SCUBA Part Deux

Mike and I are now PADI Advanced Open Water divers!!!

As Mike mentioned previously, we had to complete 5 more dives to get our advanced certs. After a day of rest, and by rest I mean a 40 min hike to Shark Bay and 2 hour of snorkeling trying to see... you guessed it... sharks. We actually did see one, a reef shark called a Black Tip Shark. It was probably 3 feet long and looked very sharky. I figured if I was going to see sharks, I'd rather see my first one while snorkelling and having access to a beach and breathable air when I lost my snorkel in fear versus on the bottom of the ocean.


The AOW course started at 7:30am for the next 2 days (this was earlier than we had ever managed to make it into work!), but being the eager beavers that we were, time did not matter. Our first two dives were a Muli-level dive and a Peak Bouyancy Performance dive. The Multi-level was a bit scary because at 20m there was a huge theromcline where the water became really cold and murky... it felt like we were slowing descending into a black abyss. We only stayed there for a few minutes and then went to a better visable level. The second dive perfected our neutral bouyancy and our hand stand ability underwater.

Then came the NIGHT DIVE. Good god that was scary and talk about a comedy of errors. We get on the boat and I put on my wet suit. The zipper is broken, which means that I'm going to get a bad draft of cool water running though me. Mike sort of fixed it, but we knew it was just time before it would unzip again. Then after our lecture about how to work our "torches", what to do when we get lost, and what animals we're going to see underwater, we jump in just as the last sun rays dissapear. Suddenly I hear a hissing sound escaping from my BCD jacket and realize that I have a leak. Mike jumps to my rescue and turns off my tank to resecure all of the hoses, but forgot to turn the air back on (to Mike's fairness, our instructor did ask for me to swim over so he could take a look, so I'm assuming that Mike thought he would turn the valve back on).... just to let you know Mike's pretty defensive about this.... Then we started our free descent into the gloom. It was so surreal only seeing everyone else's torches and outlines of other things like rock, coral and people. With your own torch you could see the odd fish, sea urchine, eel, or sting ray at the bottom of the ocean. We had to make an emergency ascent as we lost 2 of our divers, but then after picking up 2 more diveres separated from their groups, plus our own guys, we went back down. At one point of the dive, we turned off the torches and moved our hands all around us to see sparkles of beautiful light (bioluminescence). As we ascended and swam back to the boat, we looked up at the sky and saw it sparkeling with stars and the moon.

Our final 2 dives were the next day. We did our deep dive at 30 m! To make sure that none of our group had nitrogen narcosis (too much N2 in your body that makes you feel drunk and silly), we had to do some math at the bottom of the ocean. (Didn't they know that we were on vacations?!). Our next dive was a navigation dive where we learned to use compasses. Then the next 20 min we had a free dive. Our instructor left and we were left to explore the coral and make it back to the boat. That was the coolest moment, when Mike and I both new that we had made it as divers!!!

That's pretty much it for now. We're still not sure where or if we are going anywhere. We are considering continuing with a divemaster program, so that we can become instructors and never come home. Just kidding, well sort of!

Kendra & Mike