There are lots of places in the world where you might see a few sharks, but only a few
places where you can see lots of sharks.
One of the most remote is a rock called Malpelo in the eastern Pacific. It's about 250 miles
from Panama and 300 from Columbia. I organised a trip for nine of us to go there on a sailing
boat. It didn't turn out quite as we expected.
We do some pretty adventurous diving and one of the common elements of those diving trips
is that there is a skipper who's a diver himself and he's geared up to enabling you
to have the best possible dive.
And then there's a company you keep. We keep good company, I think. We're from quite different
walks of life. I mean, we all obviously have the means to go on adventurous trips, but
we're not all the same, but we all have the essential things in common. We enjoy each
other's company, both in and out of the water. We have a good sense of humour and we appreciate
all the different things that diving has to offer.
We started with a few good days in Panama. We had some good cocktails. The weather was
lovely and sunny.
And then we took a domestic flight from Panama City to David on the coast, where we joined
the boat, the Inula and Catamaran.
Initially when we got on it, we thought, hmm, it seemed better days this boat, but we sort
of grown to like it and as long as you don't get in the way of any of the bits that fall
off it, it's okay.
It's a north wind blowing and we actually sailed there quite a lot of the way, which
was fantastic. I loved sailing.
It was Richard's birthday, so we turned the engines off and we all had a little swim around
the boat and I must say it's probably the most remote wild swim I think any of us will
ever do.
We got there sort of in the very early hours of the morning and what woke me up were the
birds. I can hear the birds.
Malpilos are a pretty serious place for divers. There are unpredictable currents which can
sweep your way and if your boat fails to spot you when you surface, your chances of being
picked up are very slim.
The conditions weren't ideal for diving, but we've got some good dives. I managed to
see some hammerheads, albeit in the murky waters some way off and it was pretty impressive.
It leaves you with a sense there's unfinished business there you'd like to go back on better
conditions, but that's just the way it is. What do you expect in the middle of the Pacific
Ocean? It's not necessarily going to be flat calm, so maybe for another trip.
Conditions on Malpilos were just not good. There was very bad visibility there. We had
strong winds, we had a bad forecast, we had strong currents. We were not able to get some
place to go down and most of all we had no mooring. Because there was no way to moor
or to anchor, Arvid decided to let Anula drift away from the island so that everyone could
get some sleep. It worked okay and everyone had a comfortable night, but by the morning
we'd drifted 18 miles towards Galapagos. The engines started to play up, which some
people took in their stride. Anula was slamming into the waves and she was starting to take
some quite serious damage. That moment I thought, oh this is a bit more of an adventure
than I'd bargained for actually. And I was thinking, nobody knows where we are. It took
over six hours to get back to the shelter of the island. I thought, you know, somehow
we're going to solve these problems there. I mean, it was a thrill, but I thought, you
know, we'd do something out of it. You know, that's the things we'd be talking about later
and we'd be laughing about later maybe. The weather forecast was for the winter drop over
the night and then pick up from the north again two days later. So if we stayed, we'd
have a 200 mile journey to Panama straight into a strong wind and that would be hard
on the boat and even harder on the crew. And considering all this, we, the entire group
made the decision to leave Matelo earlier and return into Panama water for the first
time in 12 years for operation in Central American water. In many ways it's actually
been better and more memorable than it might have been if it had gone according to plan
because large encounters with hammerheads and stuff like that I have seen in Galapagos.
But what I haven't done is been at sea when you just think, I don't quite think I've
slipped into a disaster movie, but we're getting to something quite adventurous and quite memorable
and the one thing don't pan out as everybody's expected. You really appreciate the company
that you are in. Actually choosing to go back wasn't too
hard because the island of Coiba where we were headed is also a world heritage site
and a marine reserve with world class diving. It hasn't been fantastic clear water, but
it has been different conditions, combinations of visibility and life and temperature, different
conditions to anything I've experienced before. So the whole trip has just been unexpected
and different which is like a proper adventure really, it's amazing.
It's been really good, sort of the thermoclines with the changes in temperature and visibility
and currents have been really interesting and the sea, the fish life, the pelagic life
has been stunning. Big shoals of fish, jacks, trivali, sharks from most dives really.
The unusual conditions which drove us back from Milpilo were caused by the biggest El
Nino on record. It's a fluctuation in the temperature of the eastern Pacific Ocean.
While we were seeing bleach corals on our dives, El Nino was causing floods and storms
in the UK.
The Hannibal Rock was good because it was deep and dark and just so many fish shoaling
around and it just felt like a good proper ocean place.
Real blue planet stuff.
So what makes a good trip for you?
Well probably the company first, the unexpected, good diving, challenging diving, things that
aren't easy that you know a lot of people haven't already done before and having good
fun at the same time with a good group of people that you like being with and have a
lot of respect for as divers as well. Everyone's up to the game, everyone's competent.
The people I'm diving with have been friends for a long time and I've dived hundreds of
dives with them and you don't get that any other way.
Before we even came here I thought it was going to be a very different dive trip from
my usual dive trip so I was expecting the unexpected really.
A trip like this would have been really difficult if everybody on the boat hadn't known each
other I think.
You know no prima donnas or anything like that, we all have a laugh. I think that's the main
thing when you're having a trip with people who are living with each other for 10-11 days.
Everybody's just had such a good time with it and I think that's helped the crew to
have a good time with it as well because it must have been tougher of it.
The boat really got beaten up on this trip and so did I basically.
Before we had a fabulous holiday, a slight disappointment that we didn't get the trip
we expected but sometimes when you overcome difficulties it makes more of an experience
and those are the situations that make the bonds between divers and make us keep going.
Arvid is my hero. We all need a bit of Arvid in our lives.
Put to me rich bits.
