Lanzarote - July 2003

We have a general holiday rule and that is not to go back to the same place twice. That is, have a good holiday and remember it as that and go somewhere different next time. Well this year we modified the rule slightly and went back to the island of Lanzarote. It was 4 years since the previous time and we were staying in a different town and also self catering (last time we were in a hotel in a family room). The family were also a little older and probably not looking forward to following us around everywhere this time anyhow. We booked the trip through the internet. Flights were direct from Norwich, within 15 miles of our home. The apartment was located for us by the company that we booked the flights with, although another time we would probably try a local source. At the airport we were met by Rafael of Canal Travel. By booking direct with them we saved the normal hassle of waiting for taxi etc. their minibus cost only 36 Euro for our collection and return at the end of the holiday. Well worth the effort to book ahead at www.canaltravel.com . Their cost does depend on where you are staying relative to the airport but the service is absolutely superb.

We stayed in the town of Puerto del Carmen so that myself and wife could go diving while our girls enjoyed themselves by the pool etc. Our apartment was around 2 km along the beach from Safari Diving. OK, this was the dive outfit that I found last visit but this time we were there as experienced divers who largely looked after our own dive program. Safari are a very friendly outfit run by a Dutch couple Rene and Dea van Leeuwen. I booked a course of dives directly with Rene via the internet before the holiday started. They now have a new agent for the UK (see details below) so this will be even easier for the future.

Right on the beach - no long drives or walks with full kit!

On the first morning I made the walk along the beach to Safari Diving and met Rene and my old chum Georg Reichelmann who I also rembered from my previous visit. Georg is now the manager of the dive store but he still gets to dive with students and regular divers. Rene kindly offered to pick myself and Sue up the following morning and get our dive kits down to the store. There are plenty of storage boxes which can be used for kit during the holiday and hangers for suits and BCDs. We paid the mandatory recompression charge which all divers in Lanazarote contribute to the upkeep of the recompression centre and just started diving.

The following pictures were taken by artificial light on my Olympus C40 Zoom with PT-012 underwater housing. This housing is rated to 40m which is very good for standard digital cameras. Average visibility was 15 to 25 metres so although the deeper ones are very blue the general quality is fairly good for holiday snaps. I tend to take most of the pics at medium resolution of 2272 x 1704 pixels in full auto mode. This gives at least 120 shots on a 128Mb Smartmedia card and does allow for some re-selection after the dive. I reduce these to 800 x 600 for the web but the original pictures do print very well even after some cropping.

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Safari Diving can be found on the web at http://www.safaridiving.com If you want to book a package of dives in advance, they also have new U.K. Agents, Wendy & Steve Hicks, who are both qualified scuba divers and live in Hemel Hempstead Hertfordshire. They can be reached by e-mail at ukagent@safaridiving.com

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