Scuba Diving

This weekend was my first scuba diving experience in open water! It was also Chris' first dive in 8 years! A friend of Chris' named Mike is training to be an instructor and has some friends that are already instructors who offered to take us diving (pictured above: Mike, Appadii, Gope and Mon).

We went down to Bangkok and spent Saturday doing pool work... they wanted to make sure I remembered my skills and also wanted Chris to have a refresher course, which I think was a really good idea. The pool skills went fine, even while dodging little kids in the pool and once in awhile having a little foot kick passed your head!

After the pool we drove to a city called Pattaya which is the nearest beach to Bangkok. It's a really sleazy city... but kind of one you have to see to believe. Mike and his wife Appadii wanted us to have the whole Pattaya tour so we knew what people were talking about when they said it was sleazy, and we sure found out! Now, we know why Thailand has the reputation it does. We walked down the main street called Walking Street and the whole street is filled with Go Go Bars, prostitutes, ladyboys, people trying to hand out "menus" for different types of women and I think one man was also trying to ask me if I wanted to buy any coke... um, no! There were also many restaurants and we did get to see a Muay Thai Boxing match, which was interesting, but kind of gross! I've never seen anyone get kicked in the head so many times and take it! I was wishing I had my camera that night, there would have been some interesting pictures!

Ok, back to diving! Sunday morning we got up early and headed to the marina. I was exhausted and terrified because I couldn't sleep at all the night before because of my nerves! We found our diving boat and got on with the 6 people in our group and about 15-20 other divers. We set up our tanks and equipment, put on our wet suits and drove an hour to a little tiny island called Koh Sak for my first dive! I managed to get all my equipment on but could hardly walk I was shaking (and scuba equipment weighs a ton) but I made it to the boats edge and jumped in the water! My first dive was just for me to get used to being in the water... luckily there were no skill tests involved this time. We swam to the front of the boat and then prepared to submerge! We each grabbed onto the anchor line and began our decent, which proved to be a lot harder than I thought it would be... I just couldn't sink! Finally, I was able to kind of pull myself to the bottom, equalizing my ears all the way! Since I am still in training the deepest I am allowed to go is 30 feet, which was fine with me, but that means there isn't much to see...we were mostly on sand but we did get to see some cool small fish and a whole bunch of sea urchins! Everyone kept trying to point things out to me, and I kept thinking, "Yeah, that's great...", because I was concentrating on trying not to float away, I didn't have time to look around! :) After about 30 minutes we begin our ascent and went back onto the boat to eat lunch! After the first dive I was really nervous for the second one... but Chris was my diving buddy for the second so that made it a little less scary. At the bottom, we linked arms, which helped me stay at the bottom and not float up (although poor Chris was tilted to the side), and I was able to look around at more sea creatures! This dive I had to do a few skill tests, but they went ok... I had to flood my mask and then clear it (I hate this skill), take my scuba unit off and put it back on, take the regulator out of my mouth and then try and find it again and do an alternate air source ascent (which means you are breathing out of someone else's tank).

Overall, I would say the experience was pretty good... I still have two more dives to complete with more skill tests (and I am still really nervous), but after that I will be certified and can go check out some neat sites and coral reefs!