Diving

We completed our PADI diving course a week ago. The course is fairly thorough but still I think it's like flying; you really have to get your hours in before you can get good at it. I learned how to use a compass underwater to find my way back to where I started. That was kind of eerie, it's just a bunch of water with no landmarks, made me really think about diving out in the middle of the water far away from anything.

The water here is very clear; we had pristine visibility from 55 feet down all the way to the surface. It is very easy to get deep fast without realizing it if you don't pay attention. I was stunned to see I was down to 55 feet.

One of the more hilarious moments happened when I couldn't sink on the first open water dive. I let all of the air out of my BCD and I'm still bouncing around on top of the water. My instructor had to yank my feet to get me under and then he started stuffing all kinds of extra weight in my vest. In the pool I only need 6 pounds to allow me to sink. Apparently between the wet suit and the salt water I'm just a buoyant individual. I ended up with 16 pounds. David was only using 18 pounds, go figure. We definitely want to buy our own equipment, just seems like a lot less guesswork.

The reef here runs up almost the entire coastline. You walk about 100 meters out from shore in a couple of feet of water and then boom, it drops off to 30 feet in one step. No gradually getting deeper, just there all of a sudden. The fish are plentiful and gorgeous. Lots of color and they will swarm all around you, almost like swimming through a rainbow at times. Where we were diving is quite popular. You need to be in the water by 7 AM, because by 11 AM you need a traffic cop down there to keep up with all the underwater traffic. I'll try to get the pictures posted next week.

We would like to dive in Egypt and are hoping to get there for a weekend in the near future and then perhaps dive near Cypress, both areas are supposed to be quite lovely. Unfortunately we can only do weekend jaunts from now until opening in September because there is no leave allowed. We have already booked our September vacation and will be going to South Africa to stay at one of the big game preserves and we are counting down the days.