Eshin Direct

I’ve finally made it! I am now a fully qualified Advanced Open Water Diver! It feels great to have achieved something worthwhile for me again. I know that some people manage to do the certification in two days diving, but I think that managing to do it in a month while I’m not on holiday (and thus have other commitments!) is pretty good.

I’m pretty tired as it is while I write this, so please forgive the additional spelling mistakes on top of the usual ones. It’s probably best to start at the beginning.

I managed to get up at 0630 this morning despite only having one and a half hours sleep last night. The reason being that I had to go to a birthday party and in typical HK fashion made new friends. Short of that story is, I probably had a little too much to drink to be going diving the next day and I didn’t see my bed until 0500.

After procrastinating about whether to go (should I call in sick?!), I decided I should (not really a choice). So managed to get my ass out of bed and into a taxi for Central MTR in the space of about half an hour. The great thing about diving is that it doesn’t really matter if you do your hair or stink to high heaven.

I arrived at the Yau Ma Tai MTR at about 0715. I will never get used to how quick the transport and distances are in this place. Unfortunately, Bibian was a little late, so I panicked a little. I couldn’t remember if I had actually arranged to meet her here at that time or whether I was supposed to go to Sai Kung by myself.

Anyway, she showed up eventually. Although we didn’t think we’d have time for breakfast, we still managed to fit in a 10 min breakfast of instant noodles, sausage, ham and egg. Great stuff for that time of day and actually something I was looking forward to as much as the diving!

It was full boat complement today. There were probably about 25 people on board. Most of them were Open Water certs and I can never really get over how many people whom I’ve seen on that basic course and people that I’ve spoken to, have actually gone and bought the equipment (or at least the expensive parts of the get-up). It’s quite endemic to HK people I think.

Anyway, Bibian was running to Advanced courses today…another couple, and Gladys and me. Gladys was again going to be my dive buddy for these dives. I actually don’t really mind. She’s the same level as me (although she won’t have done the Night Dive yet, so she’ll get her Adv. cert. then) but she’s actually quite a confident and competent diver. She’s probably a better diver than me, but that’s okay because that makes her a good dive buddy. It’s probably because she’s a nurse so she has that calming influence on people? I guess its also because she has the good grace to put up with me nattering with her for the whole day and still smile at my stupid jokes. Bibian has learned to start hitting me!

We had plenty of time to set up our equipment as we had to stop at Shelter Island again so that Bibian could do a Deep dive with her other Adv. Cert. students. The more times I put together the equipment, the easier it gets. Well its not that hard, but now I’m a little more systematic and my gear isn’t strewn half across the boat. 24 people on boat helps to encourage tidiness. Bibian had lent me her Force Fins…basically, to let me try different fins out before I buy a pair.

I was dying to try my new booties on (okay, I know its sad, but when you get new equipment, you just really want to try it on). I was trying to find an excuse to put them on, when Gladys suggested I gear up and try the Force Fins that Bibian had lent me on for size. Smart girl, that one.

So tried them on and they fit. The Force Fins too but I’ll get on to how they actually worked later on.

When Bibian had returned and we were on course to the dive site at Pak Lap (again! – Gladys had been there the week before so she wasn’t too amused!), she briefed us on the Search & Recovery Dive that we were going to do. Essentially, she was going to leave us to find a golf ball and a weight belt. We were going to execute a circular search pattern with a rope to find the damned things. I foolishly let Gladys choose which item she wanted to find – naturally, she choose the easy object of the weight belt! Bibian consoled me and told me that she thought that men always liked a challenge! (She doesn’t seem to understand that a challenge for men is remembering their girlfriends’ birthdays – on that note, 27 August 1979).

Gladys and I worked out some rudementary pull signals that we would be using with the rope to execute our search. When we arrived at Pak Lap, we were the first to go. One of the things that I have noticed about myself and also Gladys, is that we’ve become more confident about gearing up and getting into the water. Rather than a 10 minute affair, it’s down to about 2 mins with all the proper checks. I think that’s about the right time for this.

This was the first time I got to enter the water off the side of the boat. It may not seem much, but mostly divers will enter the water from the stern of the boat via the dive board. The side of the boat means a jump from a meter high into the water, which added a little bit of excitement (okay, small things excite me). After Gladys and I were in the water, we swam to Bibian who gave us a quick demonstration of how to use a life bag (something that would help us to bring the object in question to the surface). After that, we were on our own.

We decided to search for the golf ball first. It was perhaps because the visibility was so good at about 8m that we were able see the golf ball from the surface. We thought about diving down and just picking it up but we choose not to and just try the circular pattern. Later I was reprimanded for not using another search pattern more appropriate for the conditions.

We tried the circular pattern and after I had done two laps I found that if I extended the diameter of the circle further, I would have got our rope entangled in some fishing lines that had been deposited in the area. So I decided to swim in to Gladys and suggest that we try to move our search closer to the boat and where we thought we saw the ball. A silly mistake because as we were moving towards a new search point, we saw the ball. If I had just been able to extend the rope a little further and complete I third lap! Anyway, we picked up the ball and made our way to the second area where we thought we’d find the weight belt.

Actually, Gladys managed to find the weight belt quite quickly and our search point was very close to where it was. I aided her in lifting the object a little but as it was her search, she did most of the work. She let the lift bag ascend to quickly and she made a common mistake of not letting go of it, which meant that she ascended a little too quickly.

Once we were on the surface, we decided that we should return to the boat rather than do some more diving just for fun. This was partly because my air pressure was at 50 bar and well, we didn’t want to take the risk.

We returned to the boat and stowed away our equipment and waited for lunch. We decided to go up top on the sun deck while we waited. I made the mistake of not putting a T-shirt on up there and decided to get myself a little sun tan…and I think as I write this, I think a little sun burnt too.

After lunch, Bibian briefed us about the Peak Performance Bouyancy dive that we were about to do. My problem is that I understand the theory and all but its hell to execute. This one was going to be a tough dive.

Once we were in the water (after a disappointing stern water entry), Bibian did a Bouyancy check on us. I had the right weight on although Gladys, I think, was overweight a little.

One down.

At the bottom, Bibian demonstrated the pivot movement, the hover movement, the backward kick cycle, and the “turn turtle” swimming position. Sounds kinky, but trust me, kinky they are not. I finally managed to get the pivot movement (one that I hate) and I had much better luck with the hover movement. I used one of the techniques in the book, visualisation, to achieve the perfect position. Sounds silly, but it worked.

The remain two exercises, we were demonstrated but when we executed them, both Gladys and I managed to look very ungraceful. However, it was enough to convince Bibian that we knew what we were doing. We surfaced and Bibian told me that now I was a happy certified Advanced Open Water Diver! I managed to release one of my famous whoopies (involves raising your hands like a little kid and going “whoopie!”). It amuses the people here sometimes.

Bibian basically let us go and use the remainder of our air to explore on our own. Gladys, again, managed to use her navigation skills to get us to the right points and back to the boat. I just basically followed her. Unfortunatly, my BCD was leaking so I wasn’t exactly maintaining a necessary neutrally bouyant position. It meant I had to keep adding air to my BCD as I kept sinking into the coral reefs below.

I pushed the limit of my air supply, something for which I got a stern look from Bibian when I got back to the boat. It got down to 20 bars which is more than half of the critical red area of the gauge. To be honest, and I don’t recommend that people do this, I had enough air as we were very close to the boat. It was just a judgement call. Besides, I always seem to use more air than Gladys does and I feel bad that her dive has to end just because my air consumption is higher.

I can’t say we saw much on that dive although I hear that I missed a crab stuck in a cage. Not the most memorable dive in terms of marine life.

Once we surfaced and had stowed away our BCD’s, tanks, and regulators, I talked Gladys into going for a skin dive (aka snorkelling). She wasn’t too thrilled about going into the water without her BCD to give her positive bouyancy but once we were in the water, she seemed quite comfortable. Besides, we still had our wetsuits on which gave us some additional bouyancy to our own natural bouyancy. We probably spent about twenty minutes on that dive/surface swim.

What we did see were small baby jellyfish. These little suckers were quite cute as they are about the size of a fingernail. Gladys poked one of them, which I didn’t think was too smart but she seemed to be okay.

For the last two dives, I’ve managed to use the compass on my watch to help me navigate. It actually works quite well and it will serve as a useful backup in the future (primarily, I should use the liquid filled compass). And, in the future, when I get a dive computer, that will also have a compass heading.

When we got back to the boat, after we had stowed all our equipment and got into dry clothes, I stole about 20 mins sleep on the sun deck (this time with T-shirt but still no flipping sunblock – I’ve bought some on the way back home). Gladys and I filled in our log books and managed to successfully work out our pressure groups. Bibian debriefed us and I managed to walk away with a temporary Advanced Cert. card. I also donated AUS$10 to Project AWARE which is a charity that is run by PADI to promote environmentally safe diving and marine life preservation. I guess it made me feel a little happier since although as a recreational diver I go to enjoy the marine life and environment, ultimately, my being there at all can have an adverse impact.

The down side of such a great day was having to take the Public Light Bus back to Yau Ma Tei MTR. It was a busy day in Sai Kung and the queues for most of the public transport were ridiculous. I managed to sleep for the 45 min bus ride but I also had the luck to share it with some school kids who felt that everybody in the bus needed to hear their conversation.

Actually, taking public transport helps me to do to things. One it helps me to think about the days diving (when I’m not asleep). This is important for me as I spend a lot of time yacking. Bibian commented on it when we had breakfast this morning. She told another instructor not to ask me any questions because when my mouth gets too busy. Cute.

The second thing about public transport is that it helps me to realise that doing this course is something special. Walking along the street in Kowloon and in Central I realise that a lot of people will have had done nothing really consequential with their day today. Okay, I know its because they might not have the funds to do so, but really, there is more to being in HK other than yum cha and shopping, which a lot of these people will be doing.

Getting my Advanced Certification is the first real qualification that I’ve payed for and seen through by myself. Especially after leaving the education system, the feeling that I’m working for someone else and something else (i.e. working in company) and not for my own benefit is something that I missed. I feel great about myself and that I’ve managed to do something in this last month. I’m looking forward to the next stage in my diving learning – working myself up to be a Rescue Diver.

Some Useful Links

My Dive Record (The Technical Stuff)
Project AWARE
PADI Recreational Diving

Tags: Scuba