Open Water Dive #1

So the day finally arrived and we completed our first Open Water Dive and there are no words to describe what a rush it was, but since it's me and I am full of words (and other things), I will do my best to explain. First of all, I think I need to revisit 7 points regarding our scuba experience thus far as discussed in blog entry "Pineapples, Lady Boys and Ocean Dreams."

1) Gastric Bypass and the apron stomach
This is basically what I look like in my wetsuit. It is due to the fact that I have to wear an extra large in order to get the thing over my thighs and hips and Thai people are just freakishly teeny tiny (well that is what I am telling myself) so wetsuits are just smaller than the average American size. I am sure you can imagine the fun we had trying them all on when I naturally went for the Medium, then the Medium/Large, then the Large and finally after bringing myself to accept the XL and being so sweaty and red faced from the agony of trying to drag that thing up my body. Oh the feelings of defeat, sadness, bargaining and then acceptance...it truly was like going through the Kubler Ross grief cycle when trying on these suits. Needless to say, because I have to wear an XL, the length is just too long for my short torso and therefore it looks like I had the gastric band fitted and I have that roll of apron skin that hangs down when morbidly obese people lose weight too quickly. I like to grab onto it from time to time while diving...I don't know why, but I like to give it a squeeze...it's comforting.

2) Jump to your death
So when you are on the boat going out to a dive sight, you actually have to jump from said boat into the water to start the dive. Now, this is not like in the movies where you just casually sit on the side of the boat and roll off into the water, no, you actually have to stand up and jump about 5 metres (well more like 2, but it felt like 100) from the boat ledge into the water with 20kgs of gear on into the open sea below. It literally took me 20 minutes to build up the courage to do it. You have to just step off of the boat with one foot while holding your mask and regulator (breathing piece with tube) onto your face with your left hand, holding your weight belt with your right hand and just looking ahead and doing it. Oh my G-d was it scary. I just had to breathe and self-talk for about 20 minutes. It reminded me of the time Jill and I went White Water rafting and we had to jump from a large rock...bless Jill...after all of us including the 9-year-olds jumped from the rock, Jill took a further 30 minutes psyching herself up for her jump. It was like this for me too on our first confined dive. I finally did it, but managed to snort a gallon of sea water into my nose, but then we just carried on. To be fair to myself, Alex, the brave one, also said she felt scared and it took her 3 minutes to jump in and for Alex that is a very long time thank you very much!

3) But, I have to pee
I will tell you honestly, I have to pee every 30 minutes or so and this is just my life. When you are on the boat out to your dive site, there is a bathroom in which ones excrement falls down a tube into the ocean for all to see, so it makes one just hold it in, whatever it may be. However, when you are swimming and diving around the sea floor you just have to pee in your wetsuit and this is an unspoken truth among divers...it also keeps you very warm as the wet suit keeps the warm pee close to your body...what a treat. The only tip is stay hydrated so that when you do have to pee in the ocean, it isn't yellow so no one knows it was you!

4) Strep Throat and other ailments compliments of Mel
As per the blog entry yesterday, we all know that I have a bout of tonsillitis that I am working through, but this of course pushed back our dive day by 1, which was so annoying there are no words to describe! I don't think I can take much more in the way of illnesses/ailments. The Dengue wiped me out and I don't think I can handle anything else...oh wait...strep throat, then I don't think I can handle anything else...oh wait...toe infection...then I don't think I can handle anything else...oh wait...infected acne...then I don't think I can handle anything else...oh wait...cramping in my left hamstring muscle...then I don't think I can handle anything else...and so on and so forth!

5) My feet are broken...again...compliments of Al
Alex is a real healthy person, so the Dengue Fever was a really difficult time for her and for me to see, as I have only known her to be super healthy! The one thing that seems to plague her though are issues with her feet. The Muay Thai managed to break both of them...well maybe not break them, but certainly swell them up to an abnormally large state of being. They did manage to "deflate," but boy were they large. Unfortunately, we had another foot issue the first dive day during our confined dive in which her fins (they are not called flippers and divers will correct you and roll their eyes at you if you call them flippers) were so tight that they caused bruising and red marks on the arches of her feet. By the end of the confined dive, she had already taken them off and was swimming finless back to the boat. They are still injured so today she wore the most giant size we could find so there would be no rubbing...they were quit loose, but this is the price she had to pay!

6) The saw accident and the mangled hand...yikes!
Our diving instructor, Steve, is a very interesting scouser (a person from Liverpool, England). He started diving when he was 27 and he is now 33. When he was 20, he was in a sawmill accident...so we all know where this is going! He managed to cut off his pointer, middle and part of his ring finger leaving only his thumb and pinky intact. Now, as most of you know, I really hate the pinky finger and I hate the way it looks when it presses against things...i.e. when track and field athletes bend down in starting blocks right before a race and the camera zooms in on their fingers and you can see that pinky finger bending in such a way...I mean it makes me want to vomit! Well, due to the fact that he only has two fingers, he uses this pinky all the time in said way...i.e. when we are trying to stay in place on the sea floor, he presses it down and it bends and just makes me feel queasy...same with when he presses it on the table while resting his body weight on it...G-d just describing it makes me feel woozy! He is a lovely guy nonetheless, though a bit dorky, and he has just started dating Sarah, the French scuba instructor trainee who assists us in our dives. They are so awkward together, but they are both lovely and sweet and very patient with us...well me, as Alex is kind of a natural at this scuba thing!

7) Jumping Rope and how it annoys others...strangely enough.
The night before we went for our confined dive, Alex decided to do some jumping rope to ensure she was looking fit for our day in a wetsuit and bathing suit. So, off she went in the room jumping rope...first managing 1000 jumps and then doing 10 minute increments. Strangely, we heard a bang on the floor, as if someone was banging on their ceiling below with a broom. How rude! Well, we did look at the time and after realizing it was 2:00am, we felt so bad and vowed never to jump rope again!

So, our first Open Water Dive! We have never experienced anything like it in all of our lives and I don't think these is anything to compare it to! I will take you step by step...you get all of your equipment organized in your bag and go to the boat. On the boat, as you get from the beach to the dive site, you try to not get sea sick (which is very difficult), you drink tons of water and stay hydrated, you apply sun block and painstakingly drag that wet suit up your body. You set up all the scuba gear, which entails connecting the regulator (breathing apparatus) to the cylinder (air canister) and ensure that all of the bits work properly. You get into your BCD (vest that holds all the gear and is inflate and deflatable) and do your buddy checks in which your buddy checks all of your gear and vice versa. They you make your way in your fins (which is just the most non-graceful thing ever) to the boat ledge and get prepared to jump. After you do your giant massive jump into the water below the boat you move towards the line (which is the rope that leads from the boat to the sea floor and guides you down) and hold onto it and lead yourself down to the depths of the ocean, all the which equalizing your ears by squeezing your nose through your mask and blowing to pop your ears. Then, you have to establish neutral buoyancy which you do by inhaling and exhaling so that you stay weightless in the water and don't sink to the bottom or float to the top. Once you are sorted and stable, you open your eyes, relax and just take in the silent beauty that lies all around you! The turquoise water surrounds you, but at 10 metres you can see the ocean top and the sun beaming through. There are all kinds of colourful coral surrounding you...some of it is red with tiny black spots, some is purple and feels like velvet to the touch. Some of it looks like your brain...this one is called brain coral. In the crevasses of the coral, there are so many sea creatures the excitement of seeing different species makes it hard to focus on the leader and navigate yourself around. There are shrimp and goby and they live together, as shrimp are blind and they use the goby to see for them. The shrimp repay the goby with sexual favours...well not really, but they do clean their house. We saw Damsel Fish which are these tiny neon blue fish that swim together in schools. We also saw a school of yellotail barracuda swirling around us at a dizzying pace...and Christmas Tree Worms that live on the side of coral and when they are undisturbed, these look like flower blossoms (some neon orange, some periwinkle) until they are stimulated and then the retreat into the coral holes in the blink of an eye until the coast is clear and they can then safely bloom out once again. We swam over sea urchins and marbled sea cucumbers and magnificent anemones, which like graceful spaghetti drifting back and forth with the water movement. Throughout our entire dive, a red breasted wrasee followed us around like our little mascot cheering us on and guiding us around and that was really special. It seemed like only 5 minutes when Steve (our instructor) gave us the sign that it was time to head to the surface. It was hard to leave the calm silence of the ocean world down below...you can only hear your heartbeat and the rhythm of your breathing and this coupled with all the glorious sites and colours and magical creatures surrounding us made our first dive a very special and unforgettable experience. At 12 metres, you ascend (go up) at a nice slow rate, stopping at about 5 metres for 3 minutes to give the extra Nitrogen in your system to work itself out and then you pop up to the surface to return to the boat. I won't get into the process of hoisting yourself with full scuba gear onto a ladder back into the boat, as I don't want to humiliate myself further, but it is not easy and very precarious and unattractive to say the least. Alex and I were a bit speechless for the first few moments, just taking time to soak in the magnificent glory of what we had just experienced and then we grabbed the fish book and looked up all the names of all the different creatures we saw. We cannot wait to got to 18 metres in our final 2 dives tomorrow to see what lives at these depths...then we are official certified scuba divers. Tonight, we will rest and hydrate and dream about the secret world that exists beneath the sea floor that we were privileged enough to have a glimpse of today, and that we will remember forever.