Dive School

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Originally uploaded by theslaad.

Slightly hungover from our bucket escapades we made the long journey across the road to the Rainbow Dive Centre to begin our Open Water Course(OWC). For those that don't know, it's a 4 day course which once completed enables you to go diving anywhere in the world down to 18 metres.
Luckily it was a pretty easy start. We sat in a nice classroom and watched "awesome" PADI instruction videos. They were awesome simply because they are the most American thing you could possibly watch, with people high5ing every time they do something right. Very cheesy! (Chris now high 5s on a regualr basis!) (That's not true)
After the videos we filled in a few quizes and then talked it all through with our very nice instructor - Vickie.
The afternoon was our first pool session. We learnt how to set up our equipment and take it all apart again and then made our way over to an ex-navy pool. They use it because conveniently the deep end is very deep - 4m.
First of all we had to prove we were confident swimmers and swam 200m and then trod water for 10mins. Then it was time to get stuck in! Wet suits, fins (not flippers or you owe Vickie a beer), masks & snorkles on and into the pool. Once we had our BCDs and tanks on we started practising the skills. A lot of the skills we learnt are 'just in case' kind of skills so we began by learning how to empty our mask of water whilst under water, how to clear our regulators and a few other things. So far so good. We were in the pool for a few hours practising various things and then went for a little swim in the deep end! Chris did well with this, managing to equalise and be quite comfortable except for buoyancy control issues. I had trouble equalising my ears - the air you breathe is so dry I couldn't swallow to clear them and got a bit stressed. They started hurting a lot so we ended the day there.
Day 2 was another morning of classroom stuff and then back to pool in the afternoon. After a scary giant step into the deep end we tried again to dive down. Vickie & I both had problems with our ears again so we went shallower to practise the skills. It was at this point that I was starting to think it probably wasn't for me. I find the whole surrounded by water thing a bit claustrophobic and decided to call it a day, so I'll hand over to Chris..

Er... We did a load more skills, practicing buoyancy control and emergency ascents etc. All went OK really. Jen was very brave to go as far with it as she did, but it was probably about the right time to call it a day.
Came back from the pool a little earlier than planned and did our exams. Passed them! Yay! No more classroom stuff to do, just 4 dives in the sea.

Early night that night, then we got up early this morning to go out on the boat. Jen was a snork, while I went for my first deep(ish) sea dive. No skills for the first dive, I just followed Vix around for half an hour or so at 10-12metres down, checking how much air I had left all the while. It was great. Snorkling's pretty cool, but with SCUBA you get so much closer to all the corals and fish. We saw a stonefish hiding on the bottom, a nice trumpetfish, and a whole load of Nemo type anenome fish guarding their nest. It all went pretty well. I didn't hit the bottom or float up and away or anything.
Back to the boat and along to our second site. Back in the water and down to 12m again, but this time we had to practice things like taking the regulator out and stuff. I had a bit of a problem clearing the water out of my mask having had to take it off and put it back on again, but I got over it and we went for a swim again. Unfortunately clouds had come over and the water wasn't very clear, but it was still fun.

2 more dives tomorrow and assuming it goes OK I'll be a PADI certified Open Water diver - Awesome! Jen will still be a snork, but she's happier that way.