Scuba Diving!

And just like that, I have two dives under my belt! Wasn’t that easy but man was it fun. Woke up this morning ready to go at 6 (also woke up at 2 thinking it was time to go and 4 thinking it was time to go) and had a quick breakfast in an essentially empty cafeteria. For some reason not many college students wake up for 6:30 breakfast on Saturdays.) After a quick bite, Carmen and I hopped on the bus and took a cab to the Perth Diving Academy and boarded the boat. Was definitely nice having Carmen there, even though I didn’t see her once during the dive, it was fun hanging out with her between dives and asking her for advice. Carmen is a diver-pro (just made up that term but she definitely is – before coming here she just did an ice dive!) so it was helpful following her lead in terms of setting up my gear on the boat in the most efficient manner. After about a 40 minute sail we arrived to the first reef and began suiting up. Despite Carmen’s advice that I use the first dive to get acclimated, I insisted on trying to bring my camera into the water with me. With a giant stride off the side of the boat I was in the water. They had put me in a group with four other people who were relatively beginner divers – I was definitely the most inexperienced of the group though – led by one experienced diver. As I swam around to the back of the boat to get my camera, the wind picked up a little and the boat started smashing around. Realizing that this was my first real dive ever, I thought hmm … could it be possible that I am being impatient by trying to use the camera right away? Me - impatient due to being overly excited? Never… Okay maybe every now and then. Deciding Carmen was right, I decided to leave the camera for the first dive. As I began descending my left ear started throbbing. I watched in dismay as all the other divers around me effortlessly floated down to the bottom – leaving me bobbing awkwardly in some hellish unequalized limbo. The guy leading our dive swam back up to me and went with me to the surface where he told me to try it again and if I couldn’t then I would have to go back to the boat. I felt pretty devastated… here I was off on this big adventure and I couldn’t even get started. As he swam back down to leave me to try to descend I couldn’t help but feel like I was failing. Thinking of how excited I was back on the boat, all the people I had told about my dive, and how sad it would be if I had to just spend the whole day on the boat, I decided this was not how my first scuba experience was going to end and I slowly but steadily made my way down. And by the time I reached the bottom (20M or 65 feet!) I was fine! About a minute after reaching the bottom we saw a huge stingray, which made me immediately regret my decision to leave my camera at the surface. The first reef had this rock and coral bottom that turned into this kind of shelf or wall type structure. Just seeing how many living things there were was pretty incredible. After 30 minutes we turned around and went back up for lunch. As we sailed to the little bay where we would anchor for lunch we saw dolphins playing in our wake as well as several whales surfacing. Soon enough it was time to go back down and this time I felt ready to bring down the camera. The second site we went to had these huge rock structures that formed these miniature caves, which made for a pretty interesting looking landscape. The guy leading our group said that it would be okay if I followed along above the group rather than going as deep this time. He must have thought I was above them, or I may have gotten distracted with my camera, but by the time I looked back down they were nowhere to be seen. I looked to my left and to my right (said now in an Australian accent) but there was no one to be seen. Realizing I hadn’t exactly looked at my compass on my way out, I got a little nervous. Er… where exactly was the boat? A quick look straight above me was pretty reassuring as the boat was directly above. And as I swam over a rock I saw the descent line and realized where I was. Phew. I spent the next 45 minutes just photographing the fish and coral around me and just having an awesome time. Among the two major things I learned today were the facts that 1). I have the sinuses or ears of a 6 year old girl and 2). A lot more goes into underwater photography than one would imagine. Between equalizing, minding your surroundings, remaining neutrally buoyant, fighting currents, oh yeah and adjusting the settings on the camera – a lot goes into a single shot. I was really happy I had done some reading on some recommended settings. Definitely room for improvement but for a first go I was pleased.

A little hard to make out, but these are the caves.

Thought they looked like little faces. Check out the next photo for the zoomed in version.

The little guy on the left side is my favorite. Weeeee!

Doesn't this kind of look like an ancient Greek urn?

This guy kept swimming up to me and getting in my face. Very territorial... trying to pick a fight!

Thankfully one of the other divers gave us a ride home and offered to pick me up tomorrow morning if I wanted to go again. Knowing that I wouldn’t have to take the bus and lug all my gear around made it pretty tempting to again. We’ll see how I feel by the end of the night (my ears are pretty sore), but I think I will go back out tomorrow!