On To Advanced

Today was some more leisure diving, with a dive to a ship wreck in the morning and a dive to the North Jetty in the afternoon. I think now that we are done with all of the basic skills I’m starting to really enjoy diving and find being underwater extremely peaceful. All of a sudden I’ll look at my dive computer and realize we’ve been 25 feet underwater for 30 minutes and not even realize how much time has passed.

On my second dive I took my GoPro on its first scuba dive and managed to get 0 seconds of usable footage, which also made me realize how much I suck at filming underwater. What I thought was a perfect video of me swimming over a sea turtle turned out to be a green blur of nothing (see below). Hoping to improve on this…

The day ended with our introduction to the Advanced Open Water course, where we will complete five dives and at the end be able to dive up to 60 feet, along with some more beach volleyball and celebratory beers for no reason… but when you’re on the beach do you need a reason?

This morning I walked around the island again while failing to realize it was high tide, resulting in me wading across waist-deep water holding my bag with my phone and iPad above my head in an outfit that didn’t include a bathing suit. Still, not much to complain about.

Tonight we listened to a practice presentation of one of our Science Officers here, who will be presenting in the next few days at a Dive Summit in Borneo about what we are doing here at TRACC- more to come on that in the next blog. Even as a participant of what is going on here, I learned so much during it and was more inspired by the ongoing effort being put into marine and reef conservation here by students, staff, and volunteers. Being on an island as tiny as this and hearing about the growth and progression that has gone on since 2011 really hammers in the idea that no matter how small, a tiny bit of effort can have a long term affect on our environment and the habits of those around us. #humpdaymotivation 😎