Not yet Jaques Cousteau…but getting there!
So, my first full day of diving over. I think the course structure was to do the most difficult ones (given my situation) first. The night dive as my first dive when I hadn’t been in the water for so long. And first time again in the day, I go for the Deep dive…which is perhaps one of the most riskier types of dive for a recreational diver. But, I managed to make it and my confidence is right up there about my own diving after today.
So the day started off early. A 0630 start to meet my instructor, Bibian, at Yau Ma Tai train station on the Kowloon side was a pleasant experience. Thankfully, she told me she only got two hours sleep whereas I only had three since I was finishing off the last of my papers for the dive! It did give me a chance to talk to Bibian about some of the aspects of underwater navigation that I didn’t quite fully feel comfortable with. We also talked her being a technical diver as well as a PADI instructor. It means that she gets to go to depths and use diving skills that are way of limits to the multitude of the PADI recreationals. Apparently, one person dove to limit of 300m, stayed for 2 mins at that depth and then had to spend 19 hours slowly surfacing making decompression stops (otherwise the nitrogen in his body would have made his blood turn into bubbles and explode his body - simple explanation). The guy who runs Diving Adventure has been to 190m which is certainly a an accomplishment.
Anyway, back to my day. Unfortunately, the diving buddy that I thought I was going with suffered an accident with an HK tram and due to stitches in his leg could not attend today’s diving. Luckily, another student, Gladys, was also taking the advanced diving course and so I had a diving buddy for this trip other than Bibian. Gladys is a nurse in one of the hospitals here and amongst other things, she enjoy skydiving too. Guess diving in just water isn’t enough for her! She was friendly and we got along quite well I think. She was trying to convince me to go skydiving but safer to say, she might try wakeboarding with me when I go next.
After a quick Chinese breakfast (Instant soup noodles with fried egg, ham, and sausage) we boarded the dive boat. On board were already a group of 15 or so divers. Most were PADI Open Water students (the basic level) but seemed to be accomplished divers in their own right. They seemed to be doing the course for the official certification from PADI.
The boat took us to a dive site near Shelter Island which had the necessary depth for a deep dive. I have a feeling that the half hour stop at that dive site was purely for the benefit of our training.
I felt a little apprehension getting into the water during day light. As I mentioned before, deep diving is one of the more riskier dives, and adherence to all the safety requirements is necessary or else you can even end up dying. With this pleasant thought in my head, I descended down the anchor line with Bibian leading the way and Gladys following behind me. Bibian took the lead to make sure that our ascent was kosher and that everything was okay.
As you get deeper, two things you will notice - it gets dark and it gets colder. Luckily my wetsuit really fixed the problem of temperature. For visibility, it was okay at around 4-5 metres and also considering we are only staying by the anchor line. At the bottom, Bibian demonstrated how the colours of things would change and also showed us a mineral water bottle that she had been carrying…it was essentially there to demonstrate how pressure works and also what would happen if you failed to breath normally at that depth.
We also completed a simple task that was timed. We had done the task on the surface and timed each other. Repeating the task at that depth tends to make people slower and this was to demonstrate this. Gladys completed her time on the surface in 10 seconds but at 16m depth, she completed the task in 34 seconds. For me, I completed the task quicker at depth than on the surface! It took my 20s to complete my task on the boat and 19s to do it underwater. I was quite pleased with that myself.
I enjoyed the Deep dive but there is a certain degree of risk involved, which I found myself using to drive my excitement.
Once we had completed our task, we began to surface. The deeper you go, the more air you are likely to be using. So realistically, we spent about a good 10 minutes down there. After 3 minute safety stop, we reboarded the boat which took us to our second dive site for the day, Pak Lap Island.
Pre-lunch we managed to get a “fun dive” in…one where we just explore the underwater world without any training go on. Although I had problems with my bouyancy control and kept going to fast, I did manage to enjoy it. My mask constantly fogging up was an interesting experience. I let water in to clear it several times until I realised it wasn’t on tight enough.
I guess this has been the most interesting dive I’ve done to date. I managed to see two Lion Fish, plenty of sea urchins, a crab hiding away under a rock, Groupers, Cleaning fish, a two common rock fish. Clown fish were also there and were extremely docile. In fact they kept picking at us as we entered their territory.
Once we were on the boat, lunch was served…fried noodles, chicken curry and congee.
After lunch I started chatting to this one guy. Turns out he’s another IT guy (guess they’re paid fuck loads, eh?) and that he’s doing his open water certification, despite being going on previous diving trips. Guess he just needs that much sought after card.
The final dive for the day would be the underwater navigation. Bibian went through the pre-dive briefing and what she expected us to do underwater. Gladys and I basically buddied up and did the same, reviewing communications signals, the sequence of events, etc. It’s quite important to establish as much on the surface as possible in terms of what you are actually going to be doing. Communication at the bottom of the sea isn’t the most effective and is limited to obvious hand signs and body language. Trust me, you’ll get it one time when you just say “What?!” underwater by accident because you think you can talk!
Bibian’s role in the training part of the dive was minimal. For this dive, she expected Gladys and I to take on the role of buddy divers. Which, truth to say worked out quite well. We performed the required tasks - measuring kick cycles, elapsed time and successfully navigating in a square. My dive buddy completed the square a lot quicker than I did, but I guess that was not unexpected. I hate numbers and geometry and all that crap…yes, I know its simple, I just hate it.
We then proceeded to just explore the area around us. I must say that it was probably my best dive that I did that day in my short career as a diver. I managed to visualise how I wanted to dive, felt at one with the sea (yah yah…puke, puke), and just gracefully (well, almost) glide through the water. My previous dives had seen my hand flailing around the place, me going up and down in depth and me exercising no control whatsoever. Needless to say that those things are all not good.
Unfortunately, my air supply brought our dive to a quick stop. I have no idea why but my air seems to always deplete quicker than other people. I guess its because it takes some time to breathe in a more controlled and relaxed way. Also we had been doing some exercises in the water and apparently, men need more oxygen than women. I guess our ego’s need oxygen too.
Once out of the water, we proceeded to stowed our equipment and Gladys and I stumbled our way through filling in our log books. It’s not that hard but the difficult part is filling in the appropriate pressure groups and stuff. It’s important because it affects your body and how it reacts to pressure based on the depth and time you spend in and out of the water. Its not all that complicated by it involves thinking…and you know how much I like to do that.
Bibian signed off the advanced training elements of the day’s diving and now I’m more than 50% on the way to getting my Advanced Diving Certification. To be honest, now I’m thinking of seeing if I can do the Rescue Diver course…that teaches basic first aid and emergency procedures for divers. The skills can be relavent on land as well as it at see. Will have to find out about that.
Got dropped off about 1800 and Gladys showed my a new way of getting home. I’m not too sure its all that practical because it means I have to take a second train instead of one. Also, the Central MTR station has some problems in that its so friggin large. I got the wrong exit and ended up at Statue Square. Since it was raining, a lot of the Filipino maids had taken up residence in the shelter and bang found myself in the middle of them….its strange to be in HK and sometimes the dominant language will be English, sometimes Cantonese, and this time is was Tagalog.
Amusing at it was, the rain made less so. Taxi’s scarce and I had to walk (yes, me, walk) to Lan Kwai Fong to get a taxi that I knew wouldn’t appreciate the short drive to my flat. Thankfully, he was okay about it.
Looking forward to next week’s dive, although I have no idea who I’m going to be buddying up with…Eyal’s still not in the water on account of his leg, and Gladys is diving out of planes next week. Oh well, guess I’ll meet another new person!
