Diving from the rescue boat

I reckon I'm currently spending nearly as much time diving as looking after the vehicles. Thankfully my new mechanic, Lamin, and my new day volunteers are all excellent and I am happy to leave Transport in their capable hands. Diving in Freetown is so different from diving in Benin and Togo that we have had to re-invent the whole procedure. The days of jumping off the dock are long gone: we are now lowered to the water in one of the ship's rescue boats which remains on hand in case the current takes us away...

...me and Jana (my first ever dive buddy in Benin 2 years ago) on Deck 7 next to the rescue boat:

Getting our dive gear on in the boat:

Up and away, as the crane takes us out from the ship's side...


...and down to water level:

And then into position ready to dive! Makes the dive much longer and more complicated, but it's much easier being lifted up to Deck 7 in the boat instead of climbing all those stairs with heavy gear.

On this occasion, the water current was so fast that we were swept 40 meters away from the dive boat as soon as we entered the water, and the dive had to be abandoned. We have now learnt to dive only at slack tides. Olly