Story By Steve Warren

Photography By Andrew Pugsley and Steve Warren

The Atlantic rollers above me have travelled thousands of miles to pitch themselves defiantly against the walls of a small Lanzarote cove. As waves shatter and fall back to reform, other waves relentlessly take their place. The endless cycle threshes the ocean's surface to foam. A heavily weighted rope leads from the seabed up through this flowing ceiling and out of sight. The diver ahead of me removes his fins and hangs them from his wrist. He seizes the line and rides his BCD up the rope. His upper body disappears from my view. His feet struggle momentarily for a foot hold and then the diver breaks through. I remove my own fins and prepare to exit. My dive through Skulls, and my time on Lanzarote is nearly at an end. It's been an exhilarating last dive.

The Island of Lanzarote lies 100 kilometres off Morocco and is the largest of the Canary Islands. Throughout 2007 members of the Ocean Optics-Mavericks Diving London team have been checking out possible dive locations we can bring our clients to with confidence. Lanzarote had been on my mind for several years and Mavericks Diving's chief instructor Andrew, known as AJ, and I are hoping for good diving and to find dive centres that can offer a personalised and flexible service for small groups. We like diving to be an individual experience and neither of us wants to put fifteen people at once onto a small dive site to follow a bored divemaster around the house reef like tourists quick-stepping the streets of London. We've based ourselves at a villa in Oasis De Nazaret. Casa Lulu has three bedrooms, one of which is en suite, a roomy living area, a kitchen and, essentially, a swimming pool. Our landlord, Peter Harrington, is waiting for us at Arrecife airport. He's a Britsh expat who fell in love with Lanzarote on holiday. Soon he made the great escape to the island and has never looked back. He and wife Carole offer a small portfolio of very comfortable villas for visitors. Our hire car is in the driveway and our welcome pack is sitting on the kitchen table. Rubicon Diving is our first port of call. The centre is located inside the impressive and sprawling Rubicon Marina. Owner Chris greets us enthusiastically and is clearly very proud of his dive centre---and justifiably so. The dive centre has a spacious shop with high-end brands competing for space. There's a classroom and an impressive filling station with numerous Bauer compressors and a huge bank of gas bottles to supply air, nitrox, trimix and oxygen to the numerous technical diving enthusiasts Rubicon Diving attracts. Chris has a practiced eye for detail from his days working for one of the largest American hotel chains. The large changing rooms (one for the ladies and one for the men) are decked out with private showers with soap dispensers. Returning divers are greeted with hot drinks and biscuits. And Chris has taken care to site Rubicon Diving on the water's edge. As we arrived, Rubicon Diving's two 8.5 m rigid-hulled inflatable boats pulled into the private dock alongside the dive centre. AJ remarks approvingly on the neatly coiled and stowed mooring lines. The first dive is a checkout. We back roll off the RIB into 22°C water with viz edging out at 25 m or so. A lazy arc takes us over, along and around a blocky reef. A few damselfish dot the water column. Back at base, AJ elects to dive again. I'm classroom bound, having chosen to take a PADI Enriched Air course at Rubicon Diving. AJ returns beaming. He's seen an angel shark, a species for which Lanzarote is famed and on my own hit list for this trip. I feign nonchalance and guilt trip him into explaining how to crack some apparently infant school mathematical formulas which had completely foxed me. With basic nitrox theory passed I can look forward to day two at Rubicon Diving. Although here to check out Lanzarote as a holiday destination, we also wanted to increase our own diving experience and knowledge. So I booked AJ and myself onto a PADI semi-closed-circuit rebreather course. Which is how, the next morning, I found myself examining a disassembled Dräger Dolphin rebreather. Normal open-circuit scuba is gas inefficient. We use only the oxygen from the air in our tanks and not much of that. Most of what we inhale and exhale is simply wasted. A closed-circuit rebreather is much more gas efficient, circulating almost all of the breathing gas for reuse. Semi-closed sits in the middle. Exhaled carbon dioxide is removed by a scrubber---a chemical reaction takes place as the gas you've breathed out passes through a canister packed with soda lime. With the gas cleaned, you can rebreathe it---up to a point. Although you've removed the carbon dioxide, you still need to replace the oxygen you've metabolised. A free-flow system bleeds pre-mixed nitrox from a small cylinder into your breathing bag or counterlung. It's a simple concept---remove the waste gas and top up the diminishing oxygen. The Dolphin is mechanical. Most closed-circuit rebreathers are controlled by electronics that can mix gases on the fly for the optimum breathing mix. The Dolphin can't, so pre-dive you estimate your work rate and adjust the freeflow to ensure you'll always get enough oxygen. Because of the freeflow, the counterlung overfills periodically and so the Dolphin vents off a few bubbles every now and then. The Dräger Dolphin rebreather breaks down into just a few components. A cowling, attached to a BCD. A twin-hose breathing loop. A flow valve that sits in the middle like a Cybermans heart with hoses leading off it. Two bags, one small, one large, through which you breathe, an underslung bottle of nitrox and a canister of soda lime that absorbs the poisonous carbon dioxide from your exhaled air. Oh, and a bail-out pony tank and valve for emergencies. With our Dräger Dolphins slowly pulsing bubbles every few seconds, we begin our explorations. Skills are pretty basic. We have to demonstrate the ability to locate and clear our mouthpieces and switch from the Dolphin SCR's breathing loop to the pony bottle. But buoyancy control is a new concept with a rebreather. Subtle breath control, the mark of a skilled open-circuit diver, is useless for adjusting buoyancy with a rebreather. Inhaling to rise and exhaling to sink doesn't work as gas simply shunts back and forth between your own lungs and the Dolphin's counterlungs. Your buoyancy never changes. Like the newbie scuba divers we once were, we now rely solely upon our BCDs to adjust our position in the water. Dive one sent me all over the place as instinct overcame knowledge and I'd still try to control my buoyancy with breath control. Facing a huge archway that I'd have showily barrel-rolled through on open circuit, I'd swam around it on the Dräger Dolphin. I wasn't certain that I'd actually collide with it. But then I was not certain I wouldn't either. By our last dive with the SCR, I was more confident. A long rocky ledge divided the sand flats. Five or six metres wide, an undercut has formed right through it. The roof was low---less than a metre high. Carefully, I balanced out my BCD with squirts of the direct feed and followed AJ into the split. We remained inside photographing arrow crabs and sea urchins. Lanzarote has sea urchins that can do a real mischief. Basically, they have bloody long spines. It's a good incentive to get the buoyancy right. Emerging from the undercut we continued our dive through some beautiful coral gardens and grottos. As we returned towards the RIB, we crossed a small wreck, flattened into the sea bed except for a few plates and her prop sitting atop the sand. Small fish hung everywhere. Rubicon Diving provides free nitrox to anyone who is qualified to use it. Taking advantage of reduced surface intervals, Rubicon Diving are able to run an incredibly efficient operation. Dives run virtually back to back and to time. For divers with non-diving partners or family, Rubicon Diving has an edge. You know you can make two morning dives and be back for lunch with the rest of the day for sightseeing and other holiday activities. AJ and I lunch with Chris at a pleasant harbour restaurant a few hundred metres from the Rubicon Diving complex. He's still ambitious for his dive centre. Even on the scale it alredy is, it isn't enough for Chris. It still isn't all it can and will be. A walk along the dock brings us to Chris's sport fishing cruiser. He invites us on board and talks about using her for private scuba trips far offshore. In summer he'll also operate a tourist submarine, taking non-diving passengers to see the world he's so enthralled with. Chris wants a hyperbaric centre next. His own passion is technical diving. While we've been visiting Rubicon Diving, Chris has been donning the big tanks and making the big dives. He's totally hands on. Lanzarote is awash with expats chasing the sun and a more relaxed pace of life. Not that the Brits don't miss some aspects of the UK. Carole Harrington had requested AJ and I raid Marks and Sparks for chocolates. Firmly insiders, the Harrington's invite us to their favourite local Lanzarote owned and run restaurant. They are excellent hosts and fine company and the evening passes all too quickly. It's one of the aspects of Mavericks Diving travel we're keen to make the most of, getting away from the usual tourist haunts and enjoying the behind the scenes restaurants, cafes and bars. We've had a lucky break hooking up with Peter and Carole. Atlantida Diving is a much more modest---and intimate---dive centre than Rubicon Diving. It's set in a Costa Teguise high street. Paul Moffat greets us enthusiastically. He's a good northerner and a straight talker. He's quick to point out that Rubicon Diving is out on its own. And that's true. Rubicon Diving does everything on a grand scale. Paul, by his own admission, isn't in that league. But that, I feel, is his strength. Atlantida Diving is a family business. Paul's father was a diver and Paul got into the sport in the '70s. Paul will share showing us his preferred dive sites with his elder son, seventeen year old Alex. There's a lively banter between father and son and you either like it and go with it or you don't. If one word sums up diving with Atlantida it's inclusion. You feel instantly that you're diving not with a commercial operation, but with your friends. Paul Moffat is quietly giving out get out clauses as we follow the winding dirt tracks towards Skulls. It's a dive Paul is keen to show us. Out to sea we can see the rollers trundling in and salt-laden spray dampens the air on top of the sea cliffs. Paul has said during the approach that it's 50/50 at best we'll be able to dive. Now he's making it very clear that anyone with second thoughts about making this dive should walk away. Paul does this in a straightforward way that doesn't challenge the size of your cojones. As an accomplished technical and cave diver, Paul understands some dives are best walked away from. It's choppy and the exit will be difficult. AJ, younger and fitter than I, would enjoy the challenge. Standing over the water and looking down, I make my decision. It's not for me. Not today. We've wasted the morning. Actually, we haven't at all. It's provided a valuable insight into how Paul and Alex work. Atlantida Diving doesn't have a dive schedule posted. There's no regimentation. You turn up each morning and a day's diving is planned out over coffee and tea taking into account the prevailing weather, ability level of the divers and what they'd like to see. Paul was happy to drive out to the Skulls divesite, have me make a no go decision and turn right around and dive somewhere else. It's a refreshing combination and part of the Atlantida magic that speaks volumes for the Moffat philosophy. An hour or so later and we submerge under the mirror calm waters of a small beach. Just a few metres from the shoreline already busy with swimmers, the gentle sand slope suddenly falls away in a steep incline. Readying my Fuji F30 underwater camera as I drop down, the bleeping of my Suunto Vyper takes me by surprise. I'm already at 30 m. Alex Moffat---Mophead---is taking us for an audience with one of Lanzarote's most celebrated residents. Bob. Perched precariously on the slope is a small wreck, part of an artificial reef program. With my Suunto's no decompression limits falling fast, I recall underwater photography guru Martin Edge's advice to concentrate my camera on the features of the boat a topside audience can readily identify. I take up station at the bow which is nosing off the sand spit, and shoot furiously, alternating between the F30's underwater colour correction mode, pure sunlight and flash from my Inon D-2000 strobe. Alex is hanging out a little above me, keeping watch. We move on, following the edge of the still steepening wall. And as we come around a blind corner, Bob rises to greet us. Bob is a grouper of some presence. Long and rotund, Bob investigates each diver in turn, sometimes nose to mask. It's a great encounter. With our computers and air reserves driving us we ascend into shallower waters. Over the sand, the sunlight brightens the water. The terrain is rugged. We circle back through an archway. Like snipers, we each take up a position intending to photograph the other divers perfectly framed in the hoop. And nothing happens as all of us, cameras at the ready, wait for someone to blink. Slightly higher up, a field of garden eels stand proudly to attention observing our approach. As I move in for a shot, I suddenly realise I'm in a crop circle. I'm encircled by Garden eels, but none are close enough to shoot. As I move the eels duck down ahead of me and rise up behind. Finally, realising I can't sneak up on them, I try a new trick. I set the Fuji F30's self timer and lay the camera down near a hole in the sand and back away. It's a total failure---other than that it amuses Mophead, ever watchful of his charges, but never in your face, to see me punch the water in exasperation and defeat. Moving on, we find shoaling damselfish, barracuda and stingrays. I wonder if the swimmers splashing around know what they're missing. Or what Alex has just found lurking nearby. Alex is carefully wafting the sand from the seabed. Through the cloud, a 1.2 metre-long animal starts to take shape. Angel sharks are well over half way from being rays to becoming full on sharks. They have flattened bodies, much like a thick bodied ray. But the fins are more clearly separated and their heads are much more shark-like. They swim with the signature undulating wave of a real shark. But it's unlikely they'll ever completely morph. Most sharks have attained near perfection and have paused their evolution indefinitely. The european angel shark is considered critically endangered by the World Conservation Union, indicating stocks may have fallen by as much as 90% in as little as ten years. Angel sharks bury themselves beneath the sand to ambush prey. They are really hard to spot, despite the size of the animals which may reach 2 metres. Angel sharks even fold their long tail fins under the sand. Alex has his eye in. Later, over a beer, I learn more about Paul. He's just declined to certify a PADI Advanced Open Water candidate. He believes the student isn't ready. The student, in on the conversation, couldn't agree more. Atlantida is a business, but it's a huge compliment to say it really doesn't feel like one. Paul is driven by an ingrained passion for diving---and not for the fast buck. He's just done his student a huge favour and the student recognises that. Cave diving is Paul Moffat's draw. He's planning big pushes into some very long tunnels. Diver propulsion vehicles are already on order. We've another day ahead left to check out Atlantida. We don't need it. Out of earshot, AJ and I quietly agree this is a guy we really want to work with. Back at the Skulls Cove, Paul Moffat is suddenly serious. I've just made my usual pact with AJ that if one of us buys it, the other gets the Alize regulator needed to complete our respective collections. It's a comment made in jest, but Paul growls that no one's getting hurt on his watch. Once in the water, we follow Paul along a bouldered seascape until he stops, exchanges okays with each of the group, and disappears through a small gap in the rocks. I switch on the modelling light on my Inon D-2000 strobe and carefully slide in behind him. I find myself in a tunnel little wider than I am. The passage isn't level. It pitches downwards ahead of me. The chimney is a single file dive. The challenge and the fun is to pick your way through the weaving passages without colliding with the rocks or your buddy. While moving constantly, you still need to reach for your pressure gauge and monitor your air. AJ and I do this while shooting pictures one handed. Photographs aren't my only record of this dive though. A moment of imprecise buoyancy control has finally resulted in an unfortunate Lanzarote urchin losing three spines it'll never see again. With my camera in my right hand, my left is clenched around my direct feed sipping air into my BCD to try and stay neutral. I've dropped through underwater chimneys in Gozo, but they were spacious, vertical and not mined with sea urchins. I'm shooting pictures almost blind. The modelling light in the strobe picks out only a fraction of my surroundings. An alcove carves into the wall beside me and I slip into it and turn to face the oncoming diver to get some alternative shots to Paul's fins and arse. AJ, poised carefully between floor and ceiling gets the blast from the Inon D-2000 full in the face (sorry!). He passes by and I rejoin the train. We're nearing thirty metres and beyond Paul's snaking form I can dimly see light. As we continue our winding descent the soft glow increases. The chimney spreads out into a bowl, large enough to comfortably hold several divers. As Paul moves aside, I can suddenly see that the sunlight streams in through two orbs. These are the eye sockets for which Skulls in so aptly named. The computers are ushering us up once more. AJ and I leave through an eye socket each. I turn and take a final look at Skulls staring back sightlessly at me. The Island of Angels and Skulls has me hooked. I'm already planning my return. Atlantida Dive Centre, Costa Teguise, Lanzarote.

Rubicon Diving Center, Playa Blanca, Lanzarote.

Villa Lulu, Oasis de Nazaret, Lanzarote.