When I first arrived, the fear of not being able to pass my divemaster course loomed over me. Am I fit enough? What if I can’t pass my stamina? What if I can’t pass at all?
For the past 5 weeks, everyone on the internship helped me out, shoving those vile thoughts out of my head and focusing on accomplishing my goals step by step. At the current moment, the skills and stamina components are done and out of the way. What’s left to pass are my exams and clocking 10 dives!
This week’s dives started out most horribly but ended perfectly, it’s like the weather is apologising for throwing a tantrum for the first half of the week.
The first two days of boat dives was rough, the sea was like a spoilt kid screaming and thrashing for candy. The surge was almost as tall as me and I became seasick due to the excessive boat rocking. The visibility was barely an arm length and there are random sandstorm on the ocean floor. During midweek, the vast blue was so bad that dives had to be cancelled.
On Sunday, after being sent to timeout, the sea calmed down drastically and the visibility was so good I could see the bottom from the boat. Beautiful sea creatures came out of hiding. The giant stingrays, one as big as me, were frolicking in the reef greeting the divers.
Side news, I believe I should be nominated for an Oscar award as I managed to almost drown both Seahorse and Paul for their rescue confine exercise as a panic diver. It was so much fun trashing around like a lunatic, tearing off both their masks and regulators and making them guzzle saltwater.
It has been a satisfying week.
Fatin
