Addicted to scuba diving

I am now a scuba diving addict. Yes, I'll admit it, even stand up at a meeting and say my name and admit it. I have found a sport, along with Muay Thai, which I could spend alot of time doing!

Saturday, I started my SSI (Scuba Schools International) Open Water certification with the Phuket Scuba Club. It is a 4 day course, with many DVDs, chapter readings and homework in the evenings, and 'confined' skills dives during the morning and afternoon. The advantage of doing an open water course here in Thailand is that "confined" water means just off Karon beach! It's not done in a pool, so getting used to the salt water, currents, waves and the hazards around you is inherent right from the beginning. I must admit, the taste of salt water is not to my liking, but you tend to get used to it (unless you swallow gallons of it, which I have done on occassion while practicing certain techniques). The course has been excellent and very thorough. For the first two days, I was alone with my instructor, Joel. The initial day, the first time descending was a shock. Actually, more than a shock. It scared the shit out of me! Yes, humans, a long way back, evolved out of marine life, but nowadays, man was never meant to breathe while underwater! Instinctively, it's something that you get a little uncomfortable with. Discomfort, slight apprehensive and even fear are three things I have had to get in touch with and conquer. Everything about diving is so new to me and it's been a fantastic learning and growth experience.

The skills I have learned include things like sharing air, controlled emergency ascents, taking off and putting on your equipment underwater, taking off and putting on your mask while underwater [try doing this and only breathing through your regulator without breathing in through your nose - difficult! Especially when you're used to have something clamped between your teeth (mouth guard) and breathing through your nose. This results in gallons of icky salt water up your nose and ultimately in your regulator, and a rushed ascent to surface to cough up all the horrid wet stuff]. Each day, I've gotten more and more comfortable in the water, and thus using less and less air on dives.

So far, I've logged 4.5 hours of dive time in the reefs around Karon beach. Unless you've had the experience of diving with all the amazing sea life in a tropical ocean, you can't even imagine how incredible it is. It's serene, calming, and very humbling. 72% of our planet is water and you truly get a sense of how much more diverse life is under the ocean. It's like having your own personal salt water fish tank, or being in the movie "Finding Nemo"! I've seen moray eels, filibrated eels, huge schools of chevron barracuda, many, many lionfish and scorpion fish (both poisonous), and every type of bright coloured fish you can imagine - angel fish, squirrel fish, puffers, groupers, damsels, etc.

Yesterday, while doing fin pivots on the bottom (15 feet deep), all of a sudden my instructor came up to me, whipped me around aggressively, brushed at my shoulder and then moved away. What the hell?! He scared the shit out of me and got me very agitated, until I looked forward and there, staring me in the face, was a huge lionfish! Apparently, it had crept up behind me and had been sitting on my shoulder happily enjoying the ride. Except that these fish are poisonous and have big spines all over their body! And the spines were basically touching my head and shoulders, which could have resulted in a very, very nasty sting and most likely a trip to the emergency ward! But it wasn't aggressive, just curious. As are most of the sea life that I've run across. Even the giant puffer that we followed yesterday, got tired of us following us and decided to turn around and just stare, bug-eyed at us. I hope to see a shark or ray at some point in the next couple of days or next week.

This morning, I did my 2nd last dive to certify. We dove off a long tail boat at Koh Pu (crab island) on the rocky side. It was to be our "deep" dive for the certification, and we bottomed out at 18.1 metres depth. Not too shabby! The boulder field that we swam through was incredible. I saw my first anemone, along with clown fish and anemone crabs (apparently very rare), and numerous sea cucumbers, shrimp, seastars, and a whole host of fishes. It truly is amazing. The only problem is that you can only stay down for an hour on 200 bar of air! And an hour flies by so fast. Way too fast.

Needless to say, I haven't trained Muay Thai since Friday, which actually doesn't bother me all that much. I can train at home, where I'm comfortable and where I get the best of instruction anyway. Being at a gym here certainly makes me aware of, and appreciate, how good I have it at home! Not that I didn't before, but this solidifies that knowledge. But I can't dive in coral reefs at home, so I"m taking all the time I can to experience this here. It's relaxing me to no end. Deciding not to fight was the best decision I could have made!!

I've signed up to do my advanced diver course, which allows me to complete 5 specialities in 2 days: underwater photography, navigation, night diving, wreck diving, and deep water (30 metres). The photography section will be nice as I'll get a whole CD of photos of fish and me and videos and such to document the experience. I haven't been allowed to carry a camera underwater during my certification for Open Water. It also gets me out to a number of other dive sites around Phuket, and will make me a more comfortable diver, logging 5 additional hours of dive time before the weekend. So if I want to dive in Krabi, I'll feel ok in the water without my own instructor.

Time is flying while I'm here. I've been here 2.5 weeks already, which hardly seems possible. I'm finally adjusted to the time, and the temperature. 32 degrees doesn't feel hot anymore!! And water temperatures of 26 degrees actually feel a bit "chilly" in the morning! Although most of the time we are diving in 28 deg water. No wet suit for me! Other people do, but I don't seem to feel the cold as much (lots of insulation I guess!).