Monday, May 12, 2008
Tassie waters

i just realised that i didn't blog about my diving yesterday.
ah... i suppose it's because they were the worst dives i've done.

for one, i'm thankful i'm still alive.
i almost killed myself on both dives. haha

i had problems ascending from my first dive because i very intelligently release all the air from my bcd (the vest thingy) instead of putting air in. i stayed there for a good few minutes trying to figure why i could not get off the bottom while looking at everybody's bottoms up at the surface. i panicked. signalled to the instructor that something's wrong and he had to go back down to save me. sigh.. that's for not diving for a good 1.5 years.
on the second dive, i did the most intelligent thing of not fully releasing the air in my tank. the knob on the tank was supposed to be fully turned on but i only turned it halfway. i was getting air but i wasn't getting enough air. to think i was actually down there for 39mins on a half-opened tank and only realising it when i came back up. oh my.

it was cold. not as cold as i had expected it to be but i've got to factor in the thermals i was wearing under the wetsuit. my hands however were frozen. they refused to function underwater and out. which was also the reason why my oxygen tank knob was not fully done. i could hardly feel it or turn it so when it stopped, i thought it was fully opened but it was just my hands refusing to function. it was so bad i could not even pinch my nose with one hand to equalise my ears. i needed to use both thumbs to pinch my nose.

the visibility wasn't that great. could probably see a radius of about 3-4 metres. there wasn't much to see either as compared to tropical waters, which are simply beautiful. saw a few skaters, a jellyfish, a thorny starfish, and the most interesting of all, the gurnard, which is part of the scorpionfish family.

although i didn't enjoy both dives very much, i'd say it's good experience.

so yeah.. my dives.. just to keep it logged.