Month completed: May 2009

As mentioned in a previous post, I went to Bali recently for a bit of rest and relaxation, but also to catch up my family, who I hadn’t seen for nine months, what with me being in the UK, and they in Australia.

One of the activities I did while there was scuba diving (that’s me below), and my experience was a lot different to what I was expecting.

Here’s what I found:

• It is hard to force yourself to be calm, when your only air supply is coming through a mouthpiece that could fall out of your mouth at any moment
• Then there is the stress of making sure you pop your ears every metre, and not coming up too quickly, or you could die
• A thumbs up hand signal does not mean ‘things are all good’. It means ‘I want to go back up to the surface’
• A five minute training session is just about enough (people have been surprised when I told them that was all we had before we went down, but for me, it was enough)
• Being a good swimmer counts for nothing, as it is all about using the flippers properly
• It takes about twenty minutes to stop stressing about losing your mouthpiece, and start actually enjoying the views
• The views of the colourful fish, coral and sea anenome are really amazing
• Being among all the fish and coral is like being on an entirely new planet
• Going down 10 metres doesn’t sound like much, but it actually was

Would I go again? Absolutely. Next time, at the Great Barrier Reef.

Here’s a couple of shots of the event. The first is during the training. I got caught looking very confused. The second is just seconds before going under. The heart was beating fast at that point.