Underwater Wonderland

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I arrived in Exmouth and checked in for the week! The longest I have ever spent in one place. Luckily the hostel is nice and clean. I'm here for so long as I'm starting my PADI Open Water Diving course. I had planned on arriving Wednesday afternoon and spending Thursday having a look round. After going to the dive shop and being given a 300 page manual and told to read it, I didn't get to do much sightseeing on Thursday.
The first two days of my dive course were spent in the classroom and the pool getting used to all the techniques I had learned. I was really lucky to have only two other people in the group which made things go much easier. On the third day we had a day off so a couple of us got some snorkeling gear from the dive centre and went to Turquoise Bay. The fish life started just a few metres off the shore and once over the coral the view was amazing. Thousands of fish, a few turtles and lots and lots of other interesting stuff.

The next day we were off to sea in a very large purpose built diving boat. We were all a little nervous as the sea is quite a bit deeper and bigger than the pool!! Luckily the sea is actually warmer than the pool which made things a bit more comfortable. The first dive was mainly to get used to going underwater and we only went to about 12 metres. On the second dive we practiced taking our masks off and all the other techniques we had leaned in the pool. On both dives we had plenty of time to go sight seeing. It was like being in a giant fish tank surrounded by literally millions of multi coloured fish. We even got to spot a few turtles, olive sea snakes and even a few white tip reef sharks.

We would leave in the morning at about 7am and get back for 2pm but after the diving all I wanted to do was rest. I'm not used to all the exertion. Unfortunately after the end of the first day at sea we had to complete our exam. Luckily for me it must have been easy or some of the information must have sunk in as I got 100%

The next day of dives we continued to go through the techniques we had leaned as well as doing some more sight seeing. By the end of dive 4 I was officially an Open Water Diver.

This not being enough for me, I signed up to the advanced open water course. Yet another manual to read. This time you start to specialise in activities. You have to do a deep water dive and an underwater navigation dive then you get to choose from a list of other activities. I'm doing two more dives learning about the fish and coral etc and then 2 dives leaning underwater photography.

This morning we did the deep dive which didn't go to plan as the visibility was less than 1 metre. Although we got down there the visibility was so bad and the current was so strong that we couldn't go and do anything that we wanted to. Time does seem to go very quickly as we still managed to be underwater for 20 minutes.
Our second dive of the day was a lot better. We practiced the underwater navigation and managed it really well and then went off for a look round. The coral at this sight was really big and we were able to swim under and through it. Just before we were about to ascend I spotted a shark in one of the caves. It was the biggest we have seen so far, about 3 metres long. Luckily it stayed there and we all got out alive.

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Comments

[amanda]

book
wow, u clever man, i just hope u r gonna write a book when u get back.