Day 4. I spent the night being rocked back and forth, sliding around on the plastic mattress counting fish, hundreds of them. I still couldn’t fall asleep. I was tired, but the newness of it all would not let me sleep. I was wide awake when the wake up knock came around at 5:45 and sprung out of bed. I didn’t particularly want to go diving at 6:00 AM but I definitely didn’t want to roll around in bed anymore either.
I put on my bathing suit and went to the cafeteria to have a cup of gross instant coffee and a banana. Soon after I was again putting on a wetsuit and tank, for the first dive of the day which is also the deepest. Hendrik and I would have to prefect the out-of-air drill, but other than that it was supposed to be a fun dive. This time we did it well, especially since we had gone over it verbally five times.
During breakfast the ship moved to change location so we could see a new reef and I began to feel incredibly nauseous and worried that I’d have to miss our “graduation dive” when we got our certifications and were filmed by a cameraman. I couldn’t finish breakfast and took a pill, which in a matter of minutes made me feel better, and then I was ready to dive again.
During the second dive we were supposed to do things for the camera and we would take off our mask and put sunglasses on instead and “drink” from a beer can. We got our IDs underwater and got it all on film.
Then it was lunchtime and a bit longer break in-between dives. Underwater cameras were also available for rent and our group decided to rent one and then share it. Since we were certified now we would go alone just with our buddy and therefore were also able to take a camera. We were to have the camera first.
I was excited to finally not be in a group and play follow the leader, though it is good to go with someone who knows the site so they can point out a lot of cool things such as Nemo, giant clams, an octopus, a lionfish, and a cuttlefish which our instructor did before and which I knew I probably wouldn’t find myself.
Hendrik and I went down with another buddy pair because we were going to take pictures of each other and then they were going to give us the camera. So they had it first and as we were descending they disappeared. It’s amazing how fast and easy it is to lose someone in the ocean. They were right behind us and when I turned around again they were gone. We wondered if we should resurface, but opted against it since we were each others buddies and only needed to take are of each other. I really enjoyed the dive, being able to go wherever I pleased. We even saw a shark. It was only a reef shark because large sharks don’t live near the reef, and they are harmless, but it was still spectacular. We could have resurfaced closer to the boat, but we didn’t know how to navigate, but the swim back wasn’t too bad anyway.
When we were reunited with the others we learned that one of them had trouble equalizing and needed to go back up. I was glad I wasn’t the only one who had problems with it. Then it was dinner and right after was the ever anticipated night dive. Everyone said that every diver needs to do at least one night dive and that it is supposed to be really cool. We were lectured about new hand signals and devices such as a flashlight, glow stick, and inflatable neon orange safety sausage, (that I really wanted to use) in case we needed to be found floating on the dark waters. We were told we’d see fish hunting and sparks in the water created by some sort of sea life. I was skeptical about it, not liking the dark too much, but after hearing about it, it sounded really exciting.
I was unable to get a newer wetsuit and had to settle for an older one, which turned out to be terrible because I started shivering right away after I descended. Before I even descended I had a small panic attack that my regulator was upside down and would intake water which really scared me, but it ended up being fine. I was also pretty tired since that was the fourth dive and the minute I was under I wanted it to be over. It was dark, and a flashlight only allows for minimal visibility. I had to tell myself over and over again to relax because I felt so uncomfortable and was shivering which was a bad sign and meant I should stop the dive. I knew the dive was only supposed to be a maximum of 30 minutes so I would bear it.
The whole time I saw only one fish, and that one fish ate a smaller fish once. I’d seen that in my aquarium when an angel fish that actually just looked like a smaller version of the one in the ocean ate a baby molly. I was not impressed. I kept looking at my pressure gage because by 50 I was supposed to have surfaced and I was down to 70, but just then we got the signal from the instructor to surface, which was very relieving, because I would have had to inform him that my oxygen was low. Instead someone else had ran out of oxygen before me, which made me glad since the instructor said that it was a record short night dive because it was only 20 minutes, though I felt that it was an hour.
When I reached the boat I was shaking and shivering and struggled to get out of the water, I was beat. It was the most disappointing dive, and I learned that the ocean pretty much sleeps at night and that there is nothing to see. I don’t think I’ll go on a night dive again, but I had to do it if I wanted to get certified to be able to go underwater 30 meters. Right now I could only go 18.
Tomorrow, we were going to go down 30 meters first thing in the morning to become 30 meters certified and I was not looking forward to that at all especially after this dive. I went to bed soon after because I was incredibly tired and was finally able to go to sleep even through the rocking because I was just so exhausted.
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