We promised our divemaster Ioannis to put something together about his services at the Crostaceo diving centre, so here it is:
We went to Crete to relax and do some dives. We contacted several diving centres at Crete, but there were always some kind of difficulties: one diving centre did not respond at all, one said that their services were only for the hotel customers they operate within, one said that we should come and pay all dives in advance and if we dive that much we get one free dive and so on ...
Crostaceo did the difference. At first Ioannis came to our hotel to guide us to his diving centre to get accustomed to the driving way there. Then we discussed about our plans and he said that we could do as many dives we would like to and at what time of the day we wish to. Because Tino has been working evening shifts for about half of his life, we appreciated that we could do our dives in the afternoon when all the other people in Crete were having their 'siesta'. It was really hot at the afternoon hours, but what would be better place to be at that time than deep down in the sea. So we agreed that we would do five dives, one per day. Ioannis reminded us that although we had our dives planned at 2 p.m. we did not have to walk in a leash.
The boat was smallish, but there were only us and a couple of other people (divemaster's assistant) on the boat so there was plenty of space for travelling the short trips to the dive sites. Usually they take 6 people maximum on the boat. All our equipment were storaged at the diving centre and it was only a minute walk to the boat where the air bottles and weights were already waiting for us - a good thing keeping in mind that my back is not the strongest one to carry things around the cliffs.
All dives were smooth and very relaxing. We did not have to swim very long ways at the site. The marine life of the Mediterranean is not very vivid but we did see plenty of colourful aquarium sized fishes as well as some bigger groopers. The last dive was the best when Ioannis took us to feed the fish! Hundreds of fishes surrounded us and even the half metre long grooper came to eat from our hands. A dive to remember!
So, thank you Ioannis and Miranda for a pleasant visit to Crete.
To see the pictures follow this link.
More stuff and underwater pictures are on their way - stay tuned.