And so onto another of the big ticks on my list of things to do. I'd wanted to learn to dive for years, but didn't really see the fun of diving in a cold muddy old quarry in the UK, so thought where better than the biggest coral reef in the world???
I signed up for a full Open Water Dive course, including 3 days living aboard a boat on the reef, finishing up the certification dives, and getting in a bit more practice. The first few days were in the pool and the classroom, learning the theory and getting used to the basic skills of diving (like breathing through a regulator - kind of important!) It was quite weird at first diving down to 4m in a swimming pool, but I was really grateful of having that bit of time to get used to the basics before getting into the ocean.
After 2 days, we headed out to our boat, the Atlantic Clipper, which would be home for the next few days! On the way, we stopped at Hastings Reef, where we had the chance to go for a bit of a snorkel. It was quite good to do that first so that we got used to seeing the coral and the fish swimming all around us - and so that wouldn't be such a shock once we were in the water and trying to remember all the other things we needed to remember!
There were only 3 of us in our group who were living aboard the boat, which was great because it meant we could enjoy the dives so much more, and not just do the exercises needed to pass our certification. It was somewhat interesting though having one girl with a fear of fish.....! She decided she needed to learn to dive to overcome that fear, but it did lead to some very funny moments. She was totally traumatised after our snorkelling when she was "attacked by a fish" - a remora, which are little fish which attach themselves to bigger fish, had tried to attach itself to her!! Very very funny to hear her stories! And there were quite a few audible screams when we actually got into the water!
The open water dives all went smoothly, our instructor was great because he made sure that the exercises we needed to do were only a small part of our dive - and most of the time he was swimming around showing us the marine life - including picking up sea cucumbers and star fish, and stroking Wally, the fairly tame Napoleon Wrasse who always comes over to the boat to say hello. By lunchtime on the 2nd day we were fully certified - and then had another 5 dives to ourselves.
The first dive on our own (with my buddy, Kat) was pretty nerve wracking - we were most scared about getting lost underwater and not being able to find the boat again, so we didn't dare stray very far from the mooring rope - only 5 minutes in each direction. It was good to get used to being on our own though, and continue to practice diving, especially maintaining our buoyancy and watching our depth (we went deeper than we'd planned!). We didn't really notice much of the marine life around us though - unless it was very big or very brightly coloured - we were worrying about too many other things to have a chance to properly look around!
We also did a night dive that evening with our instructor, which was pretty scary. With only torches to see by, your vision is significantly narrowed, which is quite a worry!! It took me nearly the whole of the dive to calm down enough to actually be able to enjoy the dive, so I didn't really look around anywhere near as much as I should have!! I terrified myself at one point, when I noticed the instructor's light was off, and he was tapping the front of it - and then another girl's light went off - I thought they were failing - I'd forgotten that he'd told us he would get us to turn them off so that we could see the bioluminescence of the plankton, which is like lots of little green sparks when you move your hands through the water - very impressive!
The diving was great - definitely hooked now, and think I'll try to do some more on my travels around. We saw so much marine life it was great - I'll put some pictures on here (although the brighter sparks among you will realise that I've cheated and bought a pro's photos, rather than my own - our underwater camera attempts didn't work any where near so well!!)
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