended to about 10 meters, a cylinder, BCD and reg’s came passed and hit the bottom at about 25 meters. The trainee Dive Master had forgotten to inflate his BCD before throwing it in. I had seen him over the last 3 dives inflating his kit on board and launch it into the water and kit up on the surface. Anyway, one of the other guys saved the day and rescued it for him; just as well it wasn’t the abyss down there… Last dive done, so back to the dive centre to wash the kit out for the last time, pay the bill which in all fairness was 25 euro’s a dive, I didn’t think that was bad.

We were all dropped back at the hotel by 2ish so we had all afternoon to fill, something nice to eat in a sunny bar with a couple of cold one’s to hand. One thing I will say about Palm Nova, if you like the night life and diving then February or November is not the time for you to go as most of the bars and night clubs are shut, there are shops and bars open but it is limited.  It’s almost like a winter Spanish SAGA resort at those times of year, but would recommend November rather than Feb purely for the water temperature yet there are no guarantee’s with the weather at either of those times.

Word of advise, I found it worth paying the extra weight allowance for sports equipment (scuba gear) for which you get an extra 6kgs each way but make sure you point it out when booking in as they have question my weight allowance both times and both ways.

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