Diving Tarifa Two- The San Andreas

My previous post covers our first dive, and this was my second. I say my, as jess decided after the faff of the first to skip this dive, unfortunately for her this was a much better dive, with way more to see.

We descended a fixed line and soon the obvious protrusions of a wreck appeared out of the gloom. We were again a party of four, and as the other three worked there way directly through the wreck, I noticed off to the right a large cog feature and headed towards that, I believe this wreck is a classic paddle steamer and maybe this was part of one of the wheels? I came around the wreck where I rejoined the other divers, and started to see an abundance of conger eels, one with it head sticking out and taking snaps of anything passing by, others that were moving freely through the web of the wreck. This was all truly impressive.

The wreck itself was covered in plant life that was yellow/orange in colour. This became even better when the sun was shining, as it lit up the area. As well as this, there was an abundance of crabs moving all over the wreck, some camouflaged in, other moving freely over the surfaces. We soon left the wreck, and started to gain height through shoals of different fish. I found a couple more crabs and eels, as well as more fish camouflaged against the ground.

One of the highlights of this dive was two huge lobsters on either side of a boulder, their Tentacles sticking out and waving around like Ariel masts in the water. I do not think I have seen any as big as this before, so again this was very cool. We followed a wall dive, which I presumed was the island on our left hand side, until we reached a sandy opening, which coincided with the safety stop depth and end of the dive. All in all this had been a great dive throughout, and much better than the first, it’s often pot luck with dives that rely on sealife, as if there is a lack it can ruin a dive. It’s a shame that jess had to miss out on this one, but I’m certainly glad I was on it, as it topped off a good dive with a great one!