More Diving

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On a quickfire trip such as this one, it’s often nice to get a sense of normality in our schedule. Whilst this was only day two of our diving, having a plan (of sorts) was quite nice.

We were up at 0600 and had breakfast at the Happy Light Hotel buffet once again. I finished the parts of the PADI knowledge reviews that I was too tired to complete the night before. We walked the 500 metres or so to Sailing Club Divers and boarded the van to the wharf at 0800.

Once on board we met Hannah, an english dive instructor who would be looking after us for the next couple of days, and throughout the 45 minute trip to Hon Mun we went through the written knowledge reviews and prepared for our first part of our five part Advanced Divers Certificate – Peak Buoyancy Performance.

Word had gotten around Sailing Club Divers that I sucked through the air so it was a welcome relief to see some 15 litre steel tanks sitting there for me to use. The 12 litre aluminium ones just weren’t cutting it.

We arrived at South Bay already kitted up. Of the 10 people on the boat, we were the first off as we had to complete three dives. We descended to 10 metres where the first task was to stay in one position for a minute – Jo achieved this with no problems whatsoever.

I was another story.

As this was only my 7th dive, I was still inexperienced and hadn’t really figured out exactly what I was doing. The steel tank was much heavier than I’d been used to and the bloody thing kept pulling me over on my back. A much better diver could control it but I was having all sorts of trouble. After what seemed like an eternity but was probably about five minutes, I managed to complete the task, having got my BCD air level correct after several failures.

Hannah must have wondered what she was getting herself in for. She then pulled out her knife (I didn’t think I was that bad) and I was relieved when she sank it into the sand with only the handle showing. We had to use breath control to come up to the end of the knife and place our noses on it. To my surprise we managed it first time.

The next task was to swim through 2 hula hoops, one on the ocean floor and one a foot or so above the first… all without touching the ground or the hoop itself. As I was now at a good buoyancy I managed it first time and Jo went through as if she’d been doing it all her life.

We surfaced 39 minutes later and I apologised for the start – promising that it could only get better.

We had to wait on the boat for 35 minutes before we could start the second dive – Navigation.

We had to swim along a 30 metre piece of rope, placed at 10.4 metres down on the ocean floor. Hannah timed us in each direction and we had to count the number of kick cycles it took us from start to finish. The results could be useful for knowing how far a swim may have taken you. This was followed by an out and back swim in a direction we were given and had to find on our compasses, however we were expected to use corals, light and landscape features to recognise where we were and where we had come from. Jo must be stronger on one side as she fell a little off course as a result of a natural, slow right hand turn… perfect for swimming in large circles. The final test was to swim a square, aided by our compasses. 15 kick cycles each direction. We both managed to find our way back to where we started. 32 minutes after leaving the boat, we were back on board.

Both dives had been at the balmy temperature of 26 degrees – just perfect.

We had the on board lunch of bananas, pineapple and chicken curry with rice as the boat headed to Moray Beach for our final dive – search and recovery.

Hannah showed us three knots that we’d need to tie underwater and told us what the plan for the dive was. We descended to 7.9 metres and began. A spoon was hidden in the sand and we had to use a piece of string to find it. I was the pivot and Jo swam circles around me at varying lengths. Once she completed 360 degrees I tugged on the string twice to let her know she was done. She found the spoon 200 degrees through her second rotation. We then had to find a weight belt using a U shaped navigation pattern… 15 kick cycles east, 5 north, 15 west, 5 north etc. Once we’d located the belt we had to tie the three knots and attach a bag to the top of the rope. This was slowly filled with air from the octy so that it became neutrally buoyant and would be easy to bring to the surface. Jo and Hannah took it to the surface while I tagged on for the trip. We were under for 28 minutes.

After a lousy start on my behalf I was starting to get the feel for it. Jo looked like she’d been born in the water.

We arrived back at Nha Trang Port about 1300 and went straight to The Veranda for some well earned lunch and beer. Pizzas were the order of the day – Jo had chicken and I went with the seafood. I also had 200 grams of the sea bass that was so good on our last visit to The Veranda. These were washed down with a nice cold Larue Beer.

As our accommodation had only been booked for one more night, we went back to Happy Light Hotel for a shower and to make a game plan for the following day. We wanted to take the 5 hour bus to Dalat but needed to have time to do so after we’d returned from our course.

We ended up doing a circuit of the backpacker and tourist area asking all the “travel agents” what our options were. The last bus out of Nha Trang was at 1400 – it would be tight as the dive boat usually arrived at the port between 1230 and 1330 each day.

After a stop at Romy’s Ice Cream (not the first time we’d been there) for a cappuccino double scoop (chocolate for Jo) we took a chance and booked two US$7 tickets to Dalat at 1400 the following day. We were told to be at the travel agents for a taxi to the train station at 1320. We suggested that probably wasn’t going to happen and that we’d be in touch.

We stopped for a quick beer at Why Not Bar as they had wifi and Jo managed to get a great deal on a four start hotel in Dalat – NZ$45 per night. We snapped it up and finally had a plan in place.

Whether it was going to work or not remained to be seen.

We still had some study to do for the two dives the following day so we headed back to the hotel. I was completely stuffed and asleep by 1930. I snored for an hour and a half I’m told.

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