Scuba Certified!

Derek and I got our SSI Scuba certification a few days ago at Sabah Divers in KK. I'm thrilled by this, it's one of those things you want to do, but don't really think about because you grow up on the prairies. It's far less expensive in the tropics, and also you get to do it in the ocean instead of a pool, there's just something more exciting about watching the instructor demonstrate how to drain your mask under water with a school of fish swimming around us.

I was a little worried about being scared because having no visibility underwater was one of my biggest phobias as a kid, but I was doing pretty good until the end of the second dive. We had about 3 meters visibility and were 12 meters below, sitting on a sandy patch with nothing to look at. My nervousness was easy to deal with, it was the realization that if i did panic I could be in some serious shit that freaked me out. I decided I'd go back up and started waving at the instructor (Russ) frantically, but he wasn't looking at me, so I started trying to get Derek's attention as he was close enough to reach over and poke Russ. Derek saw me and waved back before going back to watching Russ. My hero. Jen, another student saw me freaking out and got someone's attention and a friend of the instructor's who came along for the dive came over and managed to calm me down enough to get through it. If he'd let me go to the surface I don't know if I'd have made it back down. Then Russ comes over and I need to demonstrate taking my mask off and spitting out my regulator and all that, which was only moderately terrifying.

The second day was better, even with visibility being just as bad. We were above some coral and having something to look at was easier. Derek did great, he was worried he'd be kicked out for being a bad swimmer, but apparently they make sure to tell you they'll do that because some people sign up and get 2 meters from the boat before sinking. My mask had a leak on the last dive and I was able to clear it every 5 minutes without being nervous. It feels like a real accomplishment.

There's actually more life closer to the surface, where there's more light. We made it down 18 meters, which is how far we're certified to go with the first course, and it was mainly sand. I did get to see an orangutan crab (it's covered in orange fur), a large red puffer fish, a large conch shell with the animal still inside, a bat fish, and a blue velvet nudibranch, none of which I saw while snorkeling, and Derek almost sat on a mantis shrimp (which would have been disastrous). I'm hoping we find some good shallow dive sites in the Philippines, where we are now, the visibility is supposed to be 30 meters here, which is much better then 4. Also, there's a shipwreck at 16 meters we can check out.

I don't have any photos of us in our scuba gear, and I wasn't able to find an underwater case for my camera (there was much sulking), but here's a photo of a hermit crab. I named him Scrambles.