peixin2203: Advance Open Water Course

Over the last weekend, Zonghe & I (together with Mike) went to Pulau Aur with Friendly Waters to do our Advance Open Waters Certification.

Learning to do advance was a tough decision for me, because my confidence level towards diving was not that high yet and taking a big step to do Advance Open Waters was a really big step for me. =) Nonetheless, everything went well for us and we'd a really good time. =) Learnt a lot more about diving, the techniques, new skills and new experiences.

Saturday:

We left on Friday night (as usual) and arrived at Pulau Aur at about 4am in the morning. The journey was very smooth.

Our morning started, after a good night's rest in the lodge, at about 9am. Our first dive was about 9.30am after breakfast. It was a cloudy morning, so the visibility was not too good. Nonetheless, right after we hit the waters, we saw a trail of squids swim pass. We even saw a stingray chasing behind the squids. It was really cool. They were small, and quite far away, but could see the stingray 'flap' as it swam away.

First dive we took it easy, we learnt to navigate using the compass and tried deploying our SMB (surface marker buoy). Didn't manage to deploy it properly, could only blow like 20-30% of air into it only. =( Zonghe did quite well, about 40-50% full. ;)

The second dive of the day was after lunch, about 1.30pm. It had started to rain and was getting cold. The second dive, we did a nitrox dive. We learnt how to check the air content in the tanks and calculate the maximum depth we can go with the Nitrox 32 mix. Also, we reprogrammed our dive computers to take into account the different tank we are using. Second dive was completed smoothly. We saw lionfish & nudibranch.

The third dive was after our donut break at about 5.30pm. It was a nice evening dive at 'The Pinacles'. We had to do a quick descend so that we won't drift too far out and miss the dive site. We managed to do that and we got to the dive site. It was amazing, a lot of corals grown on the pinacle and we even followed Dave, our dive master, to swim through some of the 'caves' and look at the corals and fish inside these caves. Zonghe & I though that this was rather unusual and probably not a commonly explored dive site because everything seemed untouched and pretty. Once again, I couldn't deploy my SMB correctly, it's about 40% full this time, Zonghe could deploy it well. ;)

The rain continued and it was really cold when we got back onto the boat... After the third dive, we were all rather exhausted. After a short rest, (and after much deliberation), I decided to join Zonghe & Mike for the night dive. It's the second time for Zonghe & Mike, but my first time, so I was rather kan chong, cos diving in the day already quite 'tough' for me, what more at night. Nonetheless, I decided to give it a go. =)

Night dive was an amazing feeling. Basically, I held on to Zonghe's hand the entire dive. It felt just like normal dive, but only thing is that we see a lot of divers around us and their bright beam of light. Both Zonghe & I had a torch each and we explored the sea at night together. Mainly, a lot of the fishes are asleep at night. We saw a parrot fish hiding inside a coral, fast asleep. We were wondering how it got itself inside the coral, super power. haha. We also saw a puffer fish, sound asleep (Zonghe took a close up photo of it, below). And a big fish. It was asleep too, but woken up by another diver who took a close up picture of it. =) It was quite big. haha.

The corals are really beautiful too. It showed it's original colour through the light shone by the torch. We dived at the house reef, to and fro the same path. There wasn't much current, so it was an easy swim. [Don't need to deploy SMB, haha...]

We got back at about 8.30pm, had a good shower and nice BBQ dinner. =) I was so tired that I went back to the room to sleep at about 10pm. Zonghe n Mike came up to the room only at about midnight. =)

Sunday:

The first dive was the most important dive- the deep dive (one of the certification dive). We went to 'Reiner's Rock' at about 7am. We had to do a quick descend to about 20m. The dive profile is 15 mins 20 m, then 10 mins 30m, then shallow off. Bottom time about 25-30 mins. At the start of the dive, we descend v deep to about 25m, it was all dark and gloomy all around, because the sky was cloudy, sunlight could not penetrate so deep into the water. The feeling was quite scary.

We swim for a while, then I suddenly didn't feel that good. I was breathing very heavily and heart beating very fast. I signaled to Zonghe that I wasn't feeling so good. He told me that if we can abort the dive and return to surface. I thought about it for a while, then the dive master (Dave) came over to see me, after noticing that I didn't look good. He pulled me to the front and asked me to kneel down in front of this cave. I was puzzled, but after he shone his torch into the cave, I understood why. There were 3 sharks (baby sharks) inside the cave. We were diving at 'Shark Point'. Almost immediately, I felt better. After that, I was ok already, could continue the dive. I wouldn't know what would have happened to me (or our dive) if not for the sharks.

At the debrief, Dave told me that probably the anxiety, stress and apprehension of doing deep dive caused me to be overly anxious (& weaken my mental health). Moreover, exertion from fighting the current and keeping up with the group might have caused a strain on my physical health. The dark surrounding & exertion (breathing too rapidly and retaining too much CO2 in the body) might have put a strained on me. After resting a while at shark point, probably helped me recover my physical health and then my mental health.

The visibility was so low that though there were only 7 of us. Dave was in front & Zonghe n I were all the way behind, but I cannot see Dave clearly. Dave was very nice to turn around from time to time to signal an 'O' with his torch - to ask if I was ok. And I will reply him with a light signal - also an 'O'. Yupz, the deep dive went well and it should be a pass. =) Though my SMB still 'lembek lembek' (A Malay term meaning limp, flaccid or physically weak.)

Still cannot deploy it properly, about 50-60% full of air when it comes up to the surface. (So hard to blow into the valve. And I get outta breath and gotta suck another mouth full from my regulator. Holding the slightly inflated SMB in my hand, I naturally floated up with it. I took another try at the valve- 2nd mouth full, then released it. Zonghe swam up to me and held me down - in case I also get 'deployed' up to the surface. haha...) Zonghe got better & better at deploying the SMB, could perform it well everytime.

The second dive and the final dive was at about 10am after breakfast. It was a relatively easy dive at the house reef. We went out for about 40 mins bottom time. It was the only dive that I came back with 30 bars of air left (full tank = 200 bars). Most of the dive, I'm either left with 0 or 15 bars. Oops... Cos after we surface, we should still keep the regulator in the mouth. =)

In the final dive, we saw another lionfish. This time, Zonghe managed to take a front view of the lionfish- usually it shows their tail & colourful fins only. There were quite a bit of sea anemone and nudibranch too. ;) My final try at deploying the SMB. But still didn't managed to get it done properly. =( Sigh... Dunno how to blow it well lah. A lot of 'leaked' air... wasted. haha...

We left the island at about 11.30am after packing our lunch from the lodge. =) We got back to Singapore, Riverwalk at about 8pm. We went to have dinner together (3 of us) at Manhatten Fish Market, then home sweet home. =)

What a wonderful weekend. =) Love doing things together with Zonghe. He's always so loving, supportive and encouraging. =) Thank you dear! =) Couldn't have accomplished so much without you! =) L!