While away I did my Deep Specialty and my Enriched Air Specialty (Nitrox). I was super happy to be able to learn from Deano again as he is an incredibly skilled diver and is so knowledgeable. I knew I could learn a lot from him and I did. By doing the Deep Specailty I am able to dive to 40 metres (which we did! Amazing!) and I learned a lot about special considerations you need to make when deep diving. There is so much I learned, I'm afraid I would bore you of my descriptions despite my passion. So to save you, I will tell you a few things that I thought were super cool. On one of the dives we were testing pressure sensitive items so we brought an egg down with us and cracked it underwater. Due to the pressure the egg stays intact and we were able to toss it back and forth. On another dive, Deano pulled an item out of his pocket when we got to our maximum depth. I had to look at it, and write down what the item was on the slate. I wrote down "acorn? nut?". When we got back on the boat, he revealed what it was - a tomato! What?! You really do have to remember how colour is altered underwater. We also practiced navigation underwater, something I'm not totally confident with. But, I succeeded nonetheless. At one point, despite following the compass, it truly felt like I was just making us swim in circles yet I brought us back to the wall! You must ALWAYS trust your compass!! I also got to practice using a dive computer which was really useful and practical. I am looking into buying a dive computer in the next few months. It really is an essential piece of diving equipment. AH! I could go on and on. Needless to say, it was amazing and we also saw some awesome things too, like cuttlefish, one of my favourites!
Now that I am also certified with Nitrox, I can dive with air that has a higher oxygen and lower nitrogen content. While we did not do any diving using nitrox tanks, I learned how to plan a dive using nitrox, how to analyze and label the tanks among other things. Here is Deano doing some tables with me!
Deano hard at work
Yvonne was pretty jet-lagged so Saturday she spent a lot of time sleeping so I sat down with a couple for dinner that night. I spent the rest of the evening talking to one of the Divemaster Trainees, Valerie in the lounge. She was also a source of tons of information for me and we exchanged life stories which was cool. She worked for a year in Antarctica - how cool! Yvonne slept a lot of Sunday as well, but this was also the day that Mel and Noelia arrived on the island! I was super happy to be on the jetty when they arrived to greet them. I was also super excited that Yvonne was able to meet some of the best people I've met in Korea. Unfortunately Noelia ended up with a really bad food allergy rash which interrupted some of her dive plans. Mel and I stayed up and played cards with Fredrick. A hilarious night ensued.
As you can tell, with the lack of Yvonne's presence these two days, there is also a lack of photos! One thing that I have learned from this trip is that I'm awful at taking pictures!
These two days were filled with learning but I loved every moment of it. I cannot thank Deano enough for his patience and for putting up with my antics. Also for just taking the time to really make sure I understood everything that we went over, his advice and for helping me become a better diver. If I can say anything about Scuba Junkie, it's that they have a great staff and they really focus on the student. Everyone was always extremely helpful and it was cool that some even remembered Mel and I from July!
<3
No comments:
Post a Comment