When my brother asked if I would like to go scuba diving on an upcoming public holiday, I was already too excited to answer.
For two reasons. One, I had been wanting to re-active my diving license (NAUI, 2003). I went for the open water exam, passed, got my license card, felt pretty proud, placed it in my wallet (until I changed the wallet) and never to dive again. 8 long years. I love the beach and the sea, just that I missed opportunities to do the dives. Secondly, I need a few hours giving my mind a break from GDS.
Now.
After 8 years, would anyone still dare to venture into the deep sea diving? The apparatus are designed for your underwater safety, but if we do not know how to use it. ie, we forgot to turn on the tank? forgot how to inflate the jacket? Fat good it’ll do us. Thus, my brother and I was hoping to save some extra bucks and seeked help from…
Not so surprisingly, there are a lot of ‘Refresher Diving Course’ available in YouTube.
However, finally, when I was handed a jacket just to try the size, I buckled it up all wrong way. That is when I am sure that I wanna be safe than sorry. Suck it up, and sign up for Refresher Course. Which was good, because I had forgotten about a lot of the essential diving equipments.
The wet suit was better compared to how I remembered it was. They come in short sleeves and shorts now. When I did NAUI with UM, it was long sleeves and long pants. It gets heavy when water drips from every fibre. Our instructor/masterdiver (not sure), Gon, didn’t even bother to change into a wet suit.
“I don’t want to pinjam wet suit la. Nanti, after an hour, after a dive, you might feel the urge to pee pee. You think it goes into the sea. Yes, but not before spreading over INSIDE your wet suit.”
We repeated and practiced the few basic stuff, including regulator recovery, mask clearing (which proves to be very handy later), buddy breathing, etc. A few kinky skills was ears equalizing and buoyancy control.
And one more thing I personally dreaded was the back-drop. I thought the stepping-in method was so much easier but then again, the oxygen tank – full, was super heavy, weaklings like me would not even be able to stand up.
Back-drop from the boat into the sea actually looks very cool. If done correctly. Well, there isn’t much of back dropping wrongly, I just imagine myself clumsily overturned into the sea.
Once under, the sea is a different world. Pulau Sapi doesn’t offer a lot of gigantic sea creatures. And probably not in schools of hunderds. But it’s coral and reef is great. Well, I was too busy equalizing my ears, checking the gauge, clearing my mask, maintain my bouyancy… Doing all these technical things, than to relax and observe the underwater world. I wish I can appreciate them more. Once I get comfortable underwater.
Besides having a fun dive buddy, the dive value depends on what you experience down there. I remember a particular coral. Slowly, i swam around a big stone with holes, with reefs and fishes darting in and out (imagine the Finding Nemo habitat). I got about 2 feet close from a flowery thing, when the shy colorful thing *poof! and closed up. It reacted to me! Hahaha. Kinda euphoric. It actually reacted to me! And another tiny encounter which really made my dive was this fish, about the size of my palm. It looked at me with an attitude, not moving, but its fins busy flipping, maintaining its perfect buoyancy. I never seen any fish eyeing me face to face. Usually we see it’s more flattened side.
When a particular dive was over, and the oxygen tank depleted at least more than half, the tanks were lighter. But that still requires my painstaking upward step-by-step climb into the boat. I had a little cramp climbing up after the second dive.
Diving was great fun. I would like to do it more often,if time and financial permits. Like golf, this is an expensive hobby. And it entangles your hair, and gives you the complexion of…. undesirable. And yeah, even now, as I am typing this, I still feel uneven, like my head is drifting against the gentle waves.
aL is here 