Dives #3 and #4 (Nov. 14, 204)

Wow, what a fantastic couple of dives! We met at 7:45 to board the boat for our first dive site, called Twin Peaks. We went on the medium sized boat today, and not the biggest one that we took yesterday. It wasn’t much smaller though, but had considerably less divers. That was good because then you don’t run into so many other people down below. 

Our boat today, the big blue one in the back

Today, for our first dive, we went down (descended) without holding onto the rope. We were within sight of the rope, but didn’t hang onto it. Everyone did well except Alex, who had problems clearing her ears as she went down. There was a videographer named Steve with us today, who films your first dive for you. Jenny had to go up a little to get Alex sorted out, and signalled to us to stay on the bottom with Steve. He was really funny and very animated and was making us laugh while we waited. Soon after, Jenny and Alex joined us and we were off. We had to do a couple of skills at the bottom, which was 15.6 meters down today. We had to fully flood our masks with sea water, and then clear them, as well as finding our buoyancy point and doing pivots using the air in our lungs to lift and drop you, while your fins touch the sand. The object is, to remain perfectly straight, with your toes on the sand and your arms crossed. Then, using only the air you fill your lungs with, or exhale, to pivot up and down, coming as close to the sand in a lying down position as you can, without touching it. Then intaking air to come up, but not so far that your toes come off the sand at the bottom. I love this exercise. I think it’s my favourite because you have to find the amount of air to take in and blow out to maintain your pivot.

Once we had finished those skills, Jenny took us on a swim to look around and see some fish. It was a bit cloudy in the water, but we saw quite a bit of marine life. There were sea cucumbers, anemones, angel fish, groupers, trigger fish, and a huge school of little barracuda, swimming over top of us. There was lovely coral and the brightly coloured plants poking out of them, called ‘Christmas Trees’, and many little fluorescent blue fish that hung out near the bottom. Also there was a large yellow fish that l think is called a Butterfish, that looks like a piece of toast with bright yellow butter on it, complete with the wiggly knife marks as well. It was breathtaking to see all the life underneath. We dived to a depth of 15.6 meters for 41 minutes, then headed back to the boat to go to our next site.

Our second dive today, was at a site called White Rock. This is another site that the people here created for marine life to grow, and divers to discover. It is really fun, as it has a giant fake shark and octopus at the bottom for plants to cling to and grow on. These attract a lot of other types of fish and marine life which is beautiful. Here, we descended using a free descent, which means that there is no rope nearby, and we all stick together, going down as a group, at the same level. It was fantastic, and no issues. Again, Alex had to go slower in order for her ears to equalize but we all managed to get to the bottom after a while. This dive was 16.1 meters deep and we stayed down for 42 minutes.

At the bottom, we had to do a couple of other skills. The first one was to take off our masks, completely, put them back on, and clear them of water. Two of the people were pretty nervous of this skill as the sea water easily goes up your uncovered nose and into your throat, making it feel like you can’t breathe. I just slowly exhale through my nose to prevent water from coming in, and it seemed to work. After a while, we had all done it, and done it successfully, so that was a big relief for Alex and Anna. Will and I weren’t particularly nervous about it, and did the skill without issue. The next skill was kind of like the fin pivot, except now you had to sit in the buddha position, near the bottom, but without touching it, and use your lungs and the air your breath in or out, to hover, or stay in that position, perfectly still. This is really hard and though I managed to do it, I still went up and down a little more than I would have wished. Anyway, Jenny was happy with all of our skills, and took us for a swim about. 

This site had a huge rock of coral that had many little spaces in and around it that fish lived or marine life grew. We went up and down, and around this rock to discover the fish we could see. I think we saw several new fish than at the last site, they were Wrasse, Beaked Coralfish, Longfin Batfish, Sergeant Major Fish, and Longfin Bannerfish. Liviah, maybe your mom can look up some of these fish so you can see what they look like. I was so lucky to see them swimming in real life under the water. Maybe when you're older, you might like to try scuba diving so you can see them too.

After our swim and look around, Jenny signalled to us, using her rattle, that we would be ascending to the surface. We made a Safety Stop on the way up, at 6 meters below the surface, for 3 minutes in order to disband some of the nitrogen build up, before surfacing. This is a precaution in order to avoid an excessive build up in your system, as it can be bad for you and sometimes dangerous. After we waited at 6 meters for the needed time, we surfaced and got back onto the boat. They did the role call, and congratulated all the Open Water and Advanced Open Water students, because they were now officially certified in their course, after this dive. So now I am a certified Open Water Diver and will get my Advanced Open Water certificate next. I start this course tomorrow at 10:30 am and I still get Jenny as my instructor. No one else from my group is going on to take the Advanced Open Water course, but a guy from the other group that was videoed and on the boat with us for all our dives, is taking it. I think it might just be me and him with Jenny, which is awesome, and will allow for some great dives. The fewer people, the better instruction and opportunities you get to see things as the instructor doesn’t have as many people to watch over. Great luck. I really like her as an instructor. She is patient, encouraging, but strict with her safety procedures and protocol. Excellent combination for a scuba instructor. 

Our class' last group photo

This afternoon we met to update our diving log books, get our photos taken for our PADI Diving Certificate cards, and went over some other things. Then our course was finished except meeting at 7:00 pm to watch the video that was made of our first dive. I went to the room and slept for about an hour and a half. Then I did some of the homework that Jenny gave me for tomorrow’s class, so that I can sleep in tomorrow without worry. I also took a walk before meeting for the video, in a different direction, saw some more shops, and restaurants, but nothing super exciting or different. A nice walk though.

Just for those people who have emailed or commented, I want to let you know that the WiFi is quite sketchy here and it takes forever to use the email and load photos onto the blog. Hence why I haven’t been Facetiming many of you this past week. Also, I’m too busy and then too tired…..lol. I have to say, my knee is getting stronger and loves swimming in the salt water. I have little to no pain, and just a bit of weakness still. It has done so well and I am grateful.

The video was really cool, and put to music with an option to buy it on a USB wristband. It features all of us, names included, from the moment we met this morning, to the end of our second dive, and is about 25 minutes long. The conditions were a bit mirky, but you can definitely get the gist of what we were doing and some really cute shots of us under water. Also, Steve filmed a lot of the fish you see down there, which is great to have as a memory of my first dive. Everyone bought a copy and Steve did an outstanding job in creating it. You can tell that he is very experienced and good at what he does. I can’t wait to share it with you guys. 

View from the bar/common area of Crystal Dive Resort

Crystal's in-water welcoming mascot

Oh, no supper details last night because I just had a cup of spicy noodles from 7/11. This morning I had porridge with honey and banana and for lunch I had a yummy mushroom omelette. Nothing too exciting as I didn’t want to stir up my tummy before doing two dives today. As well, there was yummy fresh pineapple on the boat that I ate. They provide totally decent snacks on the boat while you’re out, plus coffee or tea. Tonight I wasn’t that hungry and wanted to go to bed having my tummy feeling solid. I had some seaweed crackers which I love. Yes, Lydia (Toronto friend), seaweed, and I think you'll love it. I'll have to find some for you to try once I'm back in Toronto. If I eat the spicy stuff, late, just before bed, I can sometimes get a burning tummy and then don’t feel great the next day. So, to eliminate that possibility, I am eating pretty light today, but will definitely have some more great meals to share with you.

Good night everyone.