100th dive
The stories of Blowing Bubbles continue and here you can read one of them, told by Captain Jean-Marc
Captain’s log 30/07/2021 How to celebrate 100 scuba dives?
Located at the southern part of Lanzarote, we carry 3 new crew members on board!
A rather special family to us, as father Bart and 2 daughters Jozefien and Charlotte are not ‘first-timers’ onboard SY Blowing Bubbles. During the last 10 years, they have participated in many voyages with us and even were part of the maiden voyage of the SY Blowing Bubbles in September 2020.
Now, onboard for a weeklong scuba trip, we had noticed that Jozefien had her logbook filled with almost 100 scuba dives!
Up to us, captain of the SY Blowing Bubbles, to come up with a unique experience and dive location to make the 100th scuba dive special, even unforgettable!
How would you want to celebrate/experience your 100th dive?
Or do you even remember when you did that 100th dive?
As we have plenty of divesites around us, we decided to make sure that we would be able to offer a fishfilled divesite.
After some scouting, we had found a very unique reefstructure, composed of a short wall from -4mtr to -12mtr and beside of it, a nice sandy bottom slooping down to -18mtr. The site would grant us a long dive time, time to enjoy the multitude of fishes present of the reef and also to look around for some special visitors on the reef!
We made a group dive with all crew (6) together and we had a special task planned for our youngest crew member Leander (11y old).
During the dive, we encountered 1000’s of fishes, a total of 15 species were immediately identified by all group members!
Oh, did I mention that Jozefien was NOT wearing a divesuit??
As part of the tradition (I wonder which one, where it came from?), the 100th dive would be made ‘naked’ (although wearing a bathing suit!).
The water temperature was a nice 21°C, but then again, that is still pretty fresh to the bone without a dive suit…
We briefed Jozefien in telling her that she could call the dive at anytime she would feel chilly, after 35minutes of being in the water, she was still doing OK!
What a strong lady!
The dive was ended by the task at hand of our youngest crew member Leander.
Underwater, he presented a NAUI duck (do you know what I mean, do you already own one?) as a gift to Jozefien! The duck was marked with the ‘100th dive’ text to make sure that Jozefien would surface with both a lasting souvenir AND lasting memory of special 100th dive onboard SY Blowing Bubbles,
Ready to dive
After the dive, completing our logbooks together, we all ended up with another surprise…
Jozefien had not only finished her 100th dive, she actually did all those 100 dives with us, the crew members of SY Blowing Bubbles. She took her NAUI training with us at Time To Dive in Belgium, 10years ago, starting with the Open Water Scuba Diver Course and later on continuing to the Naui Advanced Scuba Diver Course.
Logbook admin Just relaxing
She collected her 100dives in 9 countries, being Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Egypt, Panama, Philipines, Bonaire and the Maldives.
What an honor to get as Naui dive instructors, to have divers around you and joining for 10years all around the world and guess what???
According to Jozefien, she is not yet finished discovering and exploring the blue planet…
She will keep on joining the SY Blowing Bubbles during the worldtrip and already booked her place onboard for some next adventures to come! And so did her dad Bart and her sister Charlotte who both passed their 100th dive earlier and also made all their dives with us, Karen Erens (#54653) and Jean-Marc Claes (#40992).
Needless to say, we are so proud to have them as guests returning onboard the SY Blowing Bubbles!