Dive Boat Ino
04 October 2008 | Northwest Niue
Randy
It was another gray day today. These are often good days to go diving. The Ino crew had met some Marine Biology students ashore who knew some good spots up the island.
In the early afternoon, Hideko and I headed over to Ino to join the dive excursion. We tied our dinghy up on their mooring and piled on Ino, a 40 foot steel sloop. Ino's skipper, Marnix, is a young doctor from Kenya and he has British Ben, Divemaster Hanna, and Maria from Greece crewing for him. Jeff from Ogopgo and Paul from Independent Freedom also joined for the day. Add Mike and Doman, the marine bio guys, and you have a healthy crew of 10.
Ino is a pretty neat yacht. She has a lifting keel and can get into places even we can't with Swingin' on a Star. She also has a very open layout below making her feel large for a 40 footer. There is an identity crisis going on however. Marnix seems to think she is a sport fisher. They rarely leave the anchorage without a good five lines in the water. On the way to the dive site Ino picked up a 25 pound Wahoo. We had fantastic sashimi on the way to the dive.
Once at the site Paul and Maria stood off with Ino and the rest of us jumped in to check out an 80 foot chasm. It was a great dive. We were inspected by a huge snapper upon entry. We saw many sea snakes and a 6 foot moray, along with many interesting limestone formations.
It was a blustery day and we had a nice sail back to the anchorage. Everyone was enjoying Ben's coffee and tea on the way back to the mooring field, seeing as how the sun was not fulfilling its responsibilities today. Back at the boat Marnix distributed Wahoo to everyone as we all headed home for the night.
A very fun day indeed.