Well I've now finished the 5 day diving course and am a PADI certified Open Water diver, which means I can go anywhere diving to a maximum depth of 18 metres.
The course itself was great fun, the first day started off with watching some videos in the classroom to teach us about the equipment, how water density (and air for that matter) varies with depth - go down ten metres air is half the density, water has doubled, at twenty air is a third, water has tripled and so on and other useful things such as how light is absorbed differently the deeper you go and how everything appears much bigger than it is (hence you come up saying did you see that shark, it was gianormous!). There's also the fact that sound travels four times as fast which is a very strange sensation. Then there's the little technique called equalisation, which is why you should never dive with a cold, as you go down your ears block (like they do on a plane) and you need to equalise by either swallowing (which gets very difficult in salt water on hot days as your mouth tends to dry up) or by pinching your nose and breathing out through it, but more on that later. There were various other things we learned about nitrogen narcosis (which is quite an amusing symptom of deep diving ~30 metres), decompression sickness (or the bends), which is mostly caused by making an ascent greater than 18 metres a minute, but I won't go into boring detail. Before the afternoon pool session, if we hadn't already we had to take a medical, which I almost failed (on the lung capacity test). The medical did also consist of the evil balance test: one foot in front of the other arms crossed, hands on shoulders and eyes closed for about 2 minutes, try it it's not that easy to not sway.
The afternoon pool session consisted of various skills underwater such as mask removals and replacement/clearing which are always fun. We also had a pool session in the morning on the second day, and that was when we had the most evil skill, we were all sat in a circle and passed our mask to the left, then put on the mask from the right and cleared it, this was repeated until everyone got their original mask back, which took a while considering that there were eight in our training group and the instructor. The other most evil mask replacement exercise had to be when Diana our instructor took all our masks dropped them the other side of the pool and made us all swim underwater to retrieve them, that was real carnage. I could go on about the other skills we learnt but I won't bore you all to death. Although of course as you may already know, when you go recreational scuba diving you need a buddy so you can check each others equipment before you enter the water (as if your air runs out you need to use their alternate air source - there's none of that sharing of second stage regulators these days like you see in the movies). My buddy was Emre, who was turkish, but has worked in America for the last 4 years. After the pool training we headed out for lunch before going to the Pro-Dive shop (Pro-dive was the place I was learning) to sort out wet suits, BCDs, fins, masks, snorkels for the boat trip. I ended up buying my own mask, which is the absolute mutts nuts, the TUSA Visualator, it's single lens, and has a massive viewing area compared to other masks as well as having straps that are also adjustable up and down to customise the fit even better. I also got a pretty sweet TUSA snorkel which has the Hyper Dry system to prevent water entering the top when snorkelling on the surface and a system so that water can be blown out the bottom of the snorkel. We then headed back to the training centre for the final instructional video on how to use a dive planner and diving computer and the exam, which if not easy enough on it's own, was made easier by the main instructor Phil (who took the other group in the pool) telling us all the answers to questions he didn't teach us or which were wrong because the book and videos were more up to date than the exam. I got 48 out of 50 although I should have got 49, but for some reason when I knew the answer was C I checked A. Still it really was so easy. As part of the course we also got entry to the nightly reef teach talk given by some mad irish man, who was somewhat reminiscent of Olly Plimsolls from the League of Gentlemen, which was quite interesting to learn about various species of fish and coral.
The next morning involved getting up at 5:30 to walk round the block to the Pro Dive shop for 6:15 to catch buses to the docks. In addition to the 18 off our course there were another load of more experienced divers on the boat so it was pretty full, but still very comfortable. We only had two dives on the first day and these weren't to the full depth of 18m, I think it was either 14 then 12, or 12 then 10 (if you do repetetive dives you have to go shallower on each dive). There was no real problem with the extra depth apart from my first descent was a bit botched after I let go of the guide rope and continued straight up. An extra weight on the weight belt sorted me out though (although I later went back down to 6 as opposed to 7, as apparently 7 was too much - each weight is 1.5kg!) The second dive was probably the worst for skills as we started off with a CESA, basically an emergency ascent from about 6 metres, but being careful not to ascend above 18 metres/minute and also remembering to say ahhh (this is important as you only do a CESA when you have no air left and your buddy is nowhere to be found, but you musn't hold your breath underwater as if you do and ascend the air in your lungs expands as it becomes less dense and you end up with lung overexpansion problems. Then we actually went down to the max depth and did lovely lovely mask removals and replacements (much worse in salt water) and a few other skills before doing an alternate air source ascent (i.e. breathing off your buddys alternate regulator). After this we got to do some snorkelling, which is great fun as well, especially when you have a good snorkel that you can easily clear after diving down, we managed to see quite a lot including following a turtle and having a fish swim right up to us and then follow one of us.
The next day started off with a dive before breakfast to 18 metres which wasn't that bad at all, another mask removal and then just a little swim around. After breakfast we had another dive down to 16 metres and much more of a swim around through the reefs. After that dive we were all qualified, which meant we were free to go off on other dives without an instructor and also that we didn't have to dismantle all our kit after each dive. Also before each dive we now have to attend a briefing which gives an overview of the area and how to get where. We went out in the afternoon to 14 metres max, but the dive got a bit messy when it got shallow as loads of people ended up in the same spot (and quite a few surfaced which is not a good thing to do before going back down), so me and Emre headed off elsewhere to explore, saw quite a lot including a Manta and some Giant clams. The next dive (and my last) was the night dive, which whilst only supposed to be a 12m, ended up being a 13.5 for about everyone, but that didn't matter as we had at least 6 hours until the next dive. Night dives are quite simply amazing, although it's very difficult to maintain control and see others. We did also get to see the giant turtle Brian, who lives in a cave at night and a shark and lots of other things. However when I surfaced my right ear was giving me a bit of gyp, basically my sinuses were blocked on my right side, which did mean I shouldn't go diving. So I missed out on the last three dives the next day as I didn't want to damage my ears or have to abort the dive at a metre or two. I did get to do a bit of snorkelling though which as always was good fun.
Finally after we got back we all went out for a meal, quite handily at the place next to my hostel, and then ended up at the Woolshed which is quite frankly a dive (and if you're ever in Cairns no matter how many discount vouchers you get, the food really is quite bad), but Phil got us in free. It wasn't all that bad though as there was a stage for dancing on, by stage I refer to the tables. But they did play some great tunes and the beer was quite cheap.
I would say to everyone who's ever thought about it to give Scuba diving a try, it's great fun and probably the best way to see the barrier reef.
Posted by Alexis at August 23, 2003 05:53 AM