Scuba Diving

Diving is something you really need to experience to get the full effect, kind of like jumping from an airplane. The feeling of weightlessness, being able to breath under water and moving with the schools of fish is things that just really can’t be described.

I started with a course called “Discover Scuba Diving” This is the first thing they put you through for you to decide after that weather you want to continue with the training or not. We spent about an hour learning the basics as to how water and air behave together, which is completely different that what I thought, and how your scuba gear works. By the way scuba stands for self contained underwater breathing apparatus.

So we lean how the scuba equipment works and head over to the beach. Sounds easy, but the scuba equipment on land weights at least 30 pounds, very awkward, and we had to walk through sand. The walk from the school to the beach was about 100 yards, and the whole time I felt like I was going to fall backwards with all that stuff attached to my back.

Getting into the water was fun in that the area we entered there were small sharks swimming around looking for food. These guys were tan and brown in color and about a foot to 18 inches long. They are completely harmless but stepping into the water having 6 or 7 of these guys swimming near by was interesting. They looked just like a great white, only smaller and we would laugh and either make the Jaws music, or scream shark every time we saw them! They would swim so close to the shore and to the surface that their dorsal fin would stick out of the water.

Once in the water up to about our chest the scuba equipment became very buoyant and we would start to float. Because of the equipment, we actually have to wear weight belts that allow us to descend under water. So here we are, water up to our chests and the instructor tells us to put our masks on, place the regulator in our mouth and look under water and here’s the important part – breathe! As easy as that sounds, getting your mind and your lungs to actually want to attempt to breathe under water is actually hard. It took some self-control and will power to inhale knowing your face is under water.

Once that excitement was over, knowing we could now breathe down there, we needed to go through some simple exercises in the event something happened. First we needed to flood our mask half way and clear it by breathing out the nose, then we needed to remove our regulator from our mouth and replace it, and third we needed to remove our regulator and take our buddies extra regulator and breathe from it. You always have two regulators attached to you. One for you and one for your buddy in case he/she runs out of air or something.

Then we got to swim around for a few minutes looking at the fish and other life at the bottom of the lagoon. This first dive we were only in water about 3 meters (9 feet) deep, so it wasn’t extra ordinary, but there was life down there. After the dive they then ask you if you are interested in going on with the course, or you can say you took part in Discover Scuba Diving and leave it from there. Now, I will say, that if you did this, say in Las Vegas, of course 90% of the time this course is offered in a swimming pool with no sea life, then you would think do I really want to go on with the training? Flooding your own mask and removing the regulator takes will power and its just more training that you need to do. However, there’s a catch when you learn to do this in an actual lagoon, with fish and sharks and tides and salt water and the list goes on, how in the world can you say No Thanks, I’m done! Of course you say, “Yes!” So the instructor hands you a very large textbook and says your next dive is tomorrow afternoon at 2, read chapters 1-3 before then! They always seem to forget to tell you this part in the beginning. So, off for a cappuccino I go, and forget about the rest of the days activities, as I need to study.

The next afternoon was great. I had finished reading the 3 chapters like a good boy, and because at the time I was the only person going through the course that spoke English, there were mostly Germans here on vacation at the time, I had my very own instructor for the next dive. Also, because I had been a good boy and read all three chapters like I was instructed to, the instructor decided that we would do dive 2 and 3 together. Usually you do three dives for the training, but the instructor needs to get to several people, up to 8, for each exercise and we can only stay under water for so long, so they limit the number of exercises per dive. Since it was only he and I and I had read the chapters and knew what was expected of me we went through both dives two and three. The main exercises were completely flooding my mask and clearing it. Removing my regulator and letting it go, then finding it again and replacing it. Taking my mask off and swimming around for one minute then replacing and clearing the mask. Completely removing the scuba gear both on the ground, about 3 meters down and at the surface, and putting it back on again. Learning how to release your weight belt and replacing it on the ground and at the surface. There were many more but you get the idea. All of the training is for “in case”. Diving itself is really very simple, pressurize your sinus cavity (ears), and breathe! The hard part is learning the “what ifs.”

Dive three was the next morning and it took me out into open water with the instructor on a boat with other more experienced divers. We were of course placed in groups, but I kept thinking we are in open water! One thing you learn in a swimming pool is how to get into the water with your gear on by jumping into the pool. You can’t learn that on a beach and just have to go for in from the boat! Very easy actually – hang on to your mask and regulator and breathe! Have you caught on to something yet? The number one and most important rule in diving is breathe. I know this makes sense, but when you go through the course and understand what can happen if you don’t breath, injuries may result including death, and it has nothing to do with drowning.

So, once we were all in the water, the dive master made sure we were all okay, and then gave the signal to descend. Panic would be a very correct word that I think most of us went through that first time, as you begin to go down, and realize that the bottom isn’t 3 meters below you, but you can’t see the bottom. Two of the students couldn’t get past that part and went back up to the boat. I hung out at about 4 meters for quite some time before the panic subsided and I was able to descend lower. I also had trouble pressurizing my ears so for that dive I stayed at about 10 meters (33 feet).

This dive, three, and dive five were very similar in experience as far as aquatic life with the exception that in dive five I was able to clear my ears and actually went to a depth of 29 meters (96 feet) under water. To actually see Sea Turtles and more than one, getting within a couple of feet of them while they are eating, and swimming through schools of fish that when you look around you in any direction all you see is fish is something words just can’t describe. Several differences that I noticed with each dive comparing to aquariums is that; first, light is absorbed by the water so actually in aquariums the colors are more vivid because the water is not as deep and many aquariums use black lights to help improve the color of the coral, so that part was disappointing, second however, in aquariums the schools of fish are in the hundreds, in the open water, thousands is an under statement. You can get lost in the schools! To see eels, and stingrays, and of course Nemo (clown fish), and even a Dory or two, is simply incredible.

Dive 5 took place the following morning after dive three. Dive 4 that was the afternoon of dive 3 however was by far the most incredible and the one I will be talking about for years to come. With this time I was able to clear my ears for the first time with comfort and we only went to a depth of 20 meters (66 feet), but the location we went to was spectacular! The descend and first portion of the dive was very similar to dive 3 and 5, lots of fish and breath taking coral even without the vivid colors. However, near the end of the dive we entered into a channel between the Atolls (Islands), and lets just say it was feeding time. There was a small coral reef that crossed the channel and the current was strong enough that our dive master had us go below the reef so the current wouldn’t take us out to sea and swim over to the other side. We needed to get to the other side because there were about 30 other divers in the same place as us. Once we found a spot with no other divers with came up to the reef top and held onto the reef facing the current so we looked like flags blowing in the wind. Imagine 30 divers or so holding on to this reef blowing in the current, like a string of flags at a stadium. The reason we held on to the reef is so we could relax and use less oxygen so we could stay and watch the show longer. The show – feeding time. In front of us was countless forms of aquatic life far to many to tell you about here, but schools of fish and sharks were the main attraction. The sharks would swim within feet of us, only to turn and swim another direction, the schools of fish would swim around us, and then away, and so on and so forth.

Because of the current flowing through this channel it was the perfect place for the food chain to be. Algae were floating through the channel that attracted small fish, which attracted bigger fish, etc. We stayed in this one location for about 20 minutes and just watch in awe of what was going on. We would have staying longer but air was running low so we needed to finish the dive and head back to the boat. After we had surfaced, the first person of our group was getting back onto the boat and our dive instructor yelled “mask on and dive!” so like good students we did what she said and down in the water were at least 6 Manta Rays, about 10 meters down (33 feet), just hanging out on the bottom. Only 5 of us were still in a position to dive, so down we went, and I came within about 5 feet of one of the Manta Rays. These are such incredible creatures and the best way to describe them is to think of UFO’s that just hover above the bottom, very calm and graceful. They didn’t seem very alarmed that we were heading form them, but once we got with the 5 feet or so, they just slowly moved forward, not far, just enough to stay away from us. The sad part was we could only stay about 2 minutes, because our air was by this time running very low so we needed to surface again.

Once back on the boat we realized many of the divers that were already on the boat had grabbed their mask and snorkel and had jumped into the water just to see down below to get a look at the manta rays! Of course that was the subject of conversation on the ride back to the island, and all of the sudden our instructor yelled “starboard!” and off the side of the boat were three dolphins swimming along side!

We had dinner with the instructor the following night and she said it took her over 800 dives to get that close to a manta ray, and to see the feeding show like we did with sharks that close, the manta rays, and the dolphins in one dive was almost impossible – so of course it happened on only my 4th dive. It will be hard to live up to, but I’m sure going to try and out do that one sometime in the near future!