BSAC TRAVEL CLUB - Trip Reports

TRAVEL CLUB

Protaras, Cyprus - September 2005

by Alan Ewart

Well, it's early August, the wonderful British summer is in full swing and my mind turns to finding some sunshine for the family and myself. Now I have a very strong survival instinct and as I've already had a few dive trips this year and have another couple coming up, I decide that a family based resort with some diving available would be a good option. I needed somewhere at short notice, some where with things to do for the family, guaranteed sunshine and preferably somewhere I have not been before. Being really fussy I also wanted to be able to fly from Bournemouth as this means a 15-minute taxi ride to the airport rather than an overnight at Gatwick.

In the end we decide to settle for the guaranteed sunshine of the Mediterranean Island of Cyprus. So, destination settled, we now need to pick a resort. Truth be told, my clubbing days are well behind me so Aiya Napa was ruled out! I did however want the option of a visit to Northern Cyprus if the fancy took me so we decided on the resort of Protarus Just North of Aiya Napa. Unfortunately as we had booked so late and were restricted to booking through Libra the choice of accommodation was very limited. In the event we booked into T.S. resort hotel, definitely not recommended so I will say no more about it.

Once I had booked the holiday I then started to research the opportunities for doing a bit of diving whilst I was there. I phoned Libra and via them the flight operators, Eurocypria, to find out if I could get an extra luggage allowance for my dive kit. I was expecting to have to buy an extra weight allowance but I really didn't anticipate a problem, after all Libra incorporates the Goldenjoy diving specialist tour operator so they are bound to be sympathetic to travelling divers! Well how wrong can you be? No way, no how, not even if you sell your wife into slavery no extra allowances for divers, no not even if you pay for an extra weight allowance. You can of course carry your dive kit in your normal weight allowance. Well how generous. Well of course I was especially pleased to find that if I wanted to take golf equipment I could do so for £15. Am I alone in finding this the most puerile and irritating attitude from flight operators to the diving community? Fortunately I have the luxury of travelling with a 6 year old who only needs shorts and t-shirts for his holiday so I claimed the free space in his large dive bag :. Not a popular decision with she who must be obeyed who found herself having to leave the kitchen sink, fridge and bathroom scales at home and she was less than amused when she found she could only take 12 pairs of shoes and 6 handbags. Shame really. Thankfully finding a reputable dive operation proved far less taxing. A quick visit to the BSAC travel club website revealed no less than 8 BSAC schools in Cyprus, two of which Scandidive Website and Dive-tek Cyprus Website are in the Protarus/Paralimni area.

Now this is where things really started to take a turn for the better. I dropped messages by e-mail to the owners of both centres with a few details about myself and details of when I would be arriving. I sat back expecting to wait a few days for information. How wrong I was. Dave Humphris from Scandidive was first off the mark at about 10AM the next morning when he rang me from Cyprus. Dave's attitude was amazing, it went along the lines of, 'No problem, really, nothing's a problem. Do you need to be collected from the airport? Just let me know what you want to do when you arrive and I will sort it out for you, most of the diving in this area is from the shore but if you want boat dives it's not a problem. If you want to do the Zenobia we can sort that out too'. I'll be honest I was impressed. I've not often come across that type of attitude in the dive industry. More about Scandidive later.

An hour or so later a message arrived from Rob Jones at Dive-tek. Ironically Rob and Dave have been mates for years. Rob's outlook was identical to Dave's. 'Nothing's too much trouble anything we can do for you just let us know'. Superb. Rob explained that Dive-tek is Cyprus's first dedicated technical diving facility and they offered TDI, ITDA and IANTD courses and were working with BSAC to be one of the first BSAC technical Schools. Consequently Dive-tek focus on deeper diving on twin sets with stages for deco. Rob suggested that I might like to do some diving with both operations so that I could get a good feel for the range of diving available in the area. Dive-tek are also the Cyprus distributors for torpedo DPV's Torpedodpv Website. The thought of diving the Zenobia as a technical dive on a DPV had me salivating let me tell you.

So, arrangements sorted I sat back to pass the few short weeks until our travel date. Travel to Cyprus was pretty painless as our morning flight departed at 11am on a Sunday morning. Arrivals at Larnaca were pretty smoothly handled, which is more than you can say for departures, but that's another story.

Scandidive

After taking a day to chill out and get my bearings I wandered up to Scandidive to touch in with Dave and to arrange some dives. I received a very nice welcome and basically all I had to do was to tell the shop when I wanted to dive. The majority of Diving in this part of Cyprus is shore based and currents are not an issue. This means that you can go for a splash when it suits you without having to worry about catching tides etc. Dave was very accommodating and Alistair, the guide I dived with on all the dives I did with Scandidive, picked me up from my hotel. As I had most of my own gear with me Ali threw Cylinders, Lead and a Shortie in the back of the truck for me and we went straight from the hotel to the dive sites. After a couple of dives I was dropped back at the hotel until next time. Simple and convenient. This meant I could get dives in at two different sites, a decent surface interval between and still be back in time for lunch with the family. Perfect. Over the course of a few days I dived at Chapel, The Caves, Cyclops, Cyclops wall, Cape Greco and offshore at Chapel reef. Day trips to the Zenobia are available.

So how was the diving? Well the water was warm and clear. Visibility was in excess of 30M. The topography was very interesting. The limestone rock formations we fascinating and there was a reasonable amount of small life on the walls. I was pretty disappointed with the fish life. There was a real absence of big fish, no doubt due to over fishing. On several of my dives I heard explosions in the water. This led me to the conclusion that there may be dynamite fishing taking place. I found the caves to be a really interesting shallow dive. The site is a series of small caves, caverns and swim throughs. You can always see your way out and the bottom is shingle so there is no danger of silt out. On exiting the caverns it's fascinating to watch your exhaled gas bubbling through the porous rock. The 12m maximum depths make this a site suitable for all. I also particularly enjoyed the offshore boat dive at Chapel reef. The reef as much more colourful than the shore sites and there was considerably more fish life, A fairly square 30m profile does mean that you get into compulsory deco fairly quickly, especially on air.

I was really pleased to see that Scandidive were actively promoting BSAC courses for British divers, whilst at the same time providing PADI courses for Europeans. Dave and his team provide a really unique service to BSAC divers. The shop is home to a BSAC special branch Mars and Minerva SAC, No. 2110. Through the branch Dave will provide BSAC training on organised dives at no additional cost. You just pay your normal dive fee and the training is provided free. What a superb service and a great opportunity to combine some training in warm water with an early or late season holiday.

Dave is particularly proud of being able to provide a hyperbaric therapy service for Multiple Sclerosis and cerebral palsy sufferers. This is provided at the hyperbaric chamber in Limassol. Apparently Oxygen therapy has proved to be very beneficial to sufferers of these conditions. Dave is more than happy to discuss this with anyone who requires further information. If you are the sort of person who is happy to build your own holiday Dave will be happy to help you arrange car hire and accommodation.

Dive-tek Cyprus.
As mentioned earlier Rob Jones has set up Dive tek as Cyprus's only dedicated technical training facility. Rob is hoping to become a BSAC technical training facility when BSAC's Tech courses are launched. At present he delivers TDI, ITDA & IANTD courses. Dive-tek is rebreather friendly and provides Air, Nitrox and Tri-mix. Rob also has a very well equipped workshop and emergency repairs are possible. There are some deep shore dives available around Protarus, but the jewel in the crown of Cyprus diving is of course the Zenobia. As my Zenobia dives were to be done on twins, stage and a scooter Rob naturally wanted to ensure I was up to the dive so we did a 48m-shore dive at the Cyclops cave dive site. I did the dive in a 3mm shortie, but the thermo clines were pretty vicious so I decided the Zenobia dives had better be in a full suit due to the water temperature at the bottom and the planned in water time. Cyclops is a great training site as its on a pretty gentle slope and Rob has it buoyed every 5m to 70+m. This is really Deco friendly as by the time you make your way up to a nice little 6m shelf you've done most of your off gassing. There is plenty at 6m to keep you interested as you clear your obligations. I had great fun whizzing around at up to 3 Knots on my Torpedo DPV.

Of course this was the entrée, the main course very definitely the Zenobia, the first time I have dived her. Rob had booked us on a boat out of Limassol, which is a 40-minute drive from Protarus. You get picked up in the truck and once again my kit was already onboard. All I had to do was carry it onto the boat and analyse my mixes. The wreck is just a 10-minute run out of the harbour and as we were planning a long run time Rob and I were kitted as we arrived at the site. The other divers were in the middle of kitting or briefing. I jumped into the clear waters welcoming the rush of cool water in the searing heat. Rob passed me the torpedoes and as he joined me I, being used to descending on shot lines in current, set of towards the anchor line to descend. Where are you off to asked Rob? Look down he shouted with a huge grin on his face. I put my face in the water and the air emptied from my lungs. Directly below me I could clearly see the entire vastness of this huge wreck spread out below me. Lying on its port side the top of the wreck lying at just 18m. We descended towards the massive rear doors and on down to the propellers and the lorries and debris lying on the sea bed a 43m. From the bottom the sheer scale of the wreck is apparent. It's like staring up at a block of flats and the 40-ton lorries still lashed to the open lorry deck adds to a real sense of the surreal. Simply one of the most mind-blowing sights I've seen in my diving career. The fact that the dive site is protected also means the wreck is heaving with fish life, large grouper and barracuda are in abundance and there are huge numbers of smaller fish life. Doing this dive on DPV's allowed us to do a tour of the whole wreck around the outside. We had decided to spend this dive exploring the outside and to penetrate the lorry decks, bridge, accommodation and restaurant areas the following day. This allowed me to really explore the outside covering most of the near 600-foot length. The depth of this dive and the long run time made for a considerable deco penalty, even when using an 80% mix for accelerated deco. The plus side is that the wreck has a number of permanent trapeze arrangements to make the long hang time comfortable. To be honest, with 40m+ visibility, warm water and so much going on I could have hung there for hours. Doing the Deco was a really enjoyable part of the dive.

Rob and I dived the Zenobia again the following day. The purpose this time was to explore some of the more accessible areas inside the wreck. Rob is an excellent guide having dived the wreck hundreds of times, but of course wreck penetration of any description should not be undertaken lightly. The Upper vehicle deck is easy to penetrate and is a huge space over 70m long. On entry near the stern it is possible to see the small letter box (a door), which marks your exit point. There are large lorries scattered around like matchbox toys and a good rummage around at the bottom will no doubt reveal as yet undiscovered treasure. From this deck it is possible to enter the lower vehicle decks and beyond. Suitably qualified and experienced divers can even access the engine rooms, but as we were not laying lines a deeper penetration was too dangerous. A point worth bearing in mind is that the lorry decks are very dark and a good torch is essential. On exiting the lorry deck near the bow we were able to enter the bridge, accommodation and restaurant areas. Most of the internal fibreboard walls have now rotted away leaving large well-lit spaces. Very interesting.

As we left the bridge area I was amazed to see a huge amount of fish, barracuda and large grouper were feeding on smaller fish. I could hear a strange thrumming noise and as I looked quizzically at Rob I could see he was in fits of laughter. As he pointed over my shoulder I turned to see a large yellow submarine behind me! It's a Russian tourist submarine, which regularly circles the wreck, and it appears they chum the water to attract the fish in for the tourists. I'm sure the tourist also sees a wide variety of diving hand signals.

Again if your going out to Cyprus Rob will arrange accommodation, transfers, car hire etc so he is well worth giving a call. He is also in the process of setting up an archaeological project to survey local antiquities. I'm sure this will prove a very interesting and successful venture.

Overall we had a great holiday in Cyprus. The weather was fantastic, the sea warm and the visibility very good. Protarus is a small but developing resort, it has a variety of very good bars and restaurants; it has a pretty relaxed and cosmopolitan feel. In truth there were too many 'British' themed pubs for my liking and I didn't care too much for the seemingly endless supply of Elvis tribute acts. That said the resort was very family themed and there was plenty for the kids to do. There was no sign of the stag and hen party culture that ruins so many European destinations. Mind you, if that scene is your wont Ayia Napa is only a 15-minute bus or taxi ride away. In my view everyone should visit Cyprus at least once to dive the Zenobia, it really does rate as one of the world's great wreck dives. It would also rate highly as a year round training location. Give it a shot; I'm sure you'll enjoy it. If you do I would very highly recommend using both Dave and Rob' services.

Cyprus main page