Dive #26 and #27, diving off Mount Lavinia with Colombo Divers, Boatman Ravinda, Divemaster Jehan, buddy Ricardo and Instructor Paris for the second two dives of my Advanced Open Water Course.
Cargo Wreck: Bottom time – 40 minutes; Depth – 31.3 meters
This dive combined my Deep, Multilevel and Wreck dives for my Advanced Certification together. The deep blue over the Cargo beckoned as always as we moored over the site after my briefing about narcosis, wrecks and a diveplan drawn up for the Multilevel dive. This was only second visit to the Cargo and I was excited (there’s my understatement for the year). Roll off and down to the wreck, my descent controlled with my new found buoyancy skills. The usual shoal of fusiliers was missing but as the white speckled ship rose up out of the blue the usual explosion of fish life dazzled.
My old friend the trumpetfish was in attendance but a bit skittish this time as we drifted along the wreck. This being a Deep dive, we bottomed out and 30m as we moved towards the back of the ship. I rather nervously looked around to see if any effects of narcosis would manifest themselves. I figured if Paris or Jehan’s heads suddenly expanded to the size of beach balls or if a Snapper started having a conversation with me that might be a small sign that I was being narced.
Things however remained normal, well as normal as it can be 30m under the sea, swimming under the propeller of a giant sunken cargo ship carrying your own life support system with you. More amazing that normal I guess and the superlatives failed me as I turned on my back as my bubbles streamed past the coral encrusted propeller and we glided under and in between the keel of the ship and the sand.
We took a break for Paris to show me his dive slate with red, blue and green markings to confirm that at these depths these colours looked the same. After a bit more puttering around at 30m oohing and aaahing (figuratively of course) we moved up to 20m per our multilevel dive plan and continued exploring the wreck until our decompression time started ticking down to zero and we took leave of our fishy friends. I surfaced with 82 bar and the Advanced Water Certification having done my first 30m dive. I made a mental note to start reading Diver Down so I didn’t get too cocky.
Serendip Reef: Bottom time – 62 minutes; Depth – 23.1 meters
Don’t let the bottom time shown above fool you. I screwed up on this dive and misread my damn computer which was a bit of a damper end to what was otherwise a brilliant first trip to the outer reef for me. Thus I ended up with something akin to a 20 minute decompression stop at 3m after the last deep dive. It was a rather sobering reminder that I was still very much a beginner diver and I had a fair distance to go with regard to familiarizing myself with my computer and really getting to grips with managing my dive times. I kinda felt bad for Paris, Ricardo and Jehan as they hung around at 3m waiting for my computer to tick down.
Diving Serendip Reef is somewhat akin to swimming in a giant fishtank, albeit one that is over 20 meters deep and full of wondrous life that no fish tank could ever emulate. A small shoal of blue and black surgeonfish swirled as we descended, the white sand contrasting beautifully with the blue, 20m plus visibility water. Specks of coral littered the ocean floor, some alive but some dead (not sure why) Blue Lined Snappers whirled while Gobys peered out from their holes.
The undoubted stars of Serendip however were the Anemone Fish. About 10cm long one defended his Anemone vigorously, swimming up to both Paris and I and chucking at us. This fish had some serious balls, sort of the equivalent of me charging up to a T-Rex and hooting at him (no I don’t have that much balls, show me a real live T-Rex and I’ll need a change of underwear, several changes probably).
After exploring the reef and on our way back I noticed a crab sheltering in the Anemone. Drifting down to investigage, the Anemone Fish was nowhere to be seen. As I moved off however I was treated to the comical sight of the fish poking his head out indignantly from the Anemone with an expression of YOU!!! AGAIN!!!
True characters of the reef, the Anemone fish and it’s a shame that their boldness leads them often to be captured for the aquarium trade, where most die in transport or due to poor care from their erstwhile but often uninformed owners.
Incidentally this was also my last dive with Paris who had to head back to Greece, so I packed him off with a bottle of Old Reserve and an offer to take him on safari to see some leopard if he came back. Here's hoping to see him back in sunny Sri Lanka again!
Showing posts with label Dive Training. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dive Training. Show all posts
3/24/2010
Dive Log: Palagala (Formosa) for Advanced Open Water (2012/2010)
Dive #25 and #26, diving off Mount Lavinia with Colombo Divers, Boatman Ravinda, Dive buddy K and Instructor Paris for the first two dives of my Advanced Open Water Course.
Palagala: Bottom time – 33 minutes; Depth – 12.8 meters
A word of explanation, well a few words. To quote PADI, the course “helps you increase your confidence and build your scuba skills so you can become more comfortable in the water. This is a great way to get more dives under your belt while continuing to learn under the supervision of your PADI instructor. This course builds on what you’ve learned and develops new capabilities by introducing you to new activities and new ways to have fun scuba diving.”
Flowery words aside my main aim was to do the Peak Performance Buoyancy (PPB) dive, Navigation dive and Deep dive so I could explore the Colombo dive sites to the fullest. To those who have done the basic Open Water, I would highly recommend this option, some of the best sites like the Cargo Wreck, Taprobane East Wreck and the Trug are accessible once you have this certification and the skills and confidence to go to 30m and manage your buoyancy.
The day started with Paris giving me some briefings on the PPB and Nav dive. The latter briefing was enlivened by Paris making me take a bearing to a coconut tree with my compass, draping my head in a towel and making me walk to said coconut tree. The first try was a miserable failure due either to my stupidity or a short term change I the Earth’s magnetic field (I personally think it’s the latter). After a chastisement from Paris and another, more successful try, we boarded the boat and headed out to Palagala which is Colombo Diver's standard training ground. Accompanying us was another beginner diver who was along for the ride, K.
Rolling off, deflating and sinking to the bottom we moved over to a sandy area to practice my PPB skills. I had lost my snorkel at Palagala the day before and had jokingly asked anyone who dove there the next time to take a look see if they could find it. As I settled in knees first to await instruction from Paris, something caught my eye to the right. Taking a quick glance I saw a snorkel lying there, Hmmm….weird…a snork….OH WAIT!!!! Motioning to Paris to hold on with the instructions, I swam over double checked to make sure it was mine (which in retrospect was a bit silly I guess), pumped my fists and jammed my snorkel into my BC (after all it's not everyday the Sea gives something She took back).
This excitement over, we moved on with my skills. The fin pivot and hovering were skills I hadn’t practiced since getting Open Water certified back in December 2008, however with my new-found ideal weight of 4kg, thing went pretty well and Paris was shaking my hand in no time.
The next skill however took a bit of getting used to, basically maneuvering close to the bottom with your reg and mask almost touching the bottom and skimming it. It took me a few minutes of figuring out how to time my inhalations and exhalations but once the skill came the feeling was exhilarating. With my usual over-enthusiasm I skimmed the sand over and over again, taking a break to point out a rather minute, gorgeously black and white spotted nudibranch all by its lonesome on the sand. Paris eventually had to grab me by my fin and shake my hand to make me stop skimming the sand and as we did that, two Remoras twisted by in the murky waters. Both of us immediately stopped what we were doing and starting looking around for a big fish that the Remora’s often accompany, but no matter how much we looked there was no sign of any Rays or Whale Sharks or anything else in the soupy green.
Palagala: Bottom time – 35 minutes; Depth – 13.1 meters
This was the navigation dive and I was a whole lot more nervous about this one, primarily because I wasn’t really good at counting my kicks which was essential for estimating distance (I guess I’ve always been bad at this quantitative business). Visibility had also gotten shittier, about 2m, which rather surprisingly helped me with my navigation.
The navigating a straight line felt a bit awkward because of having to concentrate on my fin-kicks but things got more comfortable with navigating a square pattern. With the low visibility I gave my compass my full attention, trying to follow the lubber line keeping the north arrow aligned in the bezel. Looking up at one stage I was rather surprised (if not a bit dismayed) to come face to face with a Lionfish. We exchanged glances for a second, his somewhat pugnacious and mine somewhat frightened before I finned, inhaled hugely and swam over his menacingly raised fins. Seeing the anchor and anchor line glowing blue in the green murkiness was one of the best feelings of my life, knowing that I wasn’t an absolute moron when it came to navigating with a compass.
The last task was leading Paris and K on a tour of Palagala using ‘natural navigation’, i.e. the features of the reef and the compass. This was admittedly a bit easy because I’d dived Palagala so many times before so was quite familiar with the layout of the reef. Also the reef rather handily runs N-S so adjustments of the bezel of the compass were really not required. It was with the usual tinge of regret that we turned around when K gave the time-out signal for reaching 100 bar and exited the water with him just over 50 bar. Not to blow my own trumpet but I exited with over a 100 bar and had at least another 45 minutes of dive time. Oh heck, I did just blow my own trumpet. I do that sometimes.
Palagala: Bottom time – 33 minutes; Depth – 12.8 meters
A word of explanation, well a few words. To quote PADI, the course “helps you increase your confidence and build your scuba skills so you can become more comfortable in the water. This is a great way to get more dives under your belt while continuing to learn under the supervision of your PADI instructor. This course builds on what you’ve learned and develops new capabilities by introducing you to new activities and new ways to have fun scuba diving.”
Flowery words aside my main aim was to do the Peak Performance Buoyancy (PPB) dive, Navigation dive and Deep dive so I could explore the Colombo dive sites to the fullest. To those who have done the basic Open Water, I would highly recommend this option, some of the best sites like the Cargo Wreck, Taprobane East Wreck and the Trug are accessible once you have this certification and the skills and confidence to go to 30m and manage your buoyancy.
The day started with Paris giving me some briefings on the PPB and Nav dive. The latter briefing was enlivened by Paris making me take a bearing to a coconut tree with my compass, draping my head in a towel and making me walk to said coconut tree. The first try was a miserable failure due either to my stupidity or a short term change I the Earth’s magnetic field (I personally think it’s the latter). After a chastisement from Paris and another, more successful try, we boarded the boat and headed out to Palagala which is Colombo Diver's standard training ground. Accompanying us was another beginner diver who was along for the ride, K.
Rolling off, deflating and sinking to the bottom we moved over to a sandy area to practice my PPB skills. I had lost my snorkel at Palagala the day before and had jokingly asked anyone who dove there the next time to take a look see if they could find it. As I settled in knees first to await instruction from Paris, something caught my eye to the right. Taking a quick glance I saw a snorkel lying there, Hmmm….weird…a snork….OH WAIT!!!! Motioning to Paris to hold on with the instructions, I swam over double checked to make sure it was mine (which in retrospect was a bit silly I guess), pumped my fists and jammed my snorkel into my BC (after all it's not everyday the Sea gives something She took back).
This excitement over, we moved on with my skills. The fin pivot and hovering were skills I hadn’t practiced since getting Open Water certified back in December 2008, however with my new-found ideal weight of 4kg, thing went pretty well and Paris was shaking my hand in no time.
The next skill however took a bit of getting used to, basically maneuvering close to the bottom with your reg and mask almost touching the bottom and skimming it. It took me a few minutes of figuring out how to time my inhalations and exhalations but once the skill came the feeling was exhilarating. With my usual over-enthusiasm I skimmed the sand over and over again, taking a break to point out a rather minute, gorgeously black and white spotted nudibranch all by its lonesome on the sand. Paris eventually had to grab me by my fin and shake my hand to make me stop skimming the sand and as we did that, two Remoras twisted by in the murky waters. Both of us immediately stopped what we were doing and starting looking around for a big fish that the Remora’s often accompany, but no matter how much we looked there was no sign of any Rays or Whale Sharks or anything else in the soupy green.
Palagala: Bottom time – 35 minutes; Depth – 13.1 meters
This was the navigation dive and I was a whole lot more nervous about this one, primarily because I wasn’t really good at counting my kicks which was essential for estimating distance (I guess I’ve always been bad at this quantitative business). Visibility had also gotten shittier, about 2m, which rather surprisingly helped me with my navigation.
The navigating a straight line felt a bit awkward because of having to concentrate on my fin-kicks but things got more comfortable with navigating a square pattern. With the low visibility I gave my compass my full attention, trying to follow the lubber line keeping the north arrow aligned in the bezel. Looking up at one stage I was rather surprised (if not a bit dismayed) to come face to face with a Lionfish. We exchanged glances for a second, his somewhat pugnacious and mine somewhat frightened before I finned, inhaled hugely and swam over his menacingly raised fins. Seeing the anchor and anchor line glowing blue in the green murkiness was one of the best feelings of my life, knowing that I wasn’t an absolute moron when it came to navigating with a compass.
The last task was leading Paris and K on a tour of Palagala using ‘natural navigation’, i.e. the features of the reef and the compass. This was admittedly a bit easy because I’d dived Palagala so many times before so was quite familiar with the layout of the reef. Also the reef rather handily runs N-S so adjustments of the bezel of the compass were really not required. It was with the usual tinge of regret that we turned around when K gave the time-out signal for reaching 100 bar and exited the water with him just over 50 bar. Not to blow my own trumpet but I exited with over a 100 bar and had at least another 45 minutes of dive time. Oh heck, I did just blow my own trumpet. I do that sometimes.
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