Liveaboard diving: Getting in

Just when we thought we’d tried all the possible ways to get in and out of the water from our Red Sea liveaboard, we learned a new one. We jumped in off the dive deck while the boat was on anchor or idling precariously near a cliff, or rolled backwards off Zodiacs. We used tail lines in a variety of configurations, did short surface swims, and generally felt like action heroes.

I am an enthusiastic practitioner of giant strides. It makes me sad that there are so few giant stride opportunities in Cape Town. These divers, on a liveaboard close to ours, were diving a wreck called the El Miniya. Their boat was tied up to the wreck at her stern. The divers jump into the water, and then swim along the side of their liveaboard to get to the stern line, before descending onto the wreck.

[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnKHqri7GNc&w=540″]

Here are some of the divers on our liveaboard doing giant strides into the warm darkness of the Red Sea for a night dive:

[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qf9GLLNq0lc&w=540″]