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Published: August 21st 2006
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"Under the sea, under the sea. Down where it's wetter, that's where its better, take it from me..."
OH MY GOD! I have just had THE most amazing, exciting, thrilling, nerve wracking, adrenaline filled 5 days and am now a certified open water diver 😊
The first 2 days were spent in at the training centre with half the day in the classroom learning all the theory and finding out how easy it was to die if we mucked up!The remainder was spent in the 4m deep pool getting used to using the equipment and doing skills like removing, replacing and clearing our masks, sharing air with our 'buddy'and descending and ascending slowly as well as getting used to equalising our ears as we descended(we resembled prunes by the end of both days!).
There were 22 of us training and for the pool sessions we were split into 3 groups. Christian (our instructor for the theory) took half our group and Aimii took the other half, whilst Ben took 4 others for whom german was their first language. Aimii had 7 of us of vary ages, nationalities and abilities but we all got on fantastically. At
this stage we also formed our 'buddy' pairs and these were the people we would stick together with and look out for on our dives. My buddy was Zelda; she was from Melbourne and just up in Cairns for a holiday and a bit of warmth.
At the end of the 2nd day we had a mutiple choice exam which we had to pass in order to proceed and go out to the reef the following day, which we all did.
On day 3 we were picked up at 6.15am, collected our dive eqipment and headed for the marina. It took us about 3hours to get out to the outer reefs and it was rather choppy so there were some green looking people (I think my Whitsunday trip has prepared me for any future ocean adventures!).
Then it was time to do our first open water dive; we took a little while to set up our equipment and then double,triple and quadruple check it. Suddenly reality hit; we realised that we were no longer going to be going down to 4m but 12m and there were a lot nervous but excited faces!
At 10.30 we headed to the duck
Our dive boat (home for 3 days!)
Well, actually it isn't our boat it's it's identical sister! board, did a giant stride and were suddenly bobbing around in the ocean 😊 We didn't do very much on the first dive - descended down to 10.5m and then followed Aimii on an underwater tour while we tried to get to grips with buoyancy - to begin with some people we bouncing off the bottom quite a lot! It was the most amazing feeling to be under the water, gliding about with the fishes whilst breathing as if on land!We were down for about 25mins but it rushed by and before we knew it, it was time to ascend again.
We did our second dive in the afternoon but this time we had to repeat a lot of our skill. The surface skills in particular were much harder because it was quite choppy. Whilst down at the bottom doing some of our skills, a green sea turtle swam past and we all stopped what we were doing, transfixed. it looked so beautiful and grafeful in the water.
Day four dawned v.early; we were woken up at 6am and there was just time for a quick coffee before we put on our cold, damp bikinis and wetsuits and got
kitted up.By 6.30 we were in the water, just as the sun was coming up. We were required to do more skills, most of which were fine but there was one i just couldn't get the hang of - it involved slowly ascending 6m on one breath, exhaling all the way up but i kept running out of air and taking a second breath half way up. After 4 attempts (getting more tired after each one) we decided to temporarily give up.
Before the fourth dive I was feeling the pressure because I knew that i had to master the CESA in the next and final training dive or I would be the only one who wasn't certified. Luckily I managed to do it and so by the time we were climbing out of the water, we were all certified divers - I felt elated and a massive sense of achievement 😊
Our third dive of the day came after lunch and was our first solo dive where we were briefed and given our directions before kitting up and going off in our buddy pairs!It felt so good to be able to take in everything that was around us
rather than keeping one eye on Aimii and what the other 3 pairs were doing. It was also a lot more chilled out although we were a little apprehensive about whether we'd be able to find the boat again! We saw 3 sea turtles, a school of barracuda, some 'nemos' and plenty of brightly coloured fish and every colour and type of coral imaginable. We made it back to the boat with plenty of air left and without too much trouble.
Our fourth and final dive of the day was a night dive. Christian briefed us and then we went out in our 3 groups. We were each given a glow stick to identify our group and a torch. I didn't really know what to expect but it turned out to be v.peaceful because it's so dark and silent down there, you sort of feel as if you are the only ones down there. We didn't see v.much (some fish darting away from our torch beams and lots of sea cucumbers) but was an amazing experience and v.different from diving during the day.
Our final day started at 6am again as we headed out for another early morning
dive to see if we could spot any sharks having a snooze. Early morning is the best time to dive because the night fishes haven't gone to bed yet and the day fishes are just getting up 😊 I hired an underwater digital camera for this dive but found it to be pretty hard to keep the camera still enough to take a picture when you're floating about at the bottom of the ocean! We managed to get a couple of good shots though.
On dive 8 (the final dive of the trip) we swam through lots of shallow reefs and saw a lot more small, brightly coloured fish hiding in colourful anemones and coral along with a few more stingrays.
By the end of the last dive I was shattered but so happy at all the things i'd seen and achieved in the previous few days. I'd also met some fantastic people from all over the world and made some useful contacts from various parts of australia 😊 I'm also hoping to use my newly acquired qualification when I hit Ningaloo Reef over on the west coast and maybe a few other places along the way.
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Anne
non-member comment
Wow looks tres exciting
I can not believe that anyone has not put a comment on this amazing page!!! You are so brave and you look like you are still having an amazing,awesome, once in a life time experience!!! But one thing i need to say, what is with that cheesy grin?! So attractive!!!! Anyway missing you loads! Anne xxxxxx