PADI Advanced Open Water Diver

So I am now an Advanced Open Water Diver, Andy and I both completed two courses within a week, accomplishing 10 open water dives. Our deepest dive was to a depth of 32.5 meters which is a fair old way when you consider the maximum for any recreational diver is 40meters. At this depth your wetsuit feels thinner, like paper, your lungs are compressed to a quarter of their normal size and you have to inhale four times more air than usual to compensate. But you don’t realise any of these things because down here it’s peaceful and relaxing, full of huge pelagic fish; groupers and triggerfish about the same size as a midget or Alana. Going this deep less light penetrates so reds look green. Here is where you also experience Nitrogen Narcosis; it’s where your body takes on far more nitrogen than normal and you feel drunk (but you never have a hangover, just maybe the bends if you don’t do a safety stop on the way up). Our instructor set us the challenge of writing your name backwards on the seabed, I managed to do it ok but Andy just wrote Andy and couldn’t comprehend the task at hand, he was a tad narc‘ed and sitting inches away from a very spiky sea urchin. But I am getting ahead of myself, before any of this we had to do our Open Water Course that allowed us to go to depths of 18metres, we started out in a classroom doing lots of theory and homework like the most important rule of diving; just keep breathing, it’s a good rule anyway but if you end up holding your breathe your lungs can rupture and that is very bad. We first learnt to dive in a swim pool and had to do certain exercises like removing your mask and swimming then refitting it and letting the water out, the next day we were transferring these skills to open water and this is where things got fun.

Diving is incredibly fun and safe, everyone should be doing it! the worse that happened to either us during dives was my BCD (buoyancy control device) leaked and my weight belt dragged me towards the bottom and Andy got into the redzone with his air consumption. But what we saw beneath the surface was mind warping. most of the dives you go down on a reference line connected to the boat and seabed and it’s such a cool feeling as you sink slowly to the bottom with nothing out there but bait balls and the infinite blue, then you see a shape, unspecific at first but as you drift closer the vibrant reds, greens and blues of coral become clear; all of it teaming life, a kaleidoscope of living colours and patterns; sea anemones, urchins, crustaceans, molluscs, fish and things I have never encountered or imagined, like the massive alien caterpillars their spaceboot like feet constantly feeling the reef for suction points. Andy and I took to diving pretty quickly and couldn’t get enough, for me it became incredibly tempting to delay flights and do a Divemaster course here too (its like the jedi knight of diving) but one step at a time. Diving as mentioned is all about breathing, you can control you buoyancy by the amount of air you take in or release so with deep breathes you can start souring above formations, below crevices and between tunnels with ease, the more dives we did the more we improved, the more we improved the more the instructors trusted us and they took us to advanced spots, like a grizzly wreck of a warship, (I sat on top of the front gun) and between tight swim throughs disturbing sleeping puffer fish (it was kind enough not to inflate and show it’s spines) We saw; Barracuda, Travail, Rasse, Angel, Parrot, Banner, Butterfly fish, even nemo, but these are the ones you see without having to look, really investigate and you see Moray Eels, Fumblina Flatworms that hypnotise and dance in the water, blind shrimp, scorpion fish (best not to touch those ones) and banned sea snake that prowling between coral.

The highlight of all the dives was probably our night dive, as you begin the descent; to begin with your torch does nothing to penetrate the all encompassing darkness, It’s how I would imagine spacemen feel, so insignificant and vulnerable nothing but pitch black above, below and all around you. The tactile rope and bubbles escaping your regulator are the only thing giving you some sense of orientation. Sinking deeper the lights begin to pick up fish and coral but it’s a completely different place now. The corals have multicoloured feathers swaying with the current filtering down plankton. We see a dozen electric blue stingrays hunting along the seabed, great groupers hiding from lights, sea stars patrolling and an octopus so well camouflaged against the environment it takes a skilled eye to spot them. We were lucky on this dive and saw a HawksBill Turtle, I was so taken back I almost let the regulator float from my mouth, she was big and swam with us for a while then left for the surface to take a breath, you could see the silhouette gracefully gliding up and disappearing. Returning to the surface our instructor pointed up we floated on our backs just gazing up at the crystal clear star constellations.

What might be a bit scary to consider is from now on I can dive with a buddy anywhere in the world, no instructor required. I am hooked because what I have experienced below the ocean has blown me away and I wish I could show you everything I have seen but take my word for it, it’s simply beautiful down there.

Koh Tao 'Turtle Island' on a stormy day