Monday morning we left Tiga Ruang and quickly made it back to the house to grab my things along with Alex one of the volunteers who was also doing his Open Water course same time as me along with me. We went to get some
lunch from the Jetty, 3 RM for rice and beef before getting a taxi to Coral
Bay. When we arrived at Sea Voice Dive Shop, we were greeted by some of
the staff . They all seemed
really nice and could see why Ramona enjoyed going there. We put our stuff down
and a guy named Kib gave us a little introduction to how our day would go. I
was very tired from Tiga Ruang and Kib said there was free tea and coffee for
us. Normally I would turn this down, but I was so tired I decided to give the
coffee a go. It turns out I like coffee now. To start our Open Water course off
we had some forms to fill out with some personal details on. After this we
started the theory of our diving this involved looking through the Open Water
Diving book and then watching some videos. This is what we would be tested on
Wednesday after we had done our diving. When this was done we met our instructor
Sue, she had been at the dive shop for 4 years. She explained what we would be doing 1 dive on the first day, 2 on the second and then 2 on the
third. Before we went out on the first dive we were allocated equipment in relation
to our size etc. First was body suit either a wet or a skin suit, a wet suit is
mainly for people who get cold easily in the water. As I am in the water most
days most weeks I opted for a skin suit. Next up was fins and mask followed by
weights. Weights are important as they help you sink when diving, however it is
important to get the right weight, too much weight and you sink to the bottom
and can’t swim properly too little and you float up and have to kick more to
keep yourself down. Both me and the other Alex had 3kg extra which turned out
to be perfect for me. We also were assigned a BCD, this is our buoyancy jacket
that acts as a controllable life jacket. It uses air from the oxygen tank or
from your breath to inflate so you can stay on the surface when you’re not
diving. The tank was fitted to the back and the final piece of kit was the
Regulator this is one of the most important bits of equipment. The regulator is
what connects to the oxygen tank and consists of your breathing tube, your back
up breathing tube, the tube that connects to the BCD so you can inflate and
finally the gauge so you know how much air you have left when diving. This is
super important as it allows you to plan your dive and make decisions during a
dive. Our tanks were 200psi which gives roughly 50-60 minutes diving time in
water 10m. When we were happy we checked our equipment and then headed to our
boat for our first dive. We were going to Romantic beach a small beach round
the coast from Coral Bay and a common starting spot for divers. It was really
fun getting used to the equipment and learning different skills under the
water. After we done a few techniques we went for a little swim, it took a
while to get used to using your breathing to control your height in the water.
Another thing I struggled with was using the fins, I hadn’t really used any
before so was hard to get my head round as you use them very differently to how
you kick normally when free diving. When we got back to the Dive Shop, Sue
showed us how to dismantle our equipment for the next day. She seemed happy
with how we were progressing which was a good sign as normally the Open Water
course is done over 4 days but we were getting it done in 3. We had a quick
shower and collected our things and headed back to the village. I was so tired
I had a little chat with the guys before heading for bed.
The next day we were up at 7:30am ready to
leave at 8am. We had some breakfast and headed down the Jetty to grab some
lunch to take to coral bay. Once we got our lunch we waited for one
of the taxi boat boys to turn up to take us to Coral Bay. It was 15RM per
person to Coral Bay which wasn’t to bad as coral bay is towards the north west
of Kecil. When we arrived we had a coffee and went to watch the remaining
videos for our open water. At 12pm we were going diving this time to D’Lagoon,
I had been to D’Lagoon a few times with snorkel tours and it’s really nice
there I had seen stingrays and Bumphead parrot fish so I was excited. Before
the dive Sue gave us a briefing on what skills we would be doing and things to
look out for at the dive site. We set up our gear and went through the safety
checks to ensure our equipment was safe and secured properly. Then we got on
the boat and headed for D’lagoon. When we arrived compared to yesterday where
we just stepped off the boat today we were doing a seated roll off the boat.
This is something I had really been looking forward to doing. Its incredibly
simple and involves sitting on the edge of the boat with all your scuba gear
and then holding your mask and regulator and letting the weight of the tank
roll you into the sea. During the dive we went through more techniques about emergency situations like losing your mask or being out of air and having to use your buddy for help etc. I struggled with some at first, but eventually got my head round it. We tried to get a taxi to go home after our dive, however there were no taxis available so Zak one of the boatman at Sea Voice kindly took us back to the village. Can't wait for my final day of diving.
Today was our
last day of our Open Water Diving. We started the day finishing off the
knowledge review of the text book before doing a quiz to test our knowledge.
The quiz was also to get us ready for our Open Water Exam which we needed 80%
to pass. After this we brought a roati at a place called Fatimah’s. They claim
to have the best roati on the island, he puts on a little show while he makes
it and it tasted delicious. I’ve really enjoyed hanging around the dive shop
Zak one of the boat guys has been joking around with me playing music and
singing with me. Also Zak pretty good on guitar, he played hotel California
before our first dive. The lunchtime dive was to D’lagoon again but a different
spot. Here we did our weight check underwater, this involved taking the weight
off sitting it on our knee and then re-attaching it. We also did compass
navigation my 10 years of scouts made that nice and easy. Once this was dome we
went for a little swim around the coral reef, we were about 11m deep. While on
our dive I saw 6 blue spotted rays and some pufferfish, but the highlight was
when we had to stop as sue spotted Alex floating to the surface. I waited
around about 1m above the coral while sue helped Jim. Then Nick another
instructor went past with his student and signalled the turtle symbol. I got
very excited and checked with Sue if I could follow. We spotted the hawksbill
and followed it for a bit before I turned back to re-join with Alex and Sue.
This was only the 2nd Hawksbill I had seen all season. When we got to the
surface we did some diving tow techniques and checked our weights as Alex was
having issues. We put our gear on board and waited for the others to surface.
While we waited we got back in the water for a swim we both dived off the end
of the boat. There were some tourists who had s lilo that sue borrowed. After
our dive we moved our equipment onto our final tank and then went or do the
final exam. We bath passed and were ready for our test dive. This was at Batu
Layar which is just off from Tiga Ruang .We did the final checks, BCD (testing
it inflates deflates), Weights (checking location of them and correct amounts,
Releases (checking we can safely release our BCD), Air (smelling the air and
testing the regulators), final check mine and my buddies equipment. We then set
off on our dive we were 16m, we saw Barracuda, Bat Fish, at one point there was
a map Pufferfish one side of me and a Giant Pufferfish the other. We also saw
an African pompano which are quite rare. When the dive was at an end we did our
safety stop which involves waiting 5m from the surface for 3mjns before
surfacing. We them inflated our SMB which shows the boatman we have finished the
dive. We were now officially open water divers! We filled in our diver log
books back at the shop and Sue completed our forms which we would need to send
off to get our licences. I know Dan has wanted to do his advanced open water so
maybe I will be back to do that. I love diving.
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