The morning of the last day of our trip to L’Estartit and we had the pleasure of sharing our boat with a dozen French divers. It would be safe to say that our continental friends had slightly different ‘on board’ habits than us. When the men weren’t kissing each other they were showing what a tough bunch of divers they were by getting completely naked before putting their wet suits on. Some of our female club members thought this was completely reasonable behaviour.

I was to have the pleasure of diving with our training officer Bryan and as this was our second visit to this site we both felt only the briefest of dive plans was required.

Bryan and I were one of the last in; the French were long gone before I had even got my gloves on. A giant stride off the back of the boat, quick descent to around 15m then follow the wall to the right until we reached the second cave entrance where we were to enter. Unfortunately the French had decided that this would be a great location to all stop and hang around. A quick couple of hand signals and we decided to carry on round the island. We had been advised that there was not much to see around this area but actually there were a lot of fish and Bryan claims to have seen a large grouper.

As we continued around we came to a cave entrance which we entered. It was about 20m long and 5m high and came out in a rocky area full of small fish. We spent about 20minutes slowly exploring our surroundings and generally annoying the fish as you do, when Bryan decided to take the lead and swim further around the island and explore some small caves. Being his fearless buddy I watched from a safe distance as Bryan attempted to worm his way into anything that he could possibly be classed as a cave.

By now I was down to 80 bar and I thought it was about time to start heading back through the cave and end the dive. I signalled my air to Bryan who gave me a quizzical look and carried on regardless. After a few more ‘journey to the centre of the earth’ attempts I signalled again - to be told we would look around where we were for three more minutes then surface. Now that I thought was strange as we were on the wrong side of the island. A three minute stop then up – next to the boat. How we had got back was a complete mystery to me.

After explaining what had happened to Bryan, as any understanding training officer would - he took great delight in telling everyone on the boat how ‘directionally challenged’ I was.

A nice dive which I really enjoyed. I may have been lost but I was sure Bryan wasn’t – although I think I may invest in a compass.

Report by Stuart McKendrick