Cyprus Trip

In the summer of 1999 I was between jobs for 2 weeks, so madness struck and I decided to visit my Mother for a few days. She was thrilled, but this meant I had to spend over a day travelling* in order to join her and her husband at their vacation home in Cyprus.

I spent only 4 days in Cyprus, but did manage two, one-tank, afternoon dives. The dive school in Paphos I signed up with said they did a morning dive of 30m+ at 0830hrs and an afternoon dive of 10-15m at 1400hrs. I could not face the early mornings given I was 7 hours adrift from my normal time zone, so I signed up to dive the wreck of the "Vera K" and the "Amphorae Caves".

The "Vera K" was a 200m Lebanese freighter which ran aground in 1972 and was mined in 1974 as a shipping hazard. She lies, in 4 sections, in a sandy crater at 10m. At one end of the crater is a small arch which forms a simple swim-through. This was an excellent dive for taking photos (even if my lens did fog!) with visibility of at least 30m.  I recorded an 10.0m max. depth on a 65 minute dive, and a minimum water temp. of 29°C.
 
 

The "Amphorae Caves" is an area of reef that forms a number of small caves and swim-throughs. The area is so named because at least one of the caves has amphorae encrusted in the roof as a result of sea bed movements in the last 2000 years. Visibility was no more than 10m, and there was quite a heavy surge, making photography difficult. I recorded an 11.4m max. depth on a 43 minute dive, and a minimum water temp. of 28°C.

To be honest, from what I saw, Cyprus looks better above than below the water. This is probably unfair, so maybe I'll pop back and check out some of the other sites available sometime.