There were five 'adventure' dives to do:
- a navigation dive
You're supposed to learn how to navigate underwater. Reena and I got lost and had to surface! It was absolutely hilarious!
- a peak performance buoyancy dive
On this dive you learn how to improve you neutral buoyancy underwater, so you can 'hover' at the same depth without having to kick and flail your arms about... I still need a lot of practise on this skill!
- a night dive
Terribly scary. I dont like not being able to see much. It was the full moon so there was a lot of junk floating around the water so visibility was pretty rubbish. You get a torch but I would have prefered a flood light! Just at the end of the dive we saw a turtle rising to the surface to catch his breath. Really amazing sight. We all followed and got attacked by a small shoal of fish at the top - weird. Our instructor said he'd never experienced that before and that it was probably due to the full moon.
- a deep dive (30m)
I couldn't sleep the night before thinking about this dive. When we had got down to about 27m the water suddenly went cold and visibility dropped to just over a meter. I started to panic.... When you get deeper in the water you can suffer something called nitrogen narcosis. The nitrogen level in your blood rises and can an effect on your brain. Most people feel euphoric. Just my luck that I would be one to get the anxiety! Added to the panic I got really bad vertigo. It felt like I was in a whirlpool spinning round faster and faster. I grabbed Reena's hand and indicated that I needed to go up. It took two instructors to keep me down. Jo pointed to the floor - I realised I was on my side thinking I was vertical. I straightened myself out and sorted my head out! Phew! That was a really horrible experience. You're always told to watch your bubbles to distinguish which way is up, but when you're in a state like that its hard to think clearly. I'll know for next time...
- a naturalist dive
You get to identify all the different fish and coral underwater.
After two days we obtained out advanced open water licence! Yay! Really proud of ourselves :)
2 comments:
Come on come on, what's happening in Oz? heard it's pretty cold over there..
I know, I know. I've been slacking. I really need to get my act together. The computers you get in Australian internet cafes are a lot more restrictive than they are in Asia. I use microsoft paint a lot to shrink my photos and create the map i upload. A lot of computers wont have paint on them. So I give up!
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