Day 136 - 20th June 2010

Both Simon and I woke up at the same time, checked the time.   7am!!!    and shot out of bed.  we're supposed to be on the morning boat   ARGGHH!!!!!!   After dashing about, dressing and packing our bags, we jumped on the bike and sped to Crystal.  Thankfully we'd not missed the boat.  Nathan had got all the students dive bags ready and they were just heading down the beach to the pier.   I hate rushing and especially in the morning.  We both felt really grotty, not being able to shower or have our usual cuppa. So on the boat, we set up and made our way upstairs for role call and then made ourselves a nice cup of tea to wake up accompanied by a large bottle of water.

Our first dive was at Champon, we were taking the student to 30 meters.  Si did a breifing and Nath went through some of the marine life that we might encounter.  The journey wasnt too bad a bit choppy but as we  were on Crystal's biggest boat, it didnt rock so much, I wasnt sure whether the students looked sleepy or sick to be honest.

In the water, Nathan decided to lead the dive as the visibility was 1-2 meters, terrible and he had a torch which came in very handy at times.
At 28.5 meters we knelt in the sand and the student were shown a colour card, showing how red loses it's color and looks almost black.  After a few minutes on the bottom we ascended to 20m and circled the pinnacle and then slowly came up to 10m & then made a 5m 3minute safety stop. It wasn't a bad dive but I just felt for the students as the vis was awful.

On the boat we changed to a fresh tank and then went upstairs for a debrief and the students filled in their log books.  The boat now was heading back to 'White Rock' for the students last dive of their Advanced course.  This was going to be the 'Naturalist' dive where they had to spot and note 5 different vertebrate and invertebrate.  One of the girls had hired a camera which the whole group shared amoung themselves throughout the dive which they found great fun.   It's lovely to have underwater memories.

As the dive was coming to an end, I was at the rear of the group and suddenly heard Si shake his rattle,  looked and there were two Trigger fish  ...funnily enough two of the girls just carried until they spotted them and then quickly retreated.  Fortunately, the Triggers seemed pretty chilled and left us alone.  I by this time was in the middle of the group and one of the girls signalled, what fish is that?  I turned around and it was another massive Trigger just a couple of meters away  ..Im so glad it just kept on swimming past.

Log books filled in and stamped, we packed our kit away and headed back to land.  The group were now 'Advanced Divers'

After completing paperwork and saying goodbye to the students, we grabbed some lunch and headed home for a much needed snooze and then woke to watch the MotoGP

Tonight we're going to get a takeaway and then probably watch a movie..