Before heading to Australia, gareth and I thought it would be fun to get our open water diving certificates which allows us to dive up to 18 metres in open water. Once we looked through many online reviews and were given a couple of recommendations we decided to go with Phinox Divers. I'm really glad we chose this school because although popular, we had 1 instructor to ourselves meaning we had all his attention! Anyways I thought I'd do a little blog post as to how the course went day to day! Photos cautious of Kwan from Pheonix Divers!
Day 1
We started the course at 5pm which was basically an introduction to the course and what to expect. We also did a medical checklist and were asked to watch a film about scubba diving. At one point i felt as though i was back in school because we were given homework to complete! I do however think it was really helpful and set us up for the next day.
Day 2
We spent our morning learning the equipment and how to set it up which at first was daunting but was actually quite simply to understand. After lunch it was then time to hit the pool in our snorkeling gear! I was all up for this and raring to go until I submerged myself in water and had a minor panic because I couldn't get used to the concept of breathing under water! I did however get my act together and could breath without any struggle under water, until the instructer told me to take off my eye mask under water. At this point I fluttered about helplessly until i hit the surface not realising that i had a full tank of air on my back... that is just as effective as going to surface! I soon realised that the only way i was going to enjoy myself was to calm down and believe in myself, the instructor and most of all the equipment that 100s of people have relied on before me! Once I calmed down and stopped being a drama queen I started to really enjoy myself and found that I could do everything he asked even if it took a couple of attempts.
Day 3
This was the day of our first dive in open waters at 12ft! We got the boat out to a destination called 'Twins' whilst setting up our equipment on the boat which is very easy to set up! If i can do it anyone can! Once geared up and at the destination we jumped into the water and off we went! I manged to keep calm and relaxed which I found really helpful! There wasn't much marine life to see on this dive because we were still practincing techniques such as finding the breathing system if it falls out of your mouth and we practiced sharing air! We then did some buoyancy skills and then let water into are masks. Again this took a couple of attempts but because I didn't panic I was able to clear my mask! On this dive Gareth had a few problems with his mask because of his mighty beard so he was having to clear his mask quite a bit! Thankfully i don't have this problem... We were under water for 36 minutes but I sware it only felt like 10! We came back up to surface and chilled on the boat before desending at "white rock" for our second dive!
This dive focused more on the essence of diving... having fun and discovering new things! We swam around the coral reef in a circle and got really close to the coral where you could see the marine life up close and personal. My particular favourite was seeing a small sting ray! We also saw fishes in groups of hundreds all swimming in sequence. Once our air was running low it was time to assend to which you have to go up slowly. But because we're still in training, we had to share air and go up together and then manual blow air into the BC, this requires pressing a button and blowing. However, me being me, I didn't press the button so I was blowing air but kept on sinking. Took me a couple of seconds but I realised where I was going wrong whilst gareth kept me up! On more of a positive note gareths mask stayed nice and snug thanks to the good old vasiline which glued his hair to his face! This was also gareths first time seeing a coral reef up close so his mind was blown and he immidietly started planning his next animation!
The most amazing thing about phinox divers is they have your best interests at heart! We were suppose to do our final two dives the next day but F, our instructor, asked if we wanted to do it the day after because the location was suppose to be incredibly and it is less frequently visited because of the distance. We of course said yes and sat our multiple choice test so that the next day we could chill on the beach. The test was the best test I've ever done, purely because he gave us a beer and was like take your time! The test itself was pretty straight foward and most of it was common sense. Once we had passed the test we only had two more dives to complete in a beautiful coral reef before claiming ourselves as certified open water divers.
Day 4
Day 4 was supposed to consist of dive 3 and 4 to which we would then be certified divers, but because of minor stomach issues, we were only able to complete dive 3 at Chumphon Pinnacle. This dive had an interesting finally, after Gareth persevered for the whole 32 minutes before returning surface, there was a quick saftey stop for Gareth as he darted to the top puck up! It was however looking back an amazing dive and the hundreds of different types of marine life was just mind blowing! Especially when you compare it to the reef we visited the next day which was miniscule compared to it!
Day 5
This was the day we did our final dive thanks to pheonix for rescheduling! We did dive 4 at mango bay where we followed the shore along! There wasn't much to see here but the odd cool looking fish ans awesome coral! Dive 5 (an unexpected extra dive) is where we had to complete our finally safety routines before getting certified! This involved the dreaded removal of the eye mask at 12ft. Gareth managed it with ease but it took me a few seconds to puck up the courage but i finally did it and removed the mask from my eyes and nose which for anyone who has ever swam with me knows i can't enter water without holding my nose or having it blocked by a mask! I couldn't believe it and was super proud of myself (sad i know)! But now we are both certified to dive up to 18m and the best new is my clumsiness never got me into trouble by destroying any coral!
Diving has definitely became a hobby for both of us and we're already planning our next dives!
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