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11/19/10

7:45 am van picked me up at the hostel and brought me to the dive shop to pay for my taxes and such and so they could check my open water dive card certification

8:15 am I was off in another van to the day ship to go out and dive, all the equipment was on the boat that we would need. The day boat was quite full but a lot of the people were snorkelers or just doing a couple of day dives on this boat.

9 am The day boat left the Marina and started making its way out to the reef.

10:30 am a quick dive briefing of the site we were at and we all got the gear we would need for our dives. The first spot was Norman Reef and the dive site was called Plate Top. I got pared up with two other Divers one named James and the other Chris both who happen to be from the UK. This was a free dive for me and I did not need to do anything special for my advanced course so I was allowed to just go out and have fun. I was super excited and this would only be my fifth since my other four were just part of my open water diver course I took in Minnesota this was my first real dive.

10:49 am entered the water on my dive and WOW it was great. The coral was fantastic and the visibility was remarkable I was loving this. Our instructions were to go out and follow the reef wall until someone hit half tank and then turn around and head back. Being fairly new to diving and super excited I was not very efficient with my breath or my body movements. This lead to me using up much faster then my dive buddies James and Chris but when I hit half tank they turned around with me and headed back. We ended up only diving for 28 minutes due to my inexperience so I felt bad that they had to cut their dives short because of me. I was determined to get better and everyone assured me it just took some time and that I would get it.

Noon - Lunch aboard the day ship was good and provided to us so that was a nice change of pace for me.

1pm Dive briefing in new location on Norman Reef a site called Sandras.

1:14 pm In the water diving with my same dive buddies from the previous dive. This was also another free dive where I was able to just go out and have fun and not work on any of the advanced skill in the course I was taking. This dive was good but the same thing happened and I used up my air quickly. This time my buddies brought be back and then they went back down for another ten minutes of diving after I was back at the boat.

2:30 pm this is when we transferred from the day ship on the the massive live aboard ship where I would be spending my next two nights. The ship has 3 decks and is about 32 meters long. I was put in room number 4 which is a nice little room with two beds, a TV, and my own bathroom which included a shower. I was told that I would have the room to myself the first night. We were also told the rules of the ship. The two main rules were no shoes allowed to be worn on the boat at any time and no wet suits to be worn inside the carpeted areas, they need to stay on the dive platform or the second platform above the dive platform.

3:30 pm My Advanced open water dive group meet with the instructor and he went over what skills we would be working on and did a quick dive briefing of the site we were on. The skills we were to work on is called Peak Performance Buoyancy. This ship was located on Saxon Reef and the dive site was called Corral Gardens.

3:55 pm This dive was good and the skill section went well. It included being able to hover near the bottom with your legs crossed, being able to hover straight upside down, and to be able to swim through a hool-a-hoop.

5:30 pm dinner in the dining room and a nice time to get to know everyone a bit better and I along with a couple of others had to try and cram in some of the course book work and reading that needed to be complete before our next skill dive that was the night dive.

7 pm Dive briefing of my first night time time and we are on the same reef and location as the previous dive since it is a good idea to be familiar with a dive site before you go on a night dive.

7:15 pm Did the night dive skill with my group and had no problem what so ever I found the night dive to be very peaceful and tranquil and only being able to see where I pointed my flashlight did not bother me in the least. The biggest adjustment was using different signals with your flashlight and also using you flashlight to illuminate your signals to your buddies.

8:30 pm Dessert. This is in the permanent schedule for the live aboard and I do like dessert. That night it was the option of some red Jello squares, a banana pudding, and ice cream with different sauces for toppings. I have to confess that I had to try a little of each.

9 pm till 11 pm more course book work to get the sections done for the skills we would be doing tomorrow to finish off the Advanced course.

Then it was straight to bed since my wake up call would be at 5:45 am for the 6 am dive.