Under the sea

In the past week I have taken two SSI diving courses, an open water course and an advanced adventurer course with the Phoenix Divers at Sairee Beach, Koh Tao. The first one teaches the very basics of diving to complete beginners such as myself, and I was lucky enough to learn in a group of three. A lot of attention from the instructor, and all of us progressed at the same pace. Even our first practice dive was done in the sea, whereas the group of 16 starting the next day practiced in the swimming pool and some of them were really struggling.

I thought I would be scared underwater, but I totally fell in love with it! The feeling of stepping out of the boat with all of your gear, being immersed in the warm water and realising that you can breathe, and from that point on, it's just sightseeing and enjoyment!

The open water course teaches the basic skills, going down to 18 m, and with the advanced adventurer gives an option of five speciality dives. Navigation and deep diving were obligatory and I didn't really enjoy them that much - I got lost during the navigation practice! We had to use compass to swim a square, but somehow the low visibility, strong current and my innate counting of breathes (instead of kicks) screwed me up. So I was lost under the sea and running out of air - no can do but ascend on my own. Surprisingly enough, it went well with the dive computer telling me when to safety stop and I managed to stay level and not to to panic. Quite proud of myself for not panicking! The deep dive took us to 30 m and had to do some basic maths problems, which I obviously got right whereas my dive buddy was rather confused. On that dive we saw some massive schools of fish, including barracudas.

The other speciality dives I chose were perfect buoyancy, which I found very useful, night diving, which I found eerie and not as exciting as described by others, and underwater photography! So here are some of the photos I took at White Rock!