The Passion of the Scuba

Those who know me know that when I take on a new hobby or activity or sport, I do have this tendency to become totally and utterly obsessed with said hobby/activity/sport and scuba diving is no different. Yesterday we finished our Open Water Dive course and both became certified divers up to 20 metres and then we decided to continue our scuba education and take the Advanced Diving course, which entails 5 more dives: 1) Deep Dive to 30 metres, 2) Navigation Dive in which we have to use a compass and environmental identifiers to navigate a dive, 3) Peak Performance Buoyancy Dive in which we have to practice and learn more buoyancy techniques to make us more experienced divers and then we have our choice for our last 2 so Al and I chose a Night Dive and Underwater Photography Dive. We have completed our Navigation and Peak Performance Buoyancy Dive today and they were in a word...AMAZING! The Navigation Dive was truly the most stressful dive to date, as the water was the murkiest we have experienced and we had to lead a dive with a compass and using skills such as environmental identification and counting kick cycles. Now, I cannot navigate myself anywhere on land so underwater is a whole new world of confusion and disorientation and trusting a tiny piece of plastic with an arrow on it that swings round and round just does not fill Al or I with great joy. We arrived at the dive site and got all of our gear ready...painstakingly put it all on, did our buddy checks and off we went. We took some bearings before we jumped into the water and it was Al's job to navigate us to a motorcycle that was submerged in the water directly north from the boat and then it was my job to navigate us 110 degrees northwest to a sunken catamaran that we could explore. Then, we were left at the catamaran to navigate ourselves back to the boat...alone...just me and Al alone underwater at 14 metres with a compass. The first two exercises went surprisingly well. Alex led us straight to the motorbike, which was such a trip to see. The water was so murky though, that she checked to make sure we were there from time to time, which is what our instructor does when he is leading a dive so that was good. It is very scary to be unable to see your dive buddy and instructor when in the ocean at great depths and it is so silent and disorientating that this was a very scary dive for us both, but seeing the motorbike and the wrecks was well worth the panic. The motorbike must have been submerged for years and years, as various coral was growing in the front basket and along the seat as well. A litany of fish and sea creatures had obviously made their homes around and on the motorbike as well. Then, I started navigating us to the catamaran and also started floating away to the surface. I think I was so focused on getting us there that my breathing patterns changed and Steve (our instructor) had to grab my fin so that I would realize that I was drifting upwards towards the surface. Once I sorted out my buoyancy, I was able to successfully lead us to the boat and we spent time exploring the nooks and crannies. This was a small boat so there were not that many areas to explore, but there were loads of fish swimming around us and the boat and it is just very cool to see a wreck at the bottom of the sea...isn't it?!? Now, the last part of the dive...being left and having to navigate to the boat. Alex and I get around when living in London especially with our various running races that Alex forces me to do. We like to print out 2 sets of directions for navigating ourselves to these various races, the RAC and the AA to be exact. It is important to note that despite our best efforts, we tend to have to stop and ask for directions on top of using the 2 sets of printed out directions as well and we still get lost so this was going to be a real treat. We waved goodbye to our dive instructor and dive assistant and then we had a brief sign language discussion about which way to go and off we went. I cannot tell you how stressful it is, as I may have stated before, to navigate under the water. It is murky, you are breathing through a tube from a cylinder with air that runs out, it is darker than usual, it is disorientating, there are creatures that are unpredictable and that you just don't know much about and so on and so forth, but together, we were able to conquer these fears and get back to the boat...well nearish enough to the boat. We popped up about a 7 minute swim from the boat, which was really good for our first go...we were chuffed with ourselves, but never ever want to navigate alone just the two of us again...at least not until we get far more experience in this type of skill. We spent about an hour on the boat giving the extra nitrogen bubbles time to leave our system before our second dive. We ate loads of pineapples and watermelons and drank water to stay hydrated...we had a lovely swim in the temperate tropical aquamarine coloured water and then prepared for our Buoyancy Dive. During this dive, we had to preform a series of buoyancy skills to master the art of remaining weightless while in the water. We had to go upside down and touch the sea floor with our heads, we had to float stying in one place while sitting cross legged, we had to take various amounts of weights and swim at the same level around and around without sinking further...all of these activities require you to inflate and deflate your lungs and add and take away air from your BCD vest...sounds like very hardcore stuff, but once you get the hang of it, you can maneuver yourself around more difficult dive sites. Also, the feeling of weightlessness is just amazing...nothing hurts, no pressure on the joints, just pain free floating. Once we mastered these skills, we were taken to another wreck, but this one was a huge boat with so many various entryways to go through and windows to pear from...we practiced our new skills, in particular the upside down floating so we could see fish and stingrays hiding below the boat's bottom and that was the ultimate experience, when you can float and be totally still while in 18 metres of water near a wreck looking at a stingray...unmatched! We swam around through various openings and in the middle of the boat, there were hundreds of silverish damsel fish suspended in the centre, just totally still and motionless. It appeared as though they were frozen in ice...it was a site. Alex went around to the other side of the boat so we could see each other through the windows and then we met at the top of the boat before heading back down to look at a tiny Nemo fish swimming in the centre of a circle made of coral and other sea rocks...it appears that other divers must have made this circular formation, but the Nemo fish was smack dab in the middle hovering above and sometimes inside a peach coloured anemone, which looks like a head of think tube like hair blowing in the breeze. At times, the Nemo fish would come right up to Al's mask and stare her down and then charge her mask...I think he must have been showing us how tough he was or giving her a kiss. It was such a site to be so close to these creatures. It was time to ascend so quickly, as we totally lost track of time during this dive and we had to go up to the sea surface. We made it to the top and got back onto the boat, my least favourite part of the entire scuba experience, as you have to hoist yourself plus 20kgs of weight up a rickety rusty old ladder in front of everyone. It takes such strength in the muscles that I don't have strength in...most of them...and them you plunk yourself down into the cylinder holder and undress the scuba gear. We were so excited and could not stop talking about how amazing it was to see a wreck and be so close to the creatures of the sea, we headed back to the jetty, climbed through a few boats to get to land and have been preparing for our night dive ever since. Truth be told, the night dive scares us a lot, but we will be brave and this bravery will be rewarded with some amazing sites...who knows what comes out and creeps around the ocean floor when the sun goes down...