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Published: March 26th 2006
Well I'm all done dive school. It was awesome! We go to do 5 dives (and some homework and a no-brainer final exam)and our instructor was a young Danish guy who was lots of fun. The first day we just watched a video but on the second day we went out for a shallow dive to practise some skills. It was a really neat feeling being weightless and breathing underwater. We were just in about 4-5 feet of water at first but we went down to 8 meters on the swim back to the boat....I was real thrilled and at the time 8 meters (about 24 feet) felt really deep.
Over the next few days we eventually went down to 18 meters and there's a lot more cool things to see. If I want to be certified for 30 meters I have to take the advanced course....haven't decided yet.
Anyways I got attacked by a Trigger Fish, which is a bastard of a little fish. They're very territiorial so they chase after you and try to bump or bite you. I was at the back of the group so the other couple in the class and the instructor didn't see the fish come after me. Now, I may sound like a bit of a wuss. The fish is only about a couple feet long and it's one of them flat tall fish so it doesn't look too mean...until it raises the fin on its forehead and starts showing its teeth at you. Luckily the instructor warned us about these little jerks so I knew to keep my scuba fins in between me and the fish. You're supposed to stay along the bottom and just swim away but I was panicking and swimming like a madman. The fish would charge, and then circle away and then charge again. So here's me on my back kicking this stupid fish as hard as I can, knowing that some other instructors had to get stitches after trigger fish encounters. Luckily I got far enough from his home and he swam away...no harm done. I don't think the other guys believed me when I told them I was attacked. It can be pretty nasty, one instrutor had chunks missing out of his fins and had to get stitches in his forhead from one of those buggers. But I had a good laugh about it after. A lot of the dive instructors get cocky and purposefully fight the Trigger Fish. Our instructor brought a little plastic samurai sword down with him on that dive looking for a fight but he never seen any Trigger Fish. On the next dive we had an underwater photographer diving with us and she got attacked too but she was used to it and got it all on camera.
We saw some other cool things too like, of course amazing coral, a clownfish (like Nemo), parrotfish, all sorts of other fish, and a stingray. Unfortunately, I saw no Moree Eels or sharks and no whale sharks(which are rare, but in season). I am going on a night dive tomorrow so that should be pretty cool. We can watch barracudas feeding and see phosphorescent plankton and stuff. But all this diving is eating up my cash so I'll probably be leaving, maybe back to Bangkok, after a few more days.
So basically I'm certified by SSI (Scuba Schools International) to dive anywhere in the world up to 18 meters. Not a bad deal. Definately if I go to Australia I'll be diving some more!
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Robin
non-member comment
HAHAHA
OHMIGOD!...Scott you made me laugh so hard, I could honestly picture you fighting that little guy off. Wow, the fish that you are describing are so unreal. I would love to see that sort of thing. Who knows maybe someday. Well if you enjoy it, don't worry about the money, you should just enjoy the experience!! Have fun love ya!