Monday, 08 June 2009

• my first dive

  
  

  I had my first dive last week.
  
  My first open water dive, in the beautiful Red Sea. How many people can claim that they dived in the famous, biblically mentioned body of water?
  
  

  
  Never thought I would have don that mask and went down under.
  

  
  My dive instructor took me to the real environment as part of my Open Water training experience. After two weeks of intensive pool and classroom theories, it was finally time to hit it off. I was mostly excited and partially nervous. It's time to take all of those knowledge and skills to test - in a real world setting, where the condition was totally different.
  
  

  
  My dive instructor, Mr Majed - a Saudi who taught me very, very
  well about diving. If it was not for him, I would have not discover
  this world and this passion.
  

  
  Basically, we had a review of all the skills in the pool and did it in the open. All in all it was basically the same. What I found really weird is my buoyancy. I literally cannot sink as good as it was in the pool. When I first entered the water, I was either so heavy or the weights was not enough. So bad, I came out of the water to add more weights - and still had the same difficulty (though less). It could have been that the salinity of the sea makes a great difference to how much/less you may float/sink. As for me, I am a floater - be it in the pool, river or the ocean. By the time that I wanted to go down easier, I told my instructor that I rather dive headfirst and swim to the bottom anyway. That has always been my style ever since.
  
  

  
  This is what I call as the loop-sided float. I love doing this,
  especially when peeking through creeks and holes within the
  corals. My instructor said that I was really crazy underwater!
  

  
  I think we dived to a depth of 18 metres. The visibility was not that great - all blue with sediments all around. The corals and marine life were there - though not as abundant or as rich as I imagined. Or did I expect too much?!!
  
  

  
  One of the few corals in the shallower waters.
  

  
  Anyway, the dive was great. I truly love moving around underwater with my fins, making spins and reverse topside float. When I swim here and there I found it easier to control my buoyancy when it comes naturally. During the pool practices and initial exercises, it was really confusing trying to control how you float or sink. That's because doing it stationary was tougher that having it done dynamically.
  
  

  
  Now I know that I dive and swim with some of the equipments
  dangling around. Must ensure to tuck and keep it snug elsewhere.
  

  
  I dived and swim over and passed the corals - taking good care not to touch or harm these delicate creatures. It's easy to forget at times how much destruction you can inflict by a simple touch (not to mention the danger of making contact with something you know less of). All the time I tried hard to ensure the fins don't hit them or stir the bottom too much. And if I do need to touch anything, it will be just the sand.
  
  

  
  To be honest, I was not so concerned with peeking through the
  marine life at the time since I had so much fun swimming around!!!
  

  
  The pictures you seen here were taken with a Canon + the underwater housing. The blueish tint all over can be attributed to the camera's white balance control and the overall visibility and colour of the dive site. As I said the view was not that great. Hopefully my next few dives will be really spectacular. That being said: I think I will want to invest in a few underwater photographic tools in the future. Either I bought a housing for my current Canon Powershot A620 or just buy a new camera (plus the housing). Anyway I'll get this done!
  
  Anyway, having through all these exercises - I have earned myself my Open Water Scuba certification! Yup, I am a scuba diver now.
  
  

  
  A-OK!!!
  

  
  What awaits then, is more diving!!!

  
  

  • 5:25 AM
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