with anna
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A.nna
anna // singaporean. my dream is to some day live in a countryside and have a lot of dogs. reach me on
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Sunday, September 6, 2015
Certified All-Diver Technically there's no such thing as certified all divers but I just got my OWD (Open Water Diver) Certification + I've got a skydive certification so logically I'm an all-diver right? Enough of the bragging, let's read into my experience. I took my OWD with PADI and associated my pool and open dive with Gangga Divers @ Lotus Bungalows. You actually have to select your school before you take your course so that they have access to your training records. 2 months before I took my pool and open water dive, I was taking the online theory lessons with PADI. You don't actually need 2 months per se but I watched a few videos every night so I need not rush to finish it closer to date. I estimated that if I were to fully watch the videos and finish the assessment at one go, it will probably take around 1 to 1.5 working days. But anyways, crap aside. I did my theory assessment and scored a 80% if I'm not wrong and headed to Bali for our pool and open dives. The second day we arrived, we started our pool session. In all honesty, I don't remember what was taught specifically but it included like how you wash your mask underwater, buoyancy, dropping your wet belt during emergency, fastening the oxygen tank should it move when you're underwater so on and so forth. We were taught how to set up our equipment and test them too. During my first open dive, I was freaking out like mad. I was so sure I'm claustrophobic, I actually diagnosed myself with it. It was only for the first dive, the next few was totally fine. The first few dives was at Padang Bay Jetty. The water was not extremely clear, that could be one of the reasons why I felt claustrophobic because for the first time, I'm relying on an equipment to give me oxygen + I'm in the sea, 10m deep with limited visibility (it was sand-based.) I've never imagined a jetty could be a diving site. I always imagined being thrown into the deep sea in the middle on nowhere and start descending. But anyways, we did some drills which we practiced underwater and it went well. During the two dives, we spent around 10 minutes on drill and 20 minutes on diving. We do have video footage but let's just say the Emperor Prawn diving The next day, we did another 2 open water dives at Padang Bay and head back to finish up our pool session. Honestly if you ask me what I saw, I would say many fishes and corals but I don't remember much of their names. But those that I remembered were frog fish, super mini scrimp and clownfishes. Till the 4 open water dives, I've to add on that I'm sea sick and it was terrible. I gave up one of the dives and slept on the boat instead. I woke up with 4 mens and I was all alone. They're the crews but can you imagine waking up on a boat, in the middle of the sea and see 4 unfamiliar faces? I can safely say I've experienced that. The 5th and 6th dive was the best. We went shore diving at Liberty Wreck. The ship sunk in 1940 and has been there since. But according to our dive masters, it was broken into 3 parts through the years. There were lots of coral and marine life shit that grew on the boat and here are a few main point I'd like to highlight for these shore dives at Liberty Wreck:
Here are some pictures which are not taken by me, so credits to Google:
This is a barracuda, one of the deadly fishes.
The pretty flying gurnet, flying around.
Stupid fire coral that stung me :(
I found you, Nemo!
On the topic of nemo, clown fishes are really small. Seriously, SMALL. I'm not even exaggerating but they can be as small as 2cm to 3cm + they are super cute. Because the plates of coral are their home, when you swim pass them, they will all swim back into the corals to hide. From far you see them on the coral and the next thing, all disappeared.
It's safe to say that my salary will be going into my dive funds from now onwards. In fact, after just getting our OWD in July, we have an upcoming Bintan Trip this October and another one in Phuket this December.
+ I've bought almost all the equipment except fins and dive computer. I've got my own suit, mask, lobster tickle, torch, gloves and boots. I'm not even sure if it's necessary to buy your own BCD and regulator. I know it makes a difference if you buy a good one, but how many people actually travel with their full set of equipment? So I've decided to let this sports grow on me before I invest anymore.
Conclusion: It is really another world beneath this land and I've never thought I'd enjoy it so much. The only hand sign I want to see from now onwards is this because it means descend.
If only Singapore has dive spots... Actually our dive master did mentioned that some ship wreck are intentional in the sense that they sank a boat to attract marine life. Maybe I can write in to our government to propose this idea so 5 years down the road I can say like, oh I'm busy this weekend, gonna dive at Jurong or something. But before that nonsensical dream comes true, I shall save more money by shopping less so that I can dive more!
Labels: bali, dive, dive spot, diving, gangga divers, jetty, liberty, liberty ship wreck, lotus bungalows, owd, padang bay, padi, scuba diving, ship wreck |
xx
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