Trawangan Island, Indonesia - Day 5...
I woke up this morning and felt tearful. Don't know why, it may have been all the cats. I thought of my Alaskan cat zero who passed away a few years ago. Went to the dock, as usual and it was quite windy. Waves picked up quite a bit compared to other days. The earlier mood passed quickly and it was just another beautiful day in near paradise!
I had an Advanced Buoyancy dive with Matt today. Instruction started at 10:00 a.m. He was teaching the course to and Italian girl, Kika, and myself. I had read the material and answered the questions correctly. He went over all of them. We took a pony drawn cart to Coral Beach. We started checking our buoyany, taking off our weight belt, having the regulator in ours mouth, taking a deep breath and holding it. We should float with our eyes (inside of our mask) at water level. If floating higher, we would need to add weight. After adding weight, you try it again. It worked out that I used 4-Kg while wearing a shorty wet suit in salt water with an aluminum tank.
We then dropped to the bottom, which was fairly shallow, 3-m or less and practised carrying extra weights by increasing the amount of air in our lungs. I had some trouble with this exercise so he decided to take us along the channel and practice buoyancy maneuvers along the way. That was quite fun. We would practine using breath controls to go under mooring lines and, in one case, to do an underwater somersault around the line. Matt said that I maintained a streamlined position and had a consistent depth for most of the trip. The current was fairly strong so it only took about 50-minutes to make the journey back to the dive center.
During the dive we saw some shrimp fish and Matt was able to "herd" them quite effectively with his hands. They float vertically in the water and maintain that position as they are herded. We also saw a clown wrasse, mantis shrimp and lots of types of puffer fish.
After the dive I tried editing the previous days underwater photos in Photoshop on Rob's PC, but it keep crashing. I was finally able to burn a CD of the images. I talked to Matt and Stephanie and they told me about diving in Komodo, Sumatra and Malaysia. Stephanie had been to Sipadan in East Malaysia and said it was amazing. They said the best dives were between 24-40-meters, an advanced diving level. Both recommended doing a deep dive somewhere else before doing it at Sipadan. The reef drops off to a 800-meter deep ledge and that is where the diving is done, along that wall. They said you must be competent and be able to rely on yourself. Some of the dive companies will not really look out for you. Stephanie suggested renting a dive computer.
I woke up this morning and felt tearful. Don't know why, it may have been all the cats. I thought of my Alaskan cat zero who passed away a few years ago. Went to the dock, as usual and it was quite windy. Waves picked up quite a bit compared to other days. The earlier mood passed quickly and it was just another beautiful day in near paradise!
I had an Advanced Buoyancy dive with Matt today. Instruction started at 10:00 a.m. He was teaching the course to and Italian girl, Kika, and myself. I had read the material and answered the questions correctly. He went over all of them. We took a pony drawn cart to Coral Beach. We started checking our buoyany, taking off our weight belt, having the regulator in ours mouth, taking a deep breath and holding it. We should float with our eyes (inside of our mask) at water level. If floating higher, we would need to add weight. After adding weight, you try it again. It worked out that I used 4-Kg while wearing a shorty wet suit in salt water with an aluminum tank.
We then dropped to the bottom, which was fairly shallow, 3-m or less and practised carrying extra weights by increasing the amount of air in our lungs. I had some trouble with this exercise so he decided to take us along the channel and practice buoyancy maneuvers along the way. That was quite fun. We would practine using breath controls to go under mooring lines and, in one case, to do an underwater somersault around the line. Matt said that I maintained a streamlined position and had a consistent depth for most of the trip. The current was fairly strong so it only took about 50-minutes to make the journey back to the dive center.
During the dive we saw some shrimp fish and Matt was able to "herd" them quite effectively with his hands. They float vertically in the water and maintain that position as they are herded. We also saw a clown wrasse, mantis shrimp and lots of types of puffer fish.
After the dive I tried editing the previous days underwater photos in Photoshop on Rob's PC, but it keep crashing. I was finally able to burn a CD of the images. I talked to Matt and Stephanie and they told me about diving in Komodo, Sumatra and Malaysia. Stephanie had been to Sipadan in East Malaysia and said it was amazing. They said the best dives were between 24-40-meters, an advanced diving level. Both recommended doing a deep dive somewhere else before doing it at Sipadan. The reef drops off to a 800-meter deep ledge and that is where the diving is done, along that wall. They said you must be competent and be able to rely on yourself. Some of the dive companies will not really look out for you. Stephanie suggested renting a dive computer.
posted by Chris at 10:00 PM
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