More Diving

Flushed with the success of the Open Water course and inspired by promises of diving with manta rays in Mozambique I have also done my Advanced diving course. Esscentially this allows me to go deeper (30m instead of 18m). Our first two dives (Navigation and Naturalist) were terrible shore dives in 5m depths and our instructors just watched our progress from the shore. This meant that I ended up directing a lot of the show which I am not at all qualified to do and resulted in my using my air really quickly and getting very frustrated with my dive buddies. The idea of dive buddies is that you stick together! If you don't know where you are going don't descend before me and swim of in the wrong direction! I don't think I'm being too anal and can justify this rant because at 30m below sea level these things can be fairly serious. There was also a really strong cross current forcing us to use a lot of energy to stay in one place or to do navigational exercises. The next day was much better however because we did boat dives (no sand blasting into your face and wetsuit) and both the dives were to ship wrecks. The Transvaal was our 30m dive where we did exercises to test for nitrogen narcosis. I think it is like getting high for the first time, you don't really notice it or understand it until you have done it once or twice. The second dive was the Pietermaritzburg (originally lead the Normandy invasion before being sold to the South African navy as a training vessel) and that was, technically, my personal best. For once I didn't blast through all my air and ended with quite a lot left and I managed to get the buoancy happening a little smoother. It is a satisfying feeling to take a deep breath to rise over an obstacle and then exhale down over the deck again. Spotted my first octopus and got within a foot or two to see it blinking and breathing. The other aspect of diving so much is that I have also been hanging out with the dive club gang a lot and have become a familiar face at many of the functions - I have attended all three of the information sessions for the Mozambique dive trip and recruited a good half a dozen people to join the trip. Roight, I'm going to Mozambique with the dive club over study break which starts on April 7th to the 17th. We rent a huge bus and party for two days straight to get there then spend the rest of the time diving, partying, hanging out on the beach, going to the markets, horseback riding, quad biking, etc. The trip really sells itself. I've also started to seriously do school work since papers and exams are next week. I will talk about classes after the first set of midterms when I know the standards a little better but so far things are pretty slack. Knock on wood...