Advertisement
Published: September 14th 2007
Edit Blog Post
Scuba Ellie
Setting up equipment Started my PADI Open Water Course on Sunday! Our group was Gemma, Katie H, Natalie and me and we were going to be instructed by Jon. He taught us how to set up our equipment - the jacket (Buoyancy Control Device or BCD), weights, regulators or air sources, tank, mask and so on. My new nickname is Wide Face because I got the bigger mask to fit my chubby cheeks in!!! We then went into fairly shallow water to do a few basic skills.
We learnt how to clear our mask (filling up our masks with water then lifting your head up while breathing out through your nose to clear the water out), recovering your regulator if it comes out (you have to keep exhaling under water even without the regulator in), and sharing your air source with your buddy if you run out of air. Then we went for a dive for 40 mins around the reef down to 8 metres! We were bobbing up and down a bit as you've got to try and sort out your buoyancy so that you are weightless in the water instead of going up and down like corks in the water! But
Diving Divas
Katie, Natalie, Me and Gemma otherwise it was great. Saw giant clams (wave your hand over them and they disappear), nudibranches (great name for pretty mollusc things!) and of course clownfish (aka nemo's)! Wave your hand above Nemo and he'll come up to say hello.
Julie and I did our turtle watch from 9-1am, nothing to report, but there were some pretty fishing boats offshore so a few of us stayed on the beach in the evening chatting. It's so relaxing to hear the sea and everything's so laidback. Had lots of studying to do though for the course, big textbook to work through for the big final exam! No rest for the wicked!!
2nd day of diving; we did a few more skills and 2 dives. Swapping from regulator to snorkel, towing a tired diver, sorting our cramp, swimming without a mask on and removing and replacing your BCD and weights underwater. Also discovered what it feels like to run out of air which is surprisingly not as panicky as you'd think. Went down to 11m and saw damsel fish who
HUGE thunderstorm on Mon night, the wind just suddenly appeared and the sky went black - never heard such loud thunder in my life! Was a great sight from the beach, watched the storm for a few hours. I was hoping the lightening wasn't going to strike one of our wooden huts!
Day 3: Went on two boat dives to Teluk Gadom and Seabell Rock (great name) just round the corner from our reef. Narrowly missed seeing a parrotfish but we were too slow off the boat! (Love tipping backwards off the boat by the way! Like a ride!) The 2nd dive started off hilariously as I had my wet suit insude out, put someone else's fins on and got all tangled up with my BCD and air sources - and that's before I even got in the water! My tank was dangling off one shoulder off the side of the boat and everyone was laughing too hard to help me! Not going to live that one down in a hurry!
What great fish though offshore: big puffer fish, two stingrays, a crocodile needlefish and a black tip reef shark swam above us! Could almost hear the Jaws theme tune!
Last day of the PADI today - went to De Lagoon on the other side of the other island (Kecil) and saw a big scary stingray (which I've hopefully got a pic of), schools of batfish and parrotfish, and cleaner shrimp - which if you hold your hands out to will give you a manicure! Jon motioned to us to come slowly down to the sea bed, which me and Katie did, but then Gemma came launching in with arms waving, creating a mini tornado on the sea floor! Jon was like 'Nooooo' but she couldn't stop and the cleaner shrimp were scared off! We laughed so much about this once we'd come back up to the surface - Hurricane Gemma!
Had our final multiple choice exam which we all passed - I got 49/50 (but should have got full marks, just read the multiple choices wrongly! Gutted!) So now I'm a qualified diver woohoo! Had a couple of Tiger beers to celebrate! We're going to go on some fun dives once everyone has passed their tests.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.084s; Tpl: 0.009s; cc: 9; qc: 48; dbt: 0.0481s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb