Off beaten track

A curious crab peers out from a crevasse on Degalmeda reef. You can often see these crabs skittering away into the shadows as you approach so getting a good sighting of one is difficult!

Dive #39 and #40, diving off Mount Lavinia with Colombo Divers , Boatman Ravinda , Divemaster Jehan, and instructor Shaf.   Cargo Wreck: Bottom time � 44 minutes; Depth � 31 meters This was a dive with a couple of old hands at the game, Shaf and Jehan, and the plan was to spend as much time underwater as possible without going into ridiculous deco times. As we hit the wreck , bait balls boiled out of the blue, Fusiliers exploding past us as they surged silvery in the water. There was more of a current than usual hence the activity of the Fusiliers. On the body of the wreck there were the usual suspects roaming around, a school of Blue-lined Snappers, a phalanx of blue and yellow swimming along. Shaf peeled away from us to go explore the innards of the wreck (please note that wreck exploration and solo diving requires very specialized training and as such should only be done by suitably qualified divers). I finned down to one of the lifeboats lying disconsolately on the bottom, gho...

Dive #34 and #35, diving off Mount Lavinia with Colombo Divers , Boatman Ravinda, Divemaster Jehan, Dive guide Nishan and buddies Daniel and Buddhi.   Cargo Wreck: Bottom time � 34 minutes; Depth � 30.6 meters Spear-fishermen are a constant bane for divers, primarily those who think that it is sporting to strap tanks onto themselves and spear large, charismatic fish like Groupers and Rays. Most of the big fish are now nowhere to be seen because of the indiscriminate fishing done by such gentlemen who have wiped out such slow reproducing fish. The Cargo Wreck had a claim to fame that it was the home of two spectacularly giant Rays, known rather brilliantly as Elvis and Priscilla. I hadn�t seen them on the wreck yet and in fact no one had seen them that season and it was feared that they had ended up, via a spear-fisherman, at a fish market and on someone�s plate. We started the dive at the bow of the ship and slowly moved to the stern, covering the 200m length while being constan...

Dive #46 and #47, diving off Mount Lavinia with Colombo Divers , Boatman Ravinda , Divemaster Jehan, Dive guide Nishan and buddy whose name I cannot remember.   Cargo Wreck: Bottom time � 49 minutes; Depth � 31.3 meters It was a dark and stormy morning as I moseyed down to the Dive center greeted by Nishan, Jehan and our buddy who were sitting solemnly in a row outside the center. My heart quailed a bit when Nishan said the dive for the day was cancelled due to rain. I hadn�t dived for over a week and a half due to a trip out of Colombo to see whales in Mirissa (more on that later) and a hectic schedule had kept me in office. I was starting to hallucinate at my desk with the white wall in front of me suddenly turning into deep blue with a trumpet fish dancing temptingly in front of me. As you can see I needed to dive (though I am wondering with some trepidation as to what the heck will happen when dive season ends). Thankfully Nishan was just having me on�well to a certain extent....

Dive #23 and #24, diving off Mount Lavinia with my favourite Dive Shop Colombo Divers , Boatman Ravinda, Dive buddy S and Divemaster Jehan. Palagala: Bottom time � 47 minutes; Depth � 13 meters This was the dive with the rather unexpected workout. S hadn�t dived for a bit and as we sank to the bottom I figured there might be some issues. The 3m visibility in Palagala takes a bit of getting used to if most of the dives you had done were the blue, 10m+ visibility ones in Matara or Hikkaduwa. And Palagala had freaked me out the first time. As S hit the bottom I winced a bit as both her hands came in contact with the silt and rock at the bottom. Not because of any damage to the corals, since it was mostly rock, but out of concern for her. Scorpion fish are abundant on the reef, amazingly camouflaged and getting stung by one is no picnic. You really want to take a good look before landing on any stony surfaces here (and in the ocean in general). We settled down for a bit and tried to sort...

Dive #19 and #20, diving off Colombo with Colombo Divers and divemaster (instructor in training) Jehan. Barracuda Reef: Bottom time � 42 minutes; Depth � 23 meters Sinking to the bottom off the reef, I was torn between being annoyed at myself for scraping my knees on the reef as I amateurishly tried to maintain buoyancy and be amazed at the shoal of barracuda  in the near distance. As the yellow barracuda faded into the blue I righted myself, put a bit of air into my BCD and regained some dignity. Barracuda Reef of course lived up again to expectations with Fusiliers swirling, a couple of baby Sri Lankan Hogfish and Timor wrasse putting in appearances. The latter fish is exceptionally beautiful, bluey greeny in colour with bright orange markings all over it. It was also only around 10cm in length and was thus easily overlooked. Having finally gotten some measure of neutral buoyancy I was thrilled to view the Timor Wrasse close up as I hovered above the reef. As we moved along the...

Diving has arrived in Colombo! Sort of� I�m a newbie to the sport of recreational diving but after my initiation to it in the hinterlands of Matara (await a more detailed report on that trip) I have been ridiculously enthusiastic about it. Having a grand total of 12 dives under my belt in Matara, Unawatune, Bentota, Malibu and the Catalina Islands I was beyond excited to hear about diving in Colombo via the somewhat geographically misnomered Colombo Divers , who it turns out are actually located in Mount Lavinia or Galkissa as it is known in Sinhalese. Incidentally the former name never fails to make me smile when I think about (I suggest you do the same if you have no idea what I�m talking about). Full of anticipation, I called Nishan to book a two tank dive, pointing out that I was inexperienced so would not likely be able to dive the 30m sites without serious injury. Hooking a tuk tuk over to Mount on Thai Pongal, I stepped onto a surprisingly crowded beach at 8am. I guess the conc...