This past weekend, I got my scuba diving certification! YAY!! So let me tell you about the process…
A week ago at the pool they had an event called try and dive. I went to that and thought it was pretty cool so I decided to get my certification!
Side note: A lot of places in Cairns (The Great Barrier Reef area) I’ve heard have a beginner intro dive and then have a small dive after. So, some places you do not necessarily have to be certified because they have an intro course. Being a certified diver I can go on with a group, instructor, or just go dive with a buddy. Obviously, I can’t go without going to a shop since I do not have my own gear.
The scuba dive club spots filled up pretty fast, so I did not think that I would be able to get certified. I went on the wait list and was able to get in! Friday, the first day of the certification, I started at the pool where I learned skills with about a three other people for a good three hours. We learned skills such as how to deflate our BCD when descending and when ascending we deflate but inflate at the surface of the water. We learned how to take our masks off under water and how to get the water out of your mask if you are under water and it falls off. If we lose our regulator, we learned how to grab for it on the back right side, how to check our air, take our gear off and on in the water, we practiced using our buddy’s alternative regulator, and learned many other signals.
On Saturday we headed to Tweed River. We took few cars to the shop and got all our gear situated and headed to the river. We learned more skills on the two separate dives we had that day while also seeing and feeding fish on the dive. A few of us saw a shark that was hiding back in a cave, which was pretty cool. A third year (a senior), who leads the scuba club has a GoPro which is basically an underwater selfie stick that is high quality. So he took pictures of us on Saturday which was nice of him so we didn’t have to worry about taking photos. Between all the days we also had a few quizzes to take online and in the shop. On Sunday we had two more dives at Tweed River where we only had a couple skills left to do. Keeping in mind these days were long and tiring. The gear is heavy and it is hard to get in and out of the water. By Sunday everyone was really getting the hang of things! Unfortunately on Sunday my mouth piece was broken on my first dive so I had to come up a little early with my buddy but on the second dive I was good, I ended up using my alternative regulator.
One of the girls from the shop who has her masters in scuba diving was super nice to me. She knew how I felt on my first dive that day, she said she was a mess on her dives for her certification. She said our group was doing really well except for the fact that they thought they lost one guy on Saturday. Short story, pretty much the guy lost his buddy and came up and looked around for 5 minutes and then went back down to find his buddy. That is a big NO NO. You do not go back down in the water. The instructors almost had heart attacks because they thought they lost him. They gave him a pretty hard time and said that next time he needs to wait for an instructor to come up. On Sunday I made a boo boo though. I was changing my air tank and my tank fell over onto the girl instructor from the shop. She had been so nice to me and I felt so bad. Luckily, I do not think she broke it was just very sore. There I go, I’m always breaking things!! BEWARE! 🙁
It was a pretty tiring weekend but I took my written test on Sunday and passed! I’M NOW CERTIFIED!
I’m onto week 4 of classes. Workload is starting to increase a little more but other than that I’m loving it! Hoping to do some fun stuff Wednesday thru Friday, like a beach day or just explore around the Gold Coast. The public transportation is so cheap and hey the beach is FREE!
Going to Moreton Island this coming weekend. It’s an island off of Brisbane where I will camp with a group overnight Saturday to Sunday.
Talk to you all later! Love you much,
Emily
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