The Deep Blue Sea and Me

Our final morning on the sea and I woke up at 5:30am. As much as I love to sleep once awake I find it very difficult to stay in bed unless I have a book. I did not have a book, well I had my dive books but I didn’t think they were really suitable early morning reading. So I got dressed as quietly as possible and headed upstairs. I grabbed a biscuit and said good morning to the on board cook but he was busy and I prefer to wake up before I attempt conversation in the mornings so I continued on up to the deck. Here I struck gold, I had the place to myself and the dawn light was producing some beautiful colours on the horizon which I sat and watched until the sun rose. A few people came and went and then as the sun finally appeared above the horizon the whole boat started to stir, it was time for another dive.

We had a quick dive briefing explaining how we would play a game to test for nitrogen narcosis and have a look at a colour card so we could see how different colours looked that deep down. Once in the water we slowly descended until we reached our maximum depth. Here we assumed our usual places kneeling on the ocean floor whilst we used our fingers to show prove we could add up to fifteen even at that depth. One of our group had trouble but she swears it was a misunderstanding, hmmmm. Anyway I was fine and so I was happy and then it was a quick look at the colour card with and without a torch to show how bleached out red becomes that deep down. I get the science behind the deep blue n all but it was still pretty cool to see it in action so to speak. I did have a slight moment of panic as one of my ears felt a little funny during the dive. It seemed t sort itself out but as we ascended I felt a slight but definite pain in my ear. As instructed I waited until the others had ascended and then our instructor came back and we ascended very slowly. The wait and slower ascension did the trick and once on the boat all seemed fine once more. I talked to a couple of people and discovered that sometime this happens when a person does a lot of dives in a short time span, especially if their body is unused to all the pressure changes.

Post stupid o’clock morning dive it was back on the boat for breakfast where our class was reunited at ‘our’ table and just happened to be first in line for the food, for a change. Before we knew it was time for us to hit the water again. This time three of us had opted to try underwater photography and our fourth fish identification as our final adventure dive. I did listen in on the fish identification talk but I still don’t really know what I’m looking at down there apart from very pretty/ugly/interesting small/medium/large fish. That didn’t stop me taking as many photos as I could of all the fish and of the fabulous scenery. On land I love landscape photography so I wasn’t sure how I would take to underwater photography as I didn’t realise that the underwater ‘landscape’ would be so amazing. It was frustrating as it was even harder to do it justice with the camera than it is on land still that didn’t stop me from trying. Too soon it was time to return to the boat but since it was so we could get our next level of certification we didn’t mind too much, also there was the post lunch dive to look forward to! Fortunately on this dive my ears behaved themselves and any worries I had of doing damage to them disappeared.

Sadly the time had come for our final dive. I went with two of my class mates and took my camera with me. One of the other girls took the lead and we followed her around the coral gardens for the last time. We swam against the current as instructed on the way out and with it on the way back however we misjudged it slightly and overshot the boat. We attempted to swim back but the current proved too strong for us. We headed to the surface and raised our hand for a lift back. We were slightly embarrassed but less so once we discovered we weren’t the only ones who had to ask for help back. I also have to admit I quite enjoyed the tow back and even more importantly having done it once I know I would do it again if I had to which makes my much more confident about going out as a certified diver.

Back on the boat it was time for our last meal together before the ride home. On the way home we chatted, looked at all our photos and made sure that we could all find each other on facebook, after all you never know when we might next be in need a dive buddy.