( Foto: Cláudio Vieira)This weekend I was invited for a diving expedition along with some scuba-divers, under the supervision of Cláudio Vieira, a PADI Open Water Scuba Instructor and also an experience freediver.
The day was very cloudy and the wind was blowing stronger from east, so we decided to make the two schedule dive sessions inside Garajau beach.
We gather at Funchal Marina arround 1 o'clock and board inside "Pitanga" yatch, which would take us to our diving spots.
Mr. Cunha, the captain, keept the trip in a good mood with a lot of laughs and plenty of stories to tell.
First Dive Session:
I let the scuba divers go down first, after two minutes or so, i made my first dive to 18m.
When i arrived down there, they were already surround by hundreds of fishes. One black moray (Muraena augusti) and one green dogfish (Pseudolepidaplois scrofa) completed the scenario.
From above, I could easily follow them by the bubbles they made and continued to make some freedives to see what they were doing.
In this series of dives, i saw some charuteiros (Seriola lalandi) near the surface, more deeper i saw a small eagle-ray (Myliobatis aquila) just passing by the scuba-divers at the bottom and a group of sargos-veado (Diplodus cervinus).
But the best was one of the last dives. Near the boat, Mr. Cunha told that some divers were somewere ahead of me and i thought they could only be there for something special. So it was, as i descend through the bubbles, i could´t belive, a big Mero (Epinephelus marginatus) was just bellow me, i just let myself go towards him, but as soon as he spot me he wisely got away.
Second Dive Session:
Well, in the second dive session i was a bit tired and i only dove arround 16m, so there isn´t much to tell.
