View of the jetty and dive center at sunset - nice, isnīt it?

Next thing was getting our stuff over to the dive center, which is located at the jetty. They have three boats they use for diving. Each of the boats is equipped with two engines (150 or 125 horsepower respectively). The boats have seats and storage room for up to 12 divers plus dive guides. (The size of the groups usually is much smaller - just 4 to six divers). 
The dive masters always try to form groups with similar interests and qualifications (e.g. "muck diving" and looking for "small stuff" like frogfish, gobies, ghost pipe fish, nudibranches etc. for the macro-photographers or coral garden-style dive spots for divers who prefer diving with lots of colorful fish and other sea life). 

 

The dive center seen from the helipad
 

At the dive center we where shown around by the very friendly stuff and given a basket each where we could leave our mask, fins and other small items. We were traveling with our own equipment as usual, but if you need to rent something this is no problem at all - they have some equipment to rent which is in good shape and works well. Minor problems on your own equipment (e.g. a leaking second stage) can be fixed right on the spot. 

Here you can keep the small parts of your equipment when not in use. 
The BCDs and regulators are hung on racks at night and installed on the tank the next morning.

The tanks (Luxfer 11,2 l aluminum with INT valves) are filled by three Bauer-compressors which are taken very good care of. Since a lot of the divers who come to Lankayan are interested in photography or taking videos the dive centers caters their needs perfectly: they have freshwater basins for rinsing your cameras after the dive and for checking the correct seat of all the O-rings located very conveniently right at the starting point for the dives.

 

Three Bauer-compressors