The warm, sunny weather lured the crowds onto the roads and the drive down on Saturday took somewhat longer than usual, but the Lyon contingent arrived in time to take possession of our two apartments and await the arrival via Nice of Dr & Mr Wig and Professor Margarita. Alas, the sixth member of our happy band cried off at the last moment, pleading tiredness and stress brought on by overwork. No matter, we dried our tears, raised a glass to the missing Miss Colonel and tucked into our first dinner and mousse au chocolat of the week at an old favourite, the Brasserie du Port.
Late start to the diving on Sunday, due in part to a mass invasion of Bormes Plongée by two large diving clubs, but after the discovery six years late of the rather excellent swimming pool the gentle first dive on La Fourmigue was welcome, no less enjoyable and notable for a profusion of octopii. Dinner was taken at Cartoon Beach, the 'restaurant on the corner'. Thumbs up for the Marmite du Pecheur from the SdP connoiseur, and thumbs down for a bowl of water from the local stray moggy.
Monday morning, another old favourite, from a different angle - Pointe du Vaisseau: grouper city and nudibranch heaven for our macro expert, mini-diver Sogs. In the afternoon the over-chilled Margarita man and the merely chilled Caipirinha kid skipped the dive and missed a surprisingly excellent plunge on la Pointe de la Galère, previously named as my least favourite site. A couple of perfectly posing scorpion fish and an octopus in full display changed my mind.
In the evening we ventured further afield, a whole half a kilometre along the coast to Le Lavandou, where a new favourite, La Favouille, was found. Soupe de Poisson with a tentative JeB rating of at least 8, a Meli-Melo fruits de mer entrée off the scale, melt in the mouth agneau, and the best mousse au chocolat ever.Tuesday - armed with a toastier wet suit, Prof M enjoyed a deep morning dive on the Sec de la Gabinière with the rest of us, except 1st class diver S who floated on the surface with a lighter than expected cylinder and not enough lead. Eventually she put on weight, found new buddies and enjoyed a dive on the algae infestged Gab east wall. After the usual gourmet lunch of bread, cheese, paté, saucisson and tinned fish, everyone was newly enthused and enjoyed a dive on a ski slope. Pointe de Montrémian the site, hide and seek in the sea grass the game.
Un nouveau depart in the evening - dinner in. Taking advantage of our uninhabited spare apartment, a rather tasty salad and fritata was cooked up by the resident master chefs, preceded by apertifs and the new cocktail of choice for the discerning drink-diver, caipirinha. Two thirds of a bottle of rum and two bottles of rosé later, we watched the Sands big adventure holiday video - great white shark cage diving amid heckling from the rum sozzled audience.
Wednesday morning, hurrahs all round. First and only wreck dive of the week, but what a wreck. Le Donator, 45 narcotic metres of wonder: coral and gorgonian covered metal, merous playing cache cache, and only a stuck dump valve to spoil JeB's delight. Nothing a bit of clawing at the neck seal can't solve. Afterwards lunch of delicious leftovers, and then no afternoon dive: siestas all round.
Another long trip for dinner, all the way up the hill to Bormes village. Excellent meal, excellent wine, excellent company. Little more to say.
Thursday morning - Pointe de la Croix, notable for a wayward swim over lots of sea grass, lots more groupers and a highly amusing lesson on how not to deploy a delayed SMB by the Professor. 1st lesson: it's useful to have a weight on the end of the line to avoid it floating in tangles about you. Second lesson: watch your depth otherwise you might end up finally getting some air into your buoy just before it reaches the surface. At the same time as you.
The giggles of hilarity subsided just in time for the afternoon dive on a site new to us - la Pointe de Maupertuis on the Ile du Levant. And a beautiful site it was too, a succession of ridges illuminated by the sun, and a couple of giant sea slugs made it one of the best dives of the week. The Gardiner DSMB deployment take two added to the fun too. The weighted line worked well. So well that the weight hit the bottom before the line was even half unreeled. Diver bouyancy was better controlled, but buoy buoyancy less so. A small puff of air eventually got it to the surface and it stayed there. Just.
Another trip to Le Lavandou in the evening. A half hearted attempt to seek out restaurants new ended with us back at Tuesday evening's haunt. Another gourmet dinner followed.
Friday - last day, last dives. The morning, back to the one of the jewels in the crown of Côte d'Azur diving - the east wall of La Gabinière. Rather good it was too, though the profusion of algae covering the rocks and coral somewhat dulled the glitter. The Margarita DSMB deployment drill finally went off smoothly and even ascertained the length of line to be 12 metres exactly. The dive finished with a heroic rescue of Dr Sogs (FCD), swept away on the tide, Spain the next stop, by her hero JeB.
The afternoon, and then there were two - the diving die-hards, Dr S and moi-même. The Mistral had whipped up a choppy sea in the intervening few hours, meaning we had to make do with the short return trip to La Fourmigue. Another interesting tour of a rock, an interesting navigational technique to find le Spahis, and finally the diving for the week was over. And a great week's diving it was too.
Final evening, final dinner of the week. Another new restaurant, tasty moules frites Chez Mamie for most, charred magret de canard for the non-seafood eater amoung us. Back home for a farewell game of tête de merde, and it was all over bar the shouting and apartment cleaning the next morning.
We will be back.
