PADI Open Water Course
I've just realised this is the only picture of coral bay I have that isn't at sunset... Anyway, here it is in all its gorgeousness. (I'm sure thats a big orange cloud to the right and definitely not my finger.)
Onto the PADI. As there was only 3 of us and no one had any major problems, we did the course in 4 days instead of 5. Days 1 and 2 were made up of watching videos about the things we should've read about in the PADI 'GO DIVE' manual we picked up earlier in the week. Days 3 and 4 were diving, the exam and sorting out any paperwork. We did the lessons in the morning then the practical stuff in the afternoon. You do all the practical stuff in the bay first (usually its done in a pool but Coral Bay is clear enough) then do it later on 'for real' in the sea. Heres the Dive and Whale Shark boat, the 'Manta Magic.'
After doing the final exam in the morning, we did our first dives on the 3rd afternoon. We went out to 'The Canyon' for our first dive. The Canyon is huge underwater reef where walls of coral rise 10 meters up either side of you and you swim right through the middle. In places it looked like something from Alien, especially with the huge (foot wide) clams. Eerie as it was, I still had the little lobster bloke from The Little Mermaid in my head... 'Darling its better down where its wetter, Take it from meee....Under da Sea.'
We practiced various bouyancy control techniques which are easy to work at in deeper water. At the end of the dive, Justin (the Instructor) asked us how long we thought we'd been down there, we all said between 15 and 20 minutes. We'd actually been down there closer to 45!
I decided to get my camera out for the second dive. Here's one of those 'im taking this myself' shots. I must remember to put my head forwards next time to cover my dead sexy double chin. The guy who looks like He-Man behind my shoulder is Justin the Instructor. When we said to him the previous day "So how much can we drink tonight?" "You'll be alright," he said "Just don't go mad." So we didn't.
That night, I think I'd been nursing a bottle of Strongbow Draught for about 2hrs when the rumours we'd heard about how drunk our instructor was, proved themselves. After seeing him shoot some Sambuca (or Sammy da Bouk if you're a barman from D.C.) he stumbled over towards us and went "What the blaady hell are you two doing up so late? You gotta dive tomorra?!?" From that point on, we knew Justin was one of us.
Anyway, here's Gareth removing his mask at the bottom of Lottie's Lagoon (Lottie was a huge bull ray that used to live here.) When we practiced this in the shallow stuff I actually found it harder because we only half filled the mask then cleared it (by holding the top of the mask and breathing out through my nose.) As my mask was still on, I kept breathing in slightly through my nose and my eyes stung because the salt water kept splashing on them. Its not nice being in discomfort under water. Personally I found it easier to just take my mask off (like this) and then its a new set of circumstances to get used to rather than a mix of two.
Next up was buddy breathing. You always dive with a buddy, and you always have an alternate regulator (the breathy thing) to share with your buddy should they need it. Here, im breathing from Gareth's alternate regulator with Femke (dutch girl, also on the course) in the background. G isn't in mid-punch, he's holding his arm out so when I'm breathing happily we can ascend to the surface together easily.
These are snappers, pretty big and inquisitive fish that would follow us round and swim amongst us wherever we went. They were a bit shy though, they'd swim along side for ages, then the moment I looked or tried motioning towards/at it, they'd suddenly swim off casually as if to say "Not me mate, Nah. I wasn't following you...'
One of the funniest things I saw down there was a fish toilet. Fish eat, er, food, from in the water and on the seabed. If they eat lots from the sea bed then they also suck up sand as well. At a certain time and place, a whole load of them will all swim in low and crap out a load of sand, which exits them in a lump and leaves a 'tail' of sand behind it. I swear it looks like a fish bombing run. All it needs is the soundtrack from 633 Squadron and it'd be perfect.
Heres me with a White Eyed Moray Eel. They're playful little things which'll sometimes swim into your BCD (Bouyancy Control Device - the inflatable jacket) and come with you wherever you dive. I kept making O's with my fingers and he kept swimming through which was fun.
These are some weird looking catfish that would all swim in the same spot together under a rock.
These were pretty cool, Christmas Tree Worms. Little filter feeding worms which live inside the coral, poke out what pretty much looks like little brightly coloured xmas tree. When you wave your hand or finger near one it suddenly disappears inside!
Us in our best Underwater Charlie's Angels pose... Me, G and Femke.
As part of the buddy system, you have to recognise when your buddy may be ill or in distress. If they're suffering from over exertion, you need to do the 'Tired Diver Push' where the tired diver fully inflates their BCD and the other diver pushes them from the fins (flippers) all the way to the boat. As everyone needs to practice this, I thought I'd treasure this most relaxing way of travelling while Gareth put on a brave face.
Dives 3 and 4 were at Lotties again and then Asho's Gap. Asho's is a Shark cleaning station where little cleaning fish nibble bigger fish (and sharks) to clean them. Going to Asho's and swimming with sharks is like going to a pub and getting a beer. Its a guaranteed thing. How many did we see? Two, Three, Ten? None. Not a sausage. (Its mostly reef sharks there, which are up to 3m long but would never attack humans) We did see other cool stuff though like turtles, box fish, blue spotted lagoon rays, barracuda and tons of tropical fish in different shapes and sizes.
I know its not a competition but I thought this was pretty cool, I always seemed to have the most air left when we came back to the surface. SCUBA (Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus) diving is all about taking long, slow, deep breaths and not exerting yourself. Make big, slow, scissor kicks and don't bother using your arms, they only increase drag. Now I've always found the whole deep yogic breathing thing interesting and overly exerting myself (and exercise in general) not that interesting, so this was perfect for me. Even Justin pointed it out that night in the pub, that he could tell I was really getting to it from the gaps between the long, slow stream of bubbles I was making when we were doing the underwater tests. It pretty much exemplifies a perfect sport for me, get knowledge, go down, chill out, see some amazing things, don't over exert myself, come out fitter.