Due to the increase in wind speed and direction we were found by Rupert and asked to make our way back to the zodiacs, as Troels and the Captain had decided that we needed to head back to the ship as soon as possible. The drivers had made an ‘checkout dive’ which we found out means that they set off from the beach and were only in two metres of water, which allowed them to test out their equipment and get accustomed to the extra heavy steel scuba tanks. It also meant that their zodiac was at the beach, so when we got back there we were asked to get in and head back to the boat. Mike was driving it and as we got pushed by the wind off the shore Mike tried to start the engine and nothing happened, the damn thing wouldn’t start! The weather was really windy and the waves were fairly big, so we spent the first few minutes drifting aimlessly away from the shore. We had 10 people plus Mike and a zodiac full of diving gear so we were pretty heavy to say the least. Mike couldn’t get Troels on the radio

so he radioed to the ship and they got a message to the beach and within seconds another zodiac was heading out to rescue us! The other zodiac pulled up beside us and a rope was attached, phew! We were on our way, all good we thought! I’m not sure why this happened whether it was due to us being heavily loaded or the swell of the sea, but at one point the whole front of our zodiac went under water and we all looked rather nervously at Mike, who was at this point yelling to the front zodiac driver to stop! Thankfully the Russian zodiac driver understood and did just that. The zodiac was swimming with water and we had to transfer a few passengers over to the towing zodiac! It must have been fairly scary for anyone having to make that kind of zodiac transfer in water with waves up to a meter high!

Thankfully after redistributing the weight we had a bumpy, but easy ride back to the ship. I