PADI Diving Course

I woke up this morning to my iPod alarm clock blasting rock music through the headphones at the other end of the room. I could tell from the song that the playlist had been going for a while and it turned out that I had slept thirty-three minutes through the alarm and was already late for my diving class. The great thing about Caribbean islands though is that everyone is late for everything, so it really was no big deal. I brushed my teeth and pulled on my swimsuit, bought some breakfast at a grocery store next door, and headed to Happy Divers.

I found out pretty quick today that Happy Divers isn't exactly a run-of-the-mill dive shop. I originally chose the place because it was the first dive shop I went to that could offer me an advanced PADI course on Tuesday and Wednesday. I didn't pay much attention to anything else, least of all to the fact that no place could fit the description “hole-in-the-wall” more accurately than Happy Divers Dive Shop. The place is run by two Jamaican guys: a fiftyish manager named James and a younger boatman named David (his introduction to me was classic, “David is de name!”). The great thing about a smaller dive shop though is that they can offer each individual diver more attention. When I got my first level of diving certification at Buddha View Dive Resort on Ko Tao in Thailand I was one of six or seven divers sharing the same instructor. This morning when I walked into Happy Divers there was a freelance PADI diving instructor named EJ waiting for me. I'm his only student for the duration of the course.

I loaded my equipment into Happy Divers' fifteen foot fishing boat and headed out with James and EJ to “Lighthouse #2”, the first dive site of the day. The advanced PADI course is two days long and requires five different dives. On each dive you work with an instructor to improve a different diving skill. At Lighthouse #2 I completed the “Deep Dive” requirement for the PADI certification. EJ and I descended to 120 feet and found a patch of sand to kneel on. For the first few minutes EJ completed a couple of demonstrations. First he cracked an egg and let the yolk out into the water. The pressure at 120 feet kept the yolk from splitting open and it floated freely in a spherical shape into the ocean. Next he pulled out a card that he had showed me while we were at the dive shop. The card had the words “Red, Purple, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, Brown” written on it, each in their respective colors. Above water the colors matched, but deep in the ocean the word “Red” looked purple and “Brown” looked black. Apparently red light is filtered out under the water. Finally EJ had me work out some math problems, spell my last name backwards, and draw an elephant on a small chalkboard. I passed the test easily enough but the demonstration was interesting - my mind was impaired a bit due to the high level of nitrogen breathed in at such a deep depth. I wouldn't want to take the GMAT at 120 feet down.

After a short break we headed to “Blue Channel”, another dive site near the bay. This time the test was navigation. I took a few minutes at the beginning of the dive to demonstrate that I could accurately swim patterns through the ocean using a small compass. For the remaining forty minutes of the dive EJ and I went exploring for a massive seven foot eel that other divers had spotted in the area. EJ led me through a swim-through at Blue Channel (like a cave but with an entrance at one end and an exit at the other) where we spotted a bright blue and yellow spanish hogfish. Later in the dive we did spot an eel, but not the seven-footer. EJ pointed out a golden-tailed moray eel peering out of an opening in the coral. Eels apparently will stand their ground pretty well. I swam right up to the thing and took a few pictures and it didn't back even an inch away into it's hole.

The last dive of the day was at a site called “Divemaster's Choice”. EJ and I spent the first ten or fifteen minutes of the dive working on buoyancy. One of the greatest challenges for beginning divers is learing to control their movement under the water. Ideally a diver will be able to maneuver using only small kicks of the fins and the natural buoyancy resulting from air breathed into the lungs. Flailing the arms and legs is a no-no and is a revealing sign of an inexperienced diver. It can be a lot of fun learning to get the hang of buoyancy control. A lot of times I'll see a mound of coral directly in front of me and by taking a deep breath of air I become more buoyant and rise above it in time to pass over it. It's equally fun to spot a creature fifteen feet below and blow all my air out to sink down and take a closer look. The concept sounds simple, but really getting the hang of it is like learning to walk all over again. The natural reaction is to flail the arms and legs in a desperate attempt to get where you're going.

When I finished the buoyancy tests EJ led me along the side of a one-hundred foot wall of coral as we looked for creatures under the water. He pointed out to me a sea cucumber covered with yellow spots and winding three or four feet through the coral. Towards the end of the dive I noticed a couple of sheets of corroded metal resting sixty feet down on the ocean floor. A few minutes later we came to the remains of a thirty foot boat that probably sunk years ago. I enjoyed observing the small bits of coral that had started to grow on the sheet metal and the engine. As EJ signaled that the dive was over I noticed a giant grouper fish near the bottom. He had made a home of the small wreck and was peering around the edge of the boat, looking up at us as we ascended to the surface.