All of the Open Water students decided to do their Advanced course which was great.  I just feel for Clare the girl with the ear infection that couldn’t continue but at least she’s got her Scuba Diver certification.

In the Advanced course, the students have to do a ‘Deep’ (30mtrs) and ‘Navigation’ dive combined with another three, so the majority went for Peak Performance Buoyancy, Night, Wreck apart from one who chose Photography.

The Advanced course, two days of diving went really well apart from the night dive which I found the most challenging.

On the Night dive descent, one of the girls freaked just 1 or 2 meters down because her torch went out and managed to scramble to the surface between the rungs of the boats ladder  ..which is near enough impossible but once I whacked her light, which then came on again, she was fine.  I dread to think what might have happened if it had been choppy.

Once in the water there was a slight current which didnt help. Then to find an appropriate place and to communicate to them, to navigate a reciprocal heading  (which I’d briefed and written down on a slate for them)  was a complete nightmare, God knows what I would have done if Simon wasn’t there.  Then once that was over, I spotted a cuttle fish, my first since being on the island and what did one of the girls do?  She nearly stood on it!   Arrggggh!!!    As you can tell, taking students out on a night dive for the first time is not one of my favourite pastimes.

Morning dives went well and back on  dry land we washed our dive kits and then gathered in the restaurant.  All students apart from one girl who had developed an ear infection had sucessfully passed their Open Water.  I completed their temporary Open Water Cards whilst Nathan took them up to retail to have their photo’s taken.  All in all they’d done brilliantly and were all hopefully going on to do their Advanced course.

That evening we arranged to meet up at the new ‘Regal’ hotel to watch their video.  It turned out to be a great night as it was Crystal’s bosses wifes birthday and they’d put on a band, dance performances and a free buffet.  Everyone seemed to be there and as the night went on, people were being thrown in the Regal pool.  I fortunately stayed dry 🙂

This morning the Open Water students did their final exam and swim tests, whilst Nathan, Simon and I headed out on the longtail to put down a new anchor line and to check out the coral nursery Junk Yard reef.

Around midday, we met with students with dive bags prepared and headed to the boat for dives 1 & 2 which were both at ‘Mango Bay’   Nathan briefed the dives and I led  ..after dive 1  I felt pretty disheartened as it was like trying to herd cats.  Dive 2 was much better, students were starting to find their buoyancy and I felt pretty proud of them. 

Tomorrow, it’s an early start, 7am for their final dives 3 & 4, so after a few beers at Crystal we headed home.  I say home but we were actually dog, cat and house sitting for Alan & Heidi for the night, whilst they were in Samui.  Riding up to their house on the bike reminded me of how I do not miss that hill…