Prior to arriving in Limassol my husband and I starting trawling the net for diving schools in the Limassol area and after communicating by e-mail with several of them we decided to book up with Aloha Divers. They told us that when we arrived we could call them and they'd come and pick us up from our hotel but we managed to find them quite easily ourselves. They are situated in the tourist area of Potamos Yermasoyias on the main road, beside the Pizza Hut.
They do special prices for dive packs of either 4 or 8 dives. We ended up doing 12 dives plus 2 on the Zenobia wreck. We paid approximately 12 Cypriot Pounds per dive (we had our own kit) except for the 2 dives on the Zenobia which cost £C50 and included transport to Larnaca and a buffet lunch on the dive boat.
There are a good variety of dives off the Limassol coast. Most of them are quite shallow making them ideal for inexperienced divers. All the dives we did were boat dives and it took us approximately half an hour to arrive at the sites. Aloha offer about 12 different dives in all (which can be checked out at their site - www.alohadivers.com) but, unfortunately, we didn't get to visit them all due to the American crisis which happened 2 days after we arrived. This meant that the water surrounding the Naval base where most of the wrecks are situated was closed off to tourists. Luckily for us, however, we managed to visit the Akrotiri fish reserve before that happened. That was one of the nicest dives I've done with loads to see including 2 canons, a bus, a small boat and a helicopter. The water was an amazing 26 degrees and the visibility was 30 metres plus. That same day we visited a wreck with a large air pocket and we all surfaced for a quick chat, which was an unusual experience considering we were about 15 metres under the water at the time. We visited an area called Shark's Cove which, despite the name, has no sharks, thankfully. It is a lovely area with quite a variety of marine life and a lot of little swim-throughs.
I was very impressed with Aloha Divers. The staff were all really nice and helpful and were all fluent in English (a couple were English Cypriots). The head instructor, Pani, who also drove the boat was incredibly efficient and there was no unnecessary hanging around. In between dives we were given bottles of water and fruit and biscuits. Although we had all our own kit, apart from tanks and weights, the school equipment seemed to be relatively new and in good condition.
The day trip to the Zenobia was amazing. The Zenobia is a large ferry from the Netherlands which sunk because there was something wrong with its balast. No deaths were incurred when it sank but its cargo, along with several large vehicles, remained on it making it a very interesting dive. When we arrived at the docks everybody's gear was loaded into a trolley and taken down to the dive boat. The journey out to the wreck was about 15 minutes. There were about 8 of us and 2 instructors led us round the wreck and took us inside a couple of the rooms within it. As the wreck lies on its side there was some tartan carpet hanging off the floor which looked very incongruous.
The buffet lunch, after we had finished our dives, was very nice. You don't have to be a diver to go on this trip as the boat is fairly big and there is plenty of room to sunbathe on the top deck. Two dives is definitely not enough to explore this wreck so I think we'll be staying in Larnaca the next time we go to Cyprus.
Limassol is not one of the nicest areas to stay in Cyprus but I think I would be tempted to return, if only to go diving with Aloha Divers again, as it was a really enjoyable experience.
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