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Published: April 4th 2007
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Kitting up
Something that will get better with practice - getting the gear ready pre-dive! Blogger Dougo Today was Day 3 of my Open Water Dive Course.
Day 1: I spent a lot of time sitting watching a DVD and doing lots of theory with my German instructor, Jason. At the end of the day I kitted up and went and tried a few skills in the pool. Pretty easy really due to the fact that the pool was maybe 10 ft by 4 ft and only a metre deep. I had forgotten how foul chlorinated water tastes.
Day 2: Arrived at 9:30am and Jason informed me that we were going straight into the ocean to do some skills. I had a buddy today, a guy from Sweden who's dive certificate was 35 years out of date. He was doing a refresher with me but I think he ought to do the whole course again.
Anyway, we got the equipment ready and then drove the 5 minutes down to Store Bay. It was a beach entry dive so we just drifted out over the pretty rough waves by Caribbean standards. We submerged to about 3m and did some more skill work before heading off to the reef. I was pretty nervous
Briefing
Jason giving me my pre-dive briefing. I am interested, honest! about equalising my ears coz I have had troubles in the past. They turned out to be fine. Visibility was pretty rubbish, only 5m due to the rough conditions and the reef had little colour due to the dull day. I found it difficult to manage my buoyancy and surfaced 3 times. After 50 minutes we surfaced and my first dive was over. A look at my pressure gauge was a good indication of how nervous I was. I only had 40 bar left!
Day 3 (today): BRILLIANT! Absolutely awesome. We headed down to Store Bay again and were greeted by calm, bright conditions. No buddy today so it was just me and Jason. We did some surface skills first and then went down to 5m for more skill work. The visibility today was amazing. Maybe 25m of amazing sites. We dived for 50 minutes making our way over and along the reef. We saw Green Moray eels hissing from their hiding places, Lion fish camouflaged as rocks, lobsters and a tiny juvenile drum fish. Schools of Sgt. Majors swam above our heads and parrot fish munched away at the coral. Totally awesome first dive of the day. I
Read to go
The wet suits were surprisingly good for communal ones. didn't surface once and started to get the hang of maintaining neutral buoyancy.
We surfaced and headed back to the dive shop for an hour of interval time before heading back out again. This time we saw a Spotted Moray, baby lobsters and the cutest baby squid that inked everywhere whenever we got to near. Highlight of this dive was spotting an octopus camouflaged against a coral fan. We had a closer look and it seemed to be sucking at the base of the fan. Suddenly a sizable crab comes darting out of a crevice and dug itself into the sandy bottom ten feet away. On the way back to the beach we saw tiny jellyfish gracefully gliding along with the current. Today was why I wanted to learn dive. The absolute abundance of fish and colour under the water was amazing. Tomorrow - Two boat dives. CAN'T WAIT!!
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louise
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GO NEMO!
Doug! how magical love your descriptive writingx beautiful imagery go inquirery risk taker !