A few months ago, I signed up for diving classes. The class consists of three or so hours of class time, four or five hours of closed waters diving (i.e., swimming pool), and four open water (i.e., the ocean) dives.
My instructor is named Ae. His shop, Dive Me Crazy, is located in Nichada right across from the gym where I work out. Ae is Thai, speaks English well with a bit of an accent, and is an overall great guy.
I completed most of the class room and close water requirements pretty early. After that, I ended up with a bit of a lull. My goal had been to complete the course before our planned trip to Australia over the holidays. We ended up postponing the trip, so the urgency subsided. The other thing that slowed down my progress was that I had to find a time that Ae was going to Pattaya for the open water portion that matched with my schedule. It requires two days of diving, so I needed to be away from home at least one night.
We finally managed to schedule the trip for December 13th and 14th. I completed my closed water training. I had learned the skills required, but still struggled a bit with my buoyancy.
Our dive site was actually in Sattahip, a small town an hour or so from Pattaya. I didn't know this at the time (Ae had told me Pattaya), so my hotel less than one hundred meters from the beach and Pattaya dock was not very close. Ae called the hotel for me, and they said the taxi would run $30 each way. He was staying at his uncle's condo, about thirty minutes from Sattahip, but Ae graciously offered to come pick me up in the morning and drop me off in the evening.
So I ended up going down to Pattaya on Friday night so that I would be fresh in the morning. We borrowed Tham's driver who dropped me off at my hotel. I stayed at the Sunshine Residence, which is on Soi 8 off the main beach road. The hotel was in the middle of it all, so to speak. I won't go into detail on this entry (I will in another), but let's just say that there were a lot of bars and partying going on around me.
Ae picked me up on Saturday morning, and we arrived at the docks in Sattahip about 9:00 a.m. It was an double decker wooden boat with a weather Thai captain.
I was the only falang on the boat. In addition to Ae, there was his girl friend and fellow dive instructor Pohr, his friend Bas, a newly wed Thai couple the husband of which works at Ae's bar (he is an entrepreneur), and a flight attendant from Thai Air. She did not dive, but rather came along to enjoy the day. The recent airport problems had caused a disruption in her schedule which she said could take a month or more to work out (thank you PAD).
I really liked everyone. I mostly talked to Ae, Pohr, Bas and the flight attendant. Naturally, most of the time they were speaking Thai. A lot of times it is very easy to be left out of the convers not easy to talk during dives. So the group communicated through hand signals. It was actually nice that once under water, I wasn't handicapped by a language barrier. There was no need for translation.
I also want to talk a little about the equipment. Divers wear a wet suit for warmth, along with a mask and fins. The BCD (buoyancy control device) is a vest that is attached to the air tank that can inflate and deflate to control buoyancy. The regulator attaches to the oxygen tank, and has two breathing apparatus. The second one is usually yellow and is known as the octopus. The octopus is for emergency use if a fellow diver runs out of air.
The first dive was a controlled descent down to nine meters. A controlled descent means that the dive instructor (DI) anchored a rope to the floor of the ocean and attached the other end to a buoy. We would descend slowing usintaches to the oxygen tank, and has two breathing apparatus. The second one is usually yellow and is known as the octopus. The octopus is for emergency use if a fellow diver runs out of air.
The first dive was a controlled descent down to nine meters. A controlled descent means that the dive instructor (DI) anchored a rope to the floor of the ocean and attached the other end to a buoy. We would descend slowing using the rope as a hand hold. When we reached the bottom, we tested how to clear our mask of water, how to clear the regulator of water, and how to retrieve our regulator if it falls out of our mouth.
Interestingly, there are two ways to retrieve your regulator. The first way involves slanting your body to the right, and using your arm to hook the regulator. The second way involves reaching back and grasping the base of the regulator hose. While testing in the pool, I had some initial trouble with the first method, but executed the second easily every time. On Saturday, I performed the first quite easily, but had trouble with the second. I managed to retrieve it by myself, but Ae had pulled out his octopus just in case I was in trouble.
After we completed the first part of the test, we explored around for a while. The total dive time was forty-three minutes.
The second dive involved testing what to do when you or your buddy run out of oxygen. The first method was to have the buddy use your octopus to breath while you return to the surface. The second is buddy breathing, where you take turns using your main respirator. Finally, we practiced an emergency surfacing. Again, afterwards we swam around looking at the coral and fish.
The one thing that I remember about the first two dives is that I had to pee pretty badly during both. On the first dive, I just waited until we got back on the boat and then went to the bathroom. Of course, I had to wait while one person changed her clothes in there. On the second dive, I decided that a little yellow water wouldn't hurt the ocean and decided just to pee as I went along. I'm not used to peeing under water, in a wet suit, and often in a supine position. It was really distracting me from the dive, and when I finally managed to pee, I enjoyed the rest of the dive a lot more. One of the divers told me that its common (at least for her) to pee on dives.
Ae picked me up again on Sunday morning. As I was waiting for him, I walked down the street to 7-11 to get a Gatorade. I passed by a bar with a falang and two Thai bar girls still partying the night away. It was a young and inebriated guy who seemed to be trying to speak to the girls in Thai. I didn't understand a word he said, and it didn't sound even a little bit Thai. I'll say this, partying at eight in the morning on a Sunday is pretty hardcore.
We took the same boat out for the second day. The flight attendant had to leave, and another diver, Lek replaced her on the boat.
The object of the two dives was to test our ability to control our depth in the water. Its really important, because you don't want to descend or ascend too quickly. If you go up too quickly, you can get the bends, while descending too quickly can cause ear damage.
Except for two exceptions, I actually did a very good job controlling my buoyancy. I'm not one who likes to toot my own horn, but I found it pretty easy to control my depth with my breathing alone. Except when surfacing, I rarely used my BCD vest to ascend.
The times that I used my BCD to control depth on the third and fourth dives, I ended up having a problem. I over inflated the vest, and started to rise quickly. I tried to release the air as instructed, but air was trapped in my vest, and I rose to the surface. Had we been diving from a greater depth, this could have caused a serious injury, but fortunately we were only ten or so meters deep both times it happened. After the last dive, Ae told me that I needed to straighten my body like I was standing to help release the air.
Overall the trip was pretty fun. I passed the course, and received my Open Water certification. We saw a number of fish and coral as we explored the world ten or so meters under the water. The ocean is miles deep, and we only scratched the very surface of it.
One thinking that should be emphasized is that safety is a paramount concern of the PADI and the diving instructors. During my training, I spent a lot of time learning what to do in certain emergencies. I asked Ae how often he had to do buddy breathing, or share his octopus with someone. In his seven years diving, he never did. A big part of that is that during the dive, the DI is periodically asking you how much air that you have remaining. I actually ran fairly low on the last dive, but there was still enough, and there was never any danger.
Lek gave me a ride how from Pattaya. More precisely, he drove to Bangkok, dropped me off, and helped me to find a taxi.
Overall it was a fun experience. I'm not sure how much I'll actually dive in the future. If Tim learns to dive, then I think it would be fun to dive together. Otherwise, the problem is that while I can get on with a group and go diving, I don't have a group of friends to dive with.
Don't' get me wrong, I really liked Ae and his group of divers. I enjoyed diving with them. Sometimes though, when you are the only one who doesn't speak the language, you feel like a bit of an outsider. Its not anything any one did, on the contrary, they went out of their way to make me feel included.
Perhaps if I had my iPod with me (its on the way) or brought a book it would be more enjoyable. We'll see next time.
There is one thing that if I continue diving that I want to do. They have training for underwater photography. The water proof casing for my camera is ridiculously expensive, so if I do it, I'll probably buy an inexpensive camera and a water proof casing for it. It will be a lot cheaper that way, and if something happened to the camera, at least I would not be losing my nice one.
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