The Drama of the First Dive
So off we went on the dive boat, a luxurious 30 footer (approximately). With a dive preparation area at the back, a dry area at the front, where meals were to be had and a chill out semi- covered area at the top.
Nice I thought, so off we went to the first dive site an hour and a half away. Having rested and lulled into a comfortable sense of well being… I was suddenly brought back into reality during the first dive briefing that the dive was to be a wall dive! But….but….but…it’s my first dive in 2 years! I wanted to shout out. Ah well…. “In for a penny, in for a pond”, as they say.
So with a pounding heart,I took a giant stride into the water. “Oops… I forgot to inflate the BC!” But that was of no consequence, as everyone was already descending, and so was I …. Very quickly indeed. Quickly inflate the BC I thought. “Ergh…. How do you do that? Isn’t there suppose to be a button you press to do that? Like this red one? Yes!!! Press it!!! No not that hard!!” Phrezz…. The BC over-inflates and I start rising…. A little too fast! Damn!!! Got to deflate it now, “How’s that done again???” “Must be the button next to the red one” Phrezz…. Damn too long again! Damn… I’m shooting down too fast again. So down, up, down, up…. until I finally get to some sort of stability. “Phew… that wasn’t so hard!” ( takes a look around….) Now… where is everybody…
“Are they below me?”
“F$%k!! there’s nothing below me!” (starts breathing even harder)
“Where are they!”
“Oh… they’re all above me!!!”
“Hmm… are they supposed to be that high above?”
“Let’s check my air and depth levels”
“Oooh… 36m and 150 psi”
“What was that the Dive Master said at the briefing? Open Water Divers, max depth 20m?”
“Ah well… so I exceed that by a smidge….won’t be the first time”
“More worrying is the air pressure, 50 psi gone just to get to a stable depth! And I’m a heavy breather!!! Ah well, let’s try to remain composed from now on and conserve a little air now”
However about 40 minutes later I discovered that my air supply was down to 50 psi. Bugger!! Time to surface. “Hell…Let’s push this a bit what’s the difference surfacing at 50 psi or 30 psi”
So at 30 psi, I approached the dive master (DM) and indicated to him that I was going up!
So I slowly ascended, but at 6m I did my impression of a cork in a bath, and popped up without so much as a “Cheers”.
“Eerh… what am I supposed to do now?”
“I suppose I’d better follow the group who are 10m below me.”
“Damn…this is the most expensive snorkelling trip I’ve been on”
“But the view’s good”
The view at snorkeling depth ( a fellow snorkeler)
So after 15 minutes of ‘snorkeling’, I had lost track of my group of divers (was following a different group), I checked my air pressure and it was, next to nothing.
"No wonder I'm sucking so hard to suck air in"
I then thought that it was best to fully inflate my BC,but... nothing happened!!
"F%@k! No more air!!! Double F%@k!!!" "Okay... time to use the snorkel"
So I lifted my head up and spotted the 2 boats including one that said ‘Tasik Divers’ in large bold letter on it’s side.
"Oh dear, I forgot to check the name of the dive boat. Anyway, the dive centre was Tasik Dive Centre, so... the safe bet is to head for Tasik Divers"
So there I was slowly making my way to "Tasik Divers" when the "friendly chaps" on the other white boat start waving to me. "Ah.... this is what I love about Indonesia, the people are so friendly" As I approached "Tasik Divers" the chaps on the white boat decided to get even friendlier and got quite close.
"Oh...I wish they wouldn't do that, now I've got to swim around them to get to Tasik Divers and it's quite hard work breathing through a snorkel as I have to suck the air in instead of it being forced in by the pressure from the air-tank."
Finally I got onboard "Tasik Divers" to much commotion as it emerged that the white boat was our dive boat!!! Ooops.... never mind said the boat-man as I made my apologies in halting Bahasa Indonesia, we are from the same company, so no problem.
So after settling down for a while, whilst the right, white boat recovered the other divers, I was then transferred to the white boat by jumping off "Tasik Divers" into the sea for a short swim to the white boat.
But... did the drama end there? No way!!!
After jumping into the water, what did I do??? What came naturally of course... opened my eyes!!! And I'm wearing contacts!!!! "Oh...Triple F*%k" I said as I realised and immediately shut my eyes. I surfaced and opened my eyes to find that the contacts were still there in my eyes.
Phew.... there ended the first dive of the trip to much amusement of my fellow divers.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment