Day 49 - Eagle ray migraine?

Another perfect day in paradise. Even the fact that I'm right now heavily medicated, yet still suffering from a terrible migraine, cannot spoil the beauty of today.

Our dive master today was Aristeo. What a name! What a character! They call him "Jack Sparrow" here for his piraty demeanor: a long golden earring dangling from his ear, an obligatory dive knife strapped to his right shin, a self-designed three-tooth metal sling for killing lion fish tucked under the belt, a fiery spark in his eyes. Underwater, he is never still, always moving, always pointing to something interesting (whether it's a pretty sizable black tip shark - today, for example - or a tiny nudibranch). On shore, he is almost a renaissance man: he can help you build a house, he can engineer various useful devices for mass production on the island, he can spear fish, he can this, he can that; as far as I can tell from the stories, he can pretty much do anything.

My super-conservative computer played an evil joke on me today. We went to the Eagle Ray City. And there were 18 eagle rays this time! However, I was able to see only 3 of those... The dive at this location is usually like this: you drop to 80-90 feet, fight against a pretty strong current for some time to get to a chasm where eagle rays may or may not hang out, hook your arm around a sponge at the bottom (around 85 feet) in order not to fly away, and stay put until eagle rays appear or you run out of air or your computer orders you to come up due to decompression limits, whichever comes first. All the three previous times I have been fortunate to first see the eagle rays, but this time no such luck: I was holding tight onto a sponge, thinking how funny it was to feel like a flag trembling in the powerful wind, ready to fall off its post, when I heard my computer beep angrily. Apparently, although I was diving nitrox, I had only 1 minute left before I was ready to hit the decompression limit. I signaled Aristeo, "What do you want me to do?" He signaled back, "The rest of the group has normal computers:). Come up a little. I will reel out the line for you to hold on to". I thought about it for a second: if the eagle rays were already there, it would make sense for me to screw the decompression limits and stay, but who knows if they will ever appear, I better come up and not mess up with my stupid Suunto (I heard stories that sometimes this computer never goes out of the decompression mode once it's in it, that was an additional motivation not to risk it). I came up to 70 feet. That was good enough for a minute or two before my computer got angry again and demanded that I go higher. So slowly but surely up, up, up I went, until the frustrating beeping stopped around 40 feet. As usual, the current in the top layer was even stronger than at the bottom, so in a matter of seconds I didn't see the group and could only notice their bubbles at the very surface. For the next 15-20 minutes I just hovered over there, careful not to hang onto the line but rather just OK around it in order not to lose it, so that Aristeo could keep his hand (it is VERY difficult to hold the line from such a depth, as the buoy really pushes it out onto the surface, but being a true macho he survived, of course, although I saw him vigorously massaging his wrist when we finally reconvened). I did see 3 eagle rays very close, right in front of my nose. I saw a giant, couch-size, grouper. I saw a nurse shark. But most of all I just enjoyed my "solo" dive on the reel line - it is a very cool feeling to be alone in the ocean. Of course, I would never feel as comfortable if I were truly alone, so I welcomed the opportunity to cheat a little feeling the safety of Aristeo's line between my fingers. When we surfaced, it turned out that a couple of minutes after I "left", 18 eagle rays came to the site, and the rest of the group (diving air) all went into decompression watching them, so it was a loooong safety stop. But, obviously, it was so worth it!


The weird consequence of the Eagle Ray City diving for me is a pressure headache that later in the day turns into a migraine. The first 3 times it happened, I was trying to convince myself it was a coincidence. But this is the 4th time on the site, and same thing. There must be something. Could it be that my beloved eagle rays exude some weird energy that my sensitive head picks up? Or maybe it's just a different dive profile that does it to me - usually, we do multi-level dives, and never stay so deep for so long? It could also potentially be the different breathing through the work-out against the current. I don't know... But it's ok, I can totally handle it. Now everybody went to dinner, and since I couldn't join due to my delicate head condition, I spent 5 hours under the villa's palapa. Alone. Not moving. My body and mind completely still. Watching the sunset, and then the night.