My advance into the world of aquatic discovery began on Monday, as mentioned before, with Joe, Kirsten and Chris. We watched three modules of a DVD introducing everything and going over the basics, then in the afternoon we ventured into the swimming pool at Pearl Village resort, fully geared up.
The first day we were taught how to use the equipment, hand signals and a few skills - clearing the mask of water by tilting up and blowing through your nose, and some buoyancy control where we had to lay on the bottom of the pool with the points of our fins touching the floor, and we had to use our breathing and inflator to try to lift up horizontally, balancing just on our fins. Not easy at first! I found it difficult swimming around with the fins and negotiating my buoyancy on the first day, but yesterday I seemed to get the hang of it. Yesterday we learnt:
That last one was hard, but good fun. In the deep end of the pool you deflate your BCD so you sink, cross your legs then gradually add air until you are inbetween the bottom and the surface in a sitting position. The feeling of weightlessness is excellent and you look like a hovering genie.
It’s our day off the course today as we wanted to show Chris the bright lights of Patong last night. Highlights at one of the venues included someone dressed in a gorilla costume simulating sex with a semi-clad pole dancer. Only the classiest of establishments will do for us, you know.
Tomorrow morning we head out on a longtail to practice what we learnt in the pool in the sea. We now have five days instead of four at Similan because we are going to Similan on Saturday to do three ‘fun dives’ rather than including it as part of our course. (We figured there’s no point going all the way to the Similan Islands to practice taking our masks on and off when we could be roaming around freely looking for leopard sharks and turtles.)
It’s hard to believe one of my five months travelling is already up. It feels like a fortnight.