My OneWorld Around The World Trip: Dive Day 1

As soon as we reached the reef, we were rounded up on the upper deck of our vessel and given our initial briefing. My heart was starting to race around this point, and I was worried that I bit off more than I could chew. But I pretended to be undaunted, mainly so I wouldn’t spook my comrade, who was feeling basically the same way! We donned our gear, checked everything out, and bam – into the water we went. It was much different than our training experience in a calm lake. The sea rises and falls, and the water is salty. Also, there is no shore anywhere in sight.

We swam over to the mooring line as instructed, regrouped, and proceeded to release the air from our buoyancy controllers. (One note: at this point, I had tucked my snorkel in a pocket in my BC. So I was using air from my tank the whole time, even while on the surface. That proved to hurt our dive time in the end.) We began to drop beneath the surface. It was awe inspiring, and also scary! We followed the line down to the bottom, and proceeded to swim toward our goal, the first “bommie” we were to explore, a large outcropping of coral known as “The Whale”. At this point, I got a little lost in fact. I was overly nervous, and as soon as I could no longer see the line, but still could not see the bommie, the wide open water spooked me. I did not panic, but after a few minutes of swimming without seeing the bommie, I signaled to David that we should surface. We slowly ascended, only to realize the boat was not far at all, and we were exactly on course toward our intended destination! With a sigh of relief, after giving the OK signal to the skipper and dive master watching from the deck, we descended once more. This time, we found the bommie in short order, and swam around it as intended. We were amazed and inspired, but to tell the truth, this first dive was our poorest of the trip. I think they plan it that way intentionally, as an acclimation dive. The bommie was not nearly as impressive as others we saw later, and it did involve a short amount of swimming over empty sea floor to reach. Our main purpose was not to die, and we succeeded wildly! Hahaha But, it was a bit embarrassing when we returned to the boat after only 11 minutes, out of air! That is a stunningly short dive time! This was partly due to overconsumption initially by not using snorkels, and also largely due to the very fast nervous breathing we were both doing. We were a little underweighted also, so we spent more energy than necessary trying to keep ourselves at depth, and would tend to float up if we didn’t swim down. We did go to a fairly deep depth, around 17 meters, since it was our first dive of the day, and this should be the deepest. But that also cost us more air, since our lungs consume twice the volume of air at 20 meters depth than we do at 10 meters. So, we determined our next dive must be calmer, and longer!

After our first dive, there was a lavish lunch spread out and waiting, prepared by Nina, a beautiful German girl who had just started her first week before our trip, and a great cook as well! We had several types of salads, a delicious chicken tandoori, freshly cut fruit, potatoes, and lots of it. After lunch, we just sat around for a while and got to know our crew and fellow divers a bit more.

But there was not much time to spare before the dive master came to round us up for dive 2, at the same dive site, but to a different set of bommies off the other side of the boat. After a quick briefing, we suited up and jumped in the water. This time, I kept my snorkel right on my mask, and used it until just before we descended. We really focused on trying to extend our dive time. And we did, to around 25 minutes as I recall. We went nearly as deep as on our first dive, and enjoyed it quite a bit more. We began to focus on finding varieties of marine species, and wonder at the beauty before us. We were quite happy to have more than doubled our dive time, too.

As always, upon surfacing, we were greeted with more delicious food! This time, Nina served up a freshly baked swirl cake of chocolate and vanilla. Awesome! There was enough for everybody to have seconds or even thirds, but I just had one piece.

We sat around a while and enjoyed the company of a thoroughly pleasant bunch of folks. There ended up being really 2-3 main groups of us, although everybody talked to one another, there were some in a group taking an advanced certification class, another in an initial open water class, and us, who were already certified, and not doing any course. So we were briefed separately, and sometimes went to different destinations around the reef. We really enjoyed not having exercises and required tests that the others had, since we already got our certification out of the way back in Texas! And we got to know our fellow divers in the already certified group better.

Mike and Jackie were a kind and energetic couple from England, retired teachers, who are halfway through a sailboat trip around the world! They regaled us with tales from the high seas, and I was amazed that there are people who actually do that! They are literally sailing the routes of the pioneers from the great days of the initial ocean explorations – Captain Cook, Magellan, Columbus, and the rest. They also both like science fiction, so I liked talking with them about that.

Christine was another really cool lady, from Winnipeg, the one whose husband was staying ashore while she plied the ocean in search of adventure. We talked and laughed a lot throughout the trip, and we will miss her. Maybe we will even come back with her to do our advanced certification, or meet up in Cozumel someday, we hope.

One of the most special people on the trip was a young girl from Cairns, who I initially thought was on staff with Pro Dive. But in fact, she is not yet, although soon will be, as she is completing training to be a dive master. She has done all her certifications with them. This was the beautiful Enya, who has lived her life on a sailboat with her parents – a truly unique individual! She has sailed the 7 seas already just at age 18, and blessed us with her very innocent and free personality. I called her our “little Mermaid”, because of her beauty and grace, but also because this one has a natural affinity for the water. On our last and most wonderful dive (which I will no doubt describe in all its glory and detail later on!), she even astounded us by diving free, without any tank, and yet swimming to depths I would not have imagined possible, seeming not to need to breathe for extremely long periods. She is a little rebellious, and no doubt, should not have done so, but she obviously has skill to do it effortlessly, and I think the rules are made to be broken sometimes, in her case clearly so… She even did a remarkable swim-through of a corral cave with us, at a depth of no less than 10 meters I’m certain, snorkel in mouth, no breath for at least 2-3 full minutes. Then she fluttered back to the surface to grab a breath far above us, while we watched astounded… On our third dive of the first day, she also took us on our first ever “swim through”, of a short “cave” in the reef. It was an excellent confidence booster, and really blew our minds with its beauty. Although this might have been technically a bit “advanced” for our skillset, it was very short, and we were very cautious. It really did get us excited to dive a bit more too, seeing a brief taste of some of the wondrous surprises the reef had in store. ..

Glenn and Naama were two more of our “certified diver” group, the lucky ones who had no classes to attend or exercises to complete! They have been on a couple other dive trips, and are a sweet couple. He is from Newcastle, just north of Sydney, and she is from Israel. They met while he was travelling, and since then, have been back and forth to see one another. I think they must have racked up a treasure chest of frequent flier miles! He was also interesting, having a first degree in computer science, and later, a degree in philosophy. We discussed this at length, and I really enjoyed those conversations a lot.

Another fellow certified diver was a cool kid, Ryan, probably just 18 or 19 himself. He is in school in Los Angeles, but doing a semester abroad in Melbourne. I was impressed with his adventurous spirit also. Not many kids his age would be trekking across the outback and diving into deep ocean all by himself! He was a studious fellow, too, also a student of philosophy. We loved the t-shirt he wore the very first day, declaring “I am John Galt”, from a personal favorite of both mine and David’s, Ayn Rand’s tome, Atlas Shrugged. Ryan also told us his favorite philosopher is Kant – not the conventional modern stuff that most philosophy tykes are prone to spew, honestly. I was impressed with that one!

There were a number of others on the trip, from other groups. They were all very nice people, and a lot of fun to share the time with. There were four young friends from Australia out together, several girls from Germany - Hannover and the Black Forrest – a girl from Vienna, named Petra, and a nice guy from Switzerland. There was also a very friendly young couple from the north of the Netherlands, very outgoing and kind. I am not a very social person by nature, although people often express surprise to hear it. I guess I may work harder at times to compensate, so it doesn’t seem that way. But on this trip, I truly felt at home with my fellow travelers, and David really seemed to also. I think we made some friends for life, and hope to see them again.

Since I am describing everybody from the entire trip in great detail, I would be remiss if I skipped our dive master and skipper, and the other crew. Oscar was our dive master, and a truly fun and easy going person, besides being a consummate professional and very knowledgable. He was full of the famous Australian/New Zealand attitude, embedding a joke in every other sentence, and easy in conversation. He was a great reassurance with our diving too. He had a funny way of presenting his dive briefings and instructions, too, where his voice would go gradually up through the course of each point, and then at the end of each point, drop to a soft tone again, restate the point, and then move on to the next one. It was really good to re-emphasize each key point, and helped us remember all the important things. As we got to know him personally too, he proved to be really interesting. He spent several months in our home town of Dallas when he had a shoulder operation previously, and lived in Tokyo for 15 years playing professional rugby, prior to becoming a dive instructor for Pro Dive. He was full of stories and laughs, and genuinely seemed to love his work. He remarked that one thing he loves about his job is the great office location. I had to agree, it is a stunning work setting. Oh, Oscar was from New Zealand, also. Oscar was also usually the first staff to hit the hay in the evening, a true early riser and early-to-bed type. I guess it is necessary. We rose at 6:45 the first day out to sea, and at 5:45 the next. I’m sure he was up well before that as everything always seemed to be perfectly prepared in advance, so we never waited for anything.

Our skipper was Mark, a former New Zealander as well, and a former military man from the New Zealand Navy. He was the one who stayed up late with the passengers, and we would see his jovial side come out then. But during the day, we would see less of him as he dealt with navigation, so would remain busy with that work a lot of the time. But during each dive, we could always count on seeing him watching out for us from the top deck, until all were safely back on board. He also saw us off on our dives, did last checks on our equipment before we hit the water each time.

Lauren was another dive master, a sweet blonde girl, and very pretty herself. She was in charge of the classes, so we didn’t talk to her as much as Oscar of course, but she was always helping out in every chore, and making sure the trip went perfectly. She was also quick to laugh and joke around, and always brightened the “saloon” during mealtimes. And she also ensured all her students passed with “high honors” as she proclaimed after they officially became certified later in the second day.

Maasau was the other crew member, a young Japanese guy, and also great in all his work. He helped ensure everything was always prepared and nothing went awry throughout the trip. He was good humored as the rest. He was also the one who picked us up and dropped us off after the trip.

So… the first day was almost complete. As long and detailed as this journal is, it does not even come close to describing the full breadth of the experience. I will try to add pictures to help! But sometimes, words nor images can express something fully. This is one of those times.

Before I am done, though, I must describe the last activity of the first day – the sensational Night Dive! David and I debated even whether to attempt it, as we were quite nervous about it, and technically our certification level does not allow it, but our instructor Oscar would accompany us, and assured us it would be well worth it, and is safe. Our “little mermaid”, Enya, also urged us most strongly to do the night dives. So, we very tepidly agreed. And shortly after dinner, briefing began. My heart was racing! Oscar provided us each with a glow stick to attach to our tanks. Our group with him was green – me, David, Glenn and Naama, and Oscar of course. Enya and Ryan were independent and more advanced, and would go by themselves, and used pink. And the advanced training guys were blue. The dive leaders had 2 glow sticks on their tanks, to make them easy to identify in the water. We were also each equipped with a “torch”, Australian for flashlight, strapped to our wrists! And in the water we went…

And… WHAT an experience! It was like being in an alien universe, even much more so than during the day. The ship shone like a distant green sun through the water, wherever we went. Our glowsticks and torches blazing through the darkness looked like something out of a science fiction movie. And oh, the sea life! There were amazing, huge fish, everywhere. The reef really gets going in early evening. And… SHARKS! We saw them circling, picking off the massive red bass that were congregating at the boat, as they love to do. Even as we jumped in the water, the sharks were within feet of us. But when we joined them, they were actually quite skittish. In fact, they are very nervous about people, and we do not look or smell or sound at all like their dinner. While actually in the water, we only saw one shark that evening, fortunately, just off in the distance, and quickly moved out of sight! As nervous as I was, I am not sure I would have enjoyed seeing more. We stayed close to Oscar, very close in fact! We explored The Whale again, but in a whole new light. And we lasted 26 minutes before returning. Oscar pointed out I needed one more weight, and was spending too much energy trying to maintain my depth. This also helped me a lot in subsequent dives on air consumption. At the end of the dive, I literally could not stop beaming with joy and excitement, for at least an hour. After all but one other went to bed, I stayed up watching the sharks feed on bass to their hearts’ content with Niels, the warm generous Netherlander I mentioned before. Finally, I realized I must get myself to bed or risk exhaustion in the morning! The new day would be upon us shortly…

Our vessel for the next 3 days!

Panoramic shot of sunset

Oscar giving a very stern dive briefing

Do I look relaxed or terrified?

Ready to dive mate!

The descent begins!

We're both in the water! Enya and Christine on deck just about to jump!

I'm ready to descend too!

Arghhh!!!

Half in and out, very cool shot with the underwater camera!

Universal "OK" signals

Our new friend Mort from Switzerland. We were supposed to go with him and Christine on this dive, but quickly lost them once we got down! All is well that ends well though! We all had a great dive, and nobody lost their "buddy"!

Awesome shot of Mort, Christine and David (rightmost) descending, and I was a little bit ahead of them...

David during descent. He had a slight problem equalizing pressure in his ears this time, so was behind a little bit in the descent, but made it down fine after short initial delay.

At the bottom, ready to start exploring!

Everything is OK!

First attempt to photograph some pretty fish

A pretty one. I was chasing him away trying to catch his picture. There is a fine art to catching them on camera without scaring them off. I was obviously still working on that! hahaha