So I was writing a subject as if I was just writing about today's experience, until I realized that I haven't talked about anything at all since the first pool dive! I can't forget about yesterday, yesterday was a good day.
Well let's see. I listed the schedule of the classes in the last post so there's no need to go over it again. John and I both passed the final test and all the pool stuff as well. There's a lot to learn in order to be safe and know what's going on. It's not difficult though. Most people do pretty well.
This weekend we had our final test, the ocean dives. We did two yesterday and two today. I enjoyed yesterday much more. The surge was rough today and the wildlife was sparse. Yesterday was amazing. We went to "Electric beach" on the leeward side of the island and entered from the shore. We first got there and had to wait for others since it was a tricky place to find. We met on an area that had a small cliff and had to walk over to the sand in order to enter. John and I went over to the edge to look out at the water and saw sea turtles! I was so excited. We have been wanting to see them for months but haven't yet. Yay :-).
It was a little difficult, though worse on the exit, to get in while the waves are coming at you, but we managed. While in the water we did some of the exercises/training that we did in the pool to make sure we had it down in the salt water and to improve muscle memory. We also did a lot of swimming around, which was great. There was a large patch of coral full of fish and even schools of fish! At one point a school swam around me and I was nearly surrounded. It was awesome. The other very exciting thing was, while exiting after the second dive, one of the dive instructors (we were split into groups with different instructors) had found an octopus and had it wrapped around his arm. While swimming in he made sure whoever wanted to saw it and it was very neat. It was reddish brown, with a head the size of a softball and tentacles 9-12 inches long. John and I both pet it and it felt as soft as a rabbit, only with no fur texture of course. The waves pushed me into the instructor and the octopus so he got a little nervous and stuck to me as well, which of course surprised me since I had also just been pushed by a wave so I jumped a little. It was ok though, he stayed on the instructor's arm so we could continue looking. He was very neat.
Later I noticed that same instructor had a tattoo of an Octopus on his back and today he saw another one. John and I think he specifically looks for them and knows where to look. I may have to ask for advice if I ever see him again. Octopuses are neat creatures.
Today the surge (that's what they told me it was) was incredibly rough so we were tossed around a lot, mainly at the surface. There were very few creatures and my mask kept fogging so today wasn't my favorite day, that's for sure. However we got all the qualifications done and are now certified Scuba Divers! Hooray! We get our licenses in a few weeks maybe even up to 90 days. We're able to pick up a temporary one as well, so I'll need to do that soon. It's pretty exciting.
Now I need to save up for more classes so we can do even more exciting dives! We're only qualified Open Water so we can't do certain things until we have another class in it. Most classes are only a day long, but it's safe to make sure you do it. I'm also considering to do an AWARE class in fish identification. That might be fun. It's more of an environmental class than the others. There is also Wreck diving, Cave diving, Underwater photography, Enriched air (high O2 level), and so on. I'm very interested in the first three, but we shall see.
On a family note. John goes back to work tomorrow and underwater on Wednesdayish for the same amount of time and he's been going. My parents come in Wed and stay until the 15th so that's very exciting.
Hooray
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