Scuba Day 3

S.C.U.B.A. - Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus

Up at 5:30, same drill as yesterday....

Lots of divers today, about 30, then the dive team and boat crew.

Headed to Madonna Rock, and did our second open water dive. This was cool, we jumped off the boat, doing a front roll (essentially, a back flip off the boat, landing in the water with your cylinder hitting first), then swam away from the boat, and looked down. It was a long way down, but the water was soooo clear. Then we started descended, right to the bottom, a 12 metre descent. It's an eerie feeling, slowly falling away from the surface, towards this great unknown, yet very colourful coral reef, 12 metres under the surface. Everyone is descending at different rates, and you look around, and see everyone else either underneath you, or above you, all descending. It took us about 1 minute to descend. You don't want to do it too fast, or your ears won't equalize properly, and you could have ear pain, or even burst an ear drum. It's really cool seeing the surface...oxygen, that you need to live, get farther and farther away, and the coral reef get closer and closer. We all stopped about a metre above the coral (no one smashed into it!) and hovered for a couple of minutes, while the instructor made sure everyone was ok, then we swam to a rocky bit of ground, and descended to the bottom and did a few exercises, like the fin tip float (this is to see if we've mastered buoyancy using just our lungs), and a few other things. Then the instructor took us through a couple of underwater tunnels; very cool, one of the tunnels was filled with hunderds and hundreds of fish, all swimming around you, almost paying no heed to you as you pass through their realm. At one point, Grant (our instructor) saw a moray hiding under a rock, and tried to entice it out from underneath, but it wouldn't come out. Too bad. Then we swam to a sandy bit, and did some more skills. We typically do the exercises one at a time, with the instructor, so he can help, and be there if anything bad happens. The last exercise, we had to do a alternate buddy air source ascent, which means, we have to pretend we've run out of air (or there's a problem with our air equipment), and we have to get our buddy's alternate (or secondary) air source (there are two regulators on each scuba outfit), and then ascend to the surface, holding arms, so we ascend at the same rate, because we're both breathing from only one air tank. When Louis and Ben tried it, a big scare. To back up a bit, Martin and Louis are buddies, Court and I are buddies, and Grant is the instructor and Ben is his assistant (working towards being an instrcutor). I can't remember what happened, there was a problem or something, but Grant decided that he was going to be Martin's buddy, and Ben would be Louis's buddy. So, Louis and Ben were buddies. Louis threw his regular behind him, indicated to his buddy (Ben) that he was out of air, at which point, Ben offers his secondary air source to Louis, but it was upside down, and when Louis tried to breath, he sucked in a bunch of water. We were about 10 metres under at this point, I think. He started panicking, threw the regulator away, and started kicking to get to the surface. Court and I looked at each other (we were on the bottom, waiting for our turn). We knew something went wrong. Grant, immediately started towards Louis, and grabbed him from trying to ascend, tried to calm him down for a second, then gave him his secondary air source, which Louis grabbed, and flushed, and could breath again. It was pretty scary for Court and I, as we watched, but I imagine it was even scarier for Louis!!! We knew something went awry, and our turn was next. Anyway, Grant calmed Louis down, nice and slow, slow deep breaths, and when he was feeling safer, they slowly ascended to the surface. Grant then came down to watch us. I was almost out of air at this point anyway, Court still had quite a bit, so I was the one that had to pretend I was out of air, and take Courtney's secondary regulator. Everything went very smoothly, Court and I work great as buddies, I got her secondary, we locked arms, and we slowly ascended to the surface. As you can see, diving with a buddy is very important, and having a buddy you can trust is very important. I trust Courtney totally, and I know she trusts me, to do the right thing, and if something were to happen, I'm fully confident that together we could get through it.

While we were down there, I was cold and shivering, but I didn't think I was that bad, and Courtney and Ben kept asking me if I was ok, and I kept saying yes. Ends up, I was but I wasn't. I was cold, but I didn't realize I was shaking as much as they had saw me shivering. We finished our exercises, and we ascended back to the surface, and back to the boat. At the top, Ben told me he could tell I was cold, and it's common for newbies to not admit or not realize how cold they are. AFter that, I decided to try to be more conscious of it. I was fine yesterday, but I had a new wet suit yesterday, and I got a crappy, old one today. Yesterday, Court had a crappy, old one, and she was cold, today she got a new, good one, and she was fine.

Back at the boat, we had a great lunch, then went over what went wrong and right in the morning, everything went good, except for Louis's scare. We then went over what we would do in the afternoon, then we went over our homework exercises.

The boat motored to another location (dunno what it's called), and we got in again. This afternoon, we finished off our confined water training, so we swam to a sandy bottom and did a bunch of skills. One exercise involved taking off our BCD (Buoyancy Control Device...essentially a vest that can be in/deflated with tank air or manually, so help ascents and descents), and fully removing it, then putting it back on. When Grant was explaining it on the boat, he indicated that you may not stay in an upright position when you do this, because you're essentially weightless, you may tumble and roll around, and not to worry about it, just keep working at getting the BCD back on. I was hilarious when I did it! I started taking it off, and didn't really have a problem with that, then I started trying to get it back on, and as I was trying to figure out where my hands were supposed to go, I started tilting and rotating all over, on my side, upside down. I remember at one point, my back hit the sandy bottom. I also remember the top of my head in the sand at one point. But I didn't care, I was just working on getting my BCD back on, and finally managed it without any assistance from the instructor. Back on the boat, Court told me she was laughing so hard at me, the way I was rolling all over the place, I looked totally hilarious! And, I must say, this is probably the closest I'll ever get to being in outer space, and experience real weightlessness, and it's a really amazing feeling to behave in a weightless world where there is no up or down.

I was getting cold again, and I could tell, so I signalled to Courtney that I was getting cold, and also to Ben (Grant was away, helping one of the others with his exercise), and they came over and started trying to warm me up, rubbing my arms and stuff. It was the last exercise, so Grant let me do it, so I could get it done and back to the surface. This one involved completely removing your mask, and swimming without a mask for 25 metres. It was easier than I thought it'd be. AFter that, Ben and I went to the surface, and I started to warm up a bit, and we waited for the others to finish and surface.

Other than being cold sometimes, both Court and I are doing fine as buddies. As I said earlier, I do trust her, and do believe if anything happened to me, she would know what to do. And I'm totally confident that if something happened to her, I would know what to do too. We both understand everything, and aren't having any problems with any of the skills.

We went back to the boat, the boat headed back to the harbour, and while on it's way, we filled out our 2nd log (two of the four dives over the past two days were confined water dives, so they don't get logged), then went over what we'd to tomorrow.

Back at Rainbow, the four of us, and 4 new divers (who started yesterday) watched sections 4 and 5 of the PADI video. Laster more than an hour. Went back to the hotel, showered, then for supper, then I went to buy an underwater camera (I swear, it's the last one in town!), a cleaning cassette for my video camera (only $12CDN...they wanted more than $40 in Thailand for one!), then I headed to La Louisanne to buy something from their french bakery. I picked the biggest thing in the display case!! It was a huge piece of cake, called mille-feuille, and it was awesome, and big! And only 19,000 dong. I also got a bottle of coke, without checking the price first...I found out when I went to pay, pop was 12,000 a bottle...you can get them for 3000 or 4000 most places. Ugh! Oh well, I got my dessert I've been craving for so long!

Then I hit the internet. Tomorrow we do two more dives, both open-water, so both go in our logbook! Courtney *LOVES* it! She wants to dive everyday for the rest of life! I'm really enjoying it too, it'd be something I'd look into doing fulltime, as a career or something, amazing stuff!