Today was my first day of scuba diving!! I was probably in the water for a total of 6 hours, which was awesome. We had to take a few more practice tests and then got in the water for training. We got a whole day of the basics- hand signals, how the gears works, learning how to breathe with the regulator and get used to breathing underwater, how to control bouyancy, and a ton of other stuff. My first few times under I became aware of the fact that I had been under for 5+ minutes, which was a cool thing to get used to. I still haven’t taken any underwater pics because I didn’t want to be that ass taking videos while we were trying to learn, so hopefully some of those soon.
A lot of our training involved clearing our masks of water, taking them off and putting them back on under water, and practicing not being able to see. I was the only one in the group with contact lenses, so while everyone else could keep their eyes open I just sat blind and waited for the instructor to tap me and let me know my mask was properly drained. Damn these eyes. While we were under doing some of the skill training, we heard a loud boom, which I thought was a nearby ship dropping an anchor. When we surfaced, our instructor told us that that was a stick of dynamite that was thrown in nearby from one of the locals practicing my fish bombing. It was an odd thing being in the water training to take part in a reef conservation effort and hear the very thing destroying all of these reefs explode right near us.
The gear is super heavy and putting it on/taking it off takes a decent amount of time. We ended the day with a 200 meter swim test and 10 minute water tread. I thought I would crush that (shout out to my time on the Willows swim team) but a 200 meter swim in current is waaaay different than a 200 meter swim in a pool. Aside from getting kicked in the face by a group of 8 year old Asian snorkelera, overall it went well.
After training all day, I jumped and flipped off the dock with a few girls for about an hour. I was going to pass after being in the water all day, but I’m so glad I didn’t. I’m trying not to say no to any opportunity that pops up while I’m here.
Tonight I was on dinner dish duty. We have a rotating list of chores to make sure everything gets done, but everyone helps out which is nice.
It’s starting to drizzle a bit now and it’s the coolest it’s been since I’ve been here, but it’s a nice change after a few nights in the mid 80s.
Tomorrow will be more training, but by the end of next week I’ll be certified to dive up to 60 feet. Before tonight ends I’ll be working on detangling and ripping the knots out of my bees nest of hair, wish me luck šš¼
Half-Seas Over 