The diving was a bit of a failure. I don’t have a diving license myself, so I relied on Aaron’s competence for this.
We carried the equipment to the boat and noticed that they didn’t have enough equipment for a certified dive master to accompany us. That’s unusual, as it were. Almost at the dive site we checked air pressure in the tanks – it was around 150bar for all 4 of them. Aaron considered this unsafe, expecting 200+bar. We discussed the issues but decided to go for it anyway, given that we were almost at the spot.
We put on the gear. My pressure gauge showed 100bar. It was broken. Also, my regulator leaked air somewhere as soon as the tank valve was opened.
Well, that was it. Obviously, these last issues rendered the whole endeavour too dangerous.
We resorted to snorkeling. Unfortunately, that wasn’t so great either. Visibility was pretty bad, and almost all the coral we saw was dead. Aaron even thought they might have done blast-fishing here, so moon-like did the underwater landscape look. (You know, blowing up explosives in the water to knock out fish for easy ‘fishing’.) Though that’s just a guess.
We took the ferry back to Teknaf in the afternoon, and hopped on a bus to Cox’s Bazar immediately after arrival.
