Learning to Scuba Dive (Part 3)

This is Part Three of the three articles I wrote each night after returning home during the process of learning to dive during 2012. Click here for Part One and Part Two here. Everybody says you should learn to scuba dive, but nobody else actually writes about the process - what you have to do, what you learn and how you get tested. Read on to find out about the day I qualified!

Learning to scuba dive is one of the best things I ever did. You see turtles, reef fish, sharks and rays almost every time

I can’t believe how quickly the final day of my PADI course came around! But then again, they do say time flies when you’re having fun. Day Three began today with me practically skipping down the road with excitement on my way to Into Scuba Dive School in Hulhumale in the Maldives. 

I brought with me some tea and biscuits for my Instructor Thomas Badstubner and his awesome team of staff to help to re-stock their kitchen after getting through so many during the classroom theory lessons! I left the theory part behind yesterday when I began my confined water dives. Today I was ready for two open water dives. The first dive was to involve practising a few more skills and the second was set aside just to purely enjoy the reef at one of the best dive sites in the area, Banana Reef.

Heading to Banana Reef 

We set off from the dive school just after lunch on the boat, heading for dive site number one, Small Maa Giri. A ‘giri’ is a kind of submerged island which hasn’t risen above the water level yet. This is the site which I also previously visited on Thursday as part of my training. 

Every day I’ve been feeling more and more confident thanks to the encouragement from my Instructor, Thomas. He’s been a truly awesome teacher, and hit just the balance of getting the important messages across without making it heavy going, plus he threw in some jokes for good measure which made everything even more enjoyable. Yes, he's a funny German.

This is me, looking pretty chill on a dive by this stage! (Dive buddy is trying to show me something)

I couldn’t wait to get started so we jumped into the water. We had a look around at some of the coral and reef fish before getting stuck into practising some more underwater skills. The exercises included repeating some things which I did before such as taking my mask off, replacing it and blowing air out through my nose to force all of the water back out of the mask again. We also did some navigation skills. Thomas had showed me while we were on the boat how to use the compass and now that we were underwater he asked me to follow the compass and swim in a northerly direction for a certain distance while he followed close to me, then we turned and I navigated back again due south.

Turtle power

After this we explored Small Maa Giri some more, and came across a green turtle and a hawksbill turtle. Thomas also pointed out a scorpion fish to me which was extremely well camouflaged against the rocks. I guess that the more you dive the easier it gets to spot the wildlife! We slowly made our way to the surface to practice some more skills which included repeating the exercise of taking my weight belt off and putting it back on again, and also taking off my BCD (buoyancy control device) and then sitting on the cylinder and bobbing on the waves while I strapped it back on again.

We then headed directly to the second dive of the day, Banana Reef. The dive site is famous (not only in the Maldives but also overseas) for being particularly abundant with fish (and that’s saying a lot in the Maldives, where the underwater world is crammed with aquatic life!). It’s also noted for the beautiful hard and soft corals, overhangs and caves which all in all make it a really interesting site to explore. You may be wondering why it’s called Banana Reef, it’s because it’s shaped like a banana.  

Well, Banana Reef certainly didn’t disappoint us. There were magnificent table corals stretching away into the distance and as we went deeper there were all kinds of exciting overhangs, crevices and caves to look at, covered in coral and hiding all kinds of surprises including a particularly big puffer fish which was a beautiful bright yellow colour instead of the dull brown they more commonly are. 

We found Dory

Finding Dory 

We also saw a beautiful blue tang fish (if you don’t know what this is, think of Dory in Finding Nemo). Thomas said that this type of fish is very common in Australia but pretty rare in the Maldives. The corals were predominantly red and pink, in all kinds of beautiful shapes. I felt relaxed as we swam along taking in the scenery, but also exhilarated at the same time. This was why I wanted to learn to dive – the underwater world is truly amazing!

I'm now a certified Open Water scuba diver!

It was almost the end of my final dive – well, my final dive on my PADI course but certainly not my final dive ever! Thomas shook my hand to congratulate me and unfurled a banner for me to hold saying “Well done, you are now a PADI Open Water diver!” and I had my photo taken. What an experience. Three days of learning and fun have zoomed by. I’ve completed my PADI Open Water course and am now a certified diver!

If you’ve ever thought about learning to dive, you must do it or you’ll always regret not trying. Apart from being heaps of fun you get a newfound confidence and a real sense if achievement from it. I've been on over 100 dives since then and become a PADI Advanced Scuba Diver...Next step, Rescue Diver! 

Learning to Scuba Dive (Part 2)

This is Part Two of the three articles I wrote each night after returning home during the process of learning to dive during 2012. Click here for Part One and here for Part Three. Everybody says you should learn to scuba dive, but nobody else actually writes about the process - what you have to do, what you learn and how you get tested. Read on to find out!

It was an 8am start for Day Two of my PADI Open Water Course in the Maldives – time to leave the textbooks behind and finally get into the water! I arrived at the dive centre in Hulhumale for a briefing from my diving instructor, Thomas Badstubner, and then we slung our equipment into the back of a truck and hopped in. The truck drove us to a sheltered beach near the Ferry Terminal, because the tide was too low on the other side of the island. It was here that we put the theory into practice.

We waddled into the sea laden with our equipment, I’d forgotten just how heavy it all feels until you get into the water! Then we started things very slowly, standing chest-deep in the warm water to start with. It was a hazy day but the water was still turquoise blue and pretty clear. Thomas wanted to see how comfortable I was breathing underwater with the regulator. Satisfied that I was relaxed enough, we then went on to run through some of the techniques I had watched yesterday in the PADI video.

The shape of water

This is the amazing house reef I've dived at Baros (house reef is the reef connected to the resort island). Photo: Baros

I’ve been on two dives before in my life. Both of them were official PADI Discover Scuba courses, one was in the French Riviera the other was at Bandos Island Resort here in the Maldives. I’ve snorkelled a lot in the Maldives and in various other beautiful locations around the world, so basically you could say that I’m confident in the water. Thomas said that gives me and anyone with similar experience to me a good grounding for starting diving, although if you’ve never dived or snorkeled before he can take you at your own pace and make sure you’re completely confident (and competent) in the water.   

So, today we started by doing exercises in very shallow water which included things like taking my regulator out of my mouth and letting go of it, then stretching my right arm behind me to swoop it up again and replacing it in my mouth. We also ran through the hand signals for being out of air and then I took the regulator out of my mouth and reached over to use Thomas’ alternate air source, he did the same with me.

The ouchy bit

This is how you clear your mask of water when underwater

The part which Thomas said I was going to hate him for making me do (filling up my mask with water while underwater, taking it off completely and then putting it on again and clearing it) was actually alright. If it’s OK to go a bit girly for a moment I’d like to say this: Ladies, if you’ve ever got mascara in your eye you’ll know exactly what eye pain is, and I’m happy to say that seawater is absolutely nothing compared to mascara-in-eye-agony. So don’t worry about it. Things look a bit blurry, your eyes are a bit stingy, but it’s nothing too horrendous. You also need to take your mask off underwater for a few others tests including breathing underwater for a minute while not wearing a mask.

As well as this, I practised taking the weights, scuba unit and fins off and putting it back on again while in water too deep to stand in, amongst other things. With Thomas satisfied that I’d checked all the boxes and was comfortable enough in the confined water dive, we headed back for lunch. In the afternoon it was time to hop on a boat to Small Maa Giri – an excellent dive spot for rays but also according to Thomas, one of the most perfect natural underwater classrooms he’s ever seen. I had a one-on-one session with Thomas while some fun PADI-qualified American pilots who had signed up with Into Scuba for an afternoon diving trip had some fun checking out the area with the dive masters and other staff.

Maa Giri reef is amazing, check out these oriental sweetlips with a friendly batfish! Photo: ProDivers Maldives

The site consists of a sandy area just three or four metres below the surface which gently slopes away into a channel. The shallower sandy area was ideal for going through some more of the techniques I need to know, including making a simulation of a controlled emergency swimming ascent for nine metres while continuously exhaling and making an “ahhh” sound. We then had a chance to float down the slope to take a look around us and see some pretty reef fish at a depth of about 12 metres before our 46 minutes was up.

I had some minor problems with my mask. It seems that I was doing it the proper way but the shape must have been wrong for my face because no matter how hard I blew through my nose to push the water out, a small well of water stayed on either side of my face. I must have a weird-shaped face. Or a kid-size face. Or both. 

Thomas swapped my mask for his, but I still had the same problem. However, I stayed calm as I knew that nothing bad was going to happen even if I felt like my nose was full of salty water all the time. Thomas later reassured me that you can’t make a mask for everybody’s face shape, so I’ll probably bring my own snorkel mask for the final day of my PADI course.

We saw bottlenose dolphins en route! They're very common in the Maldives and love chasing boat wakes

We all hopped back onto the boat and headed off directly for Back Faru, a very pretty reef close to Sheraton Full Moon Maldives and Hulhumale. On the way we were treated to a spectacular appearance from a large pod of dolphins leaping out of the water. The boat changed its course and slowly followed the dolphins. They seemed to take a fancy to us because they came within just a couple of metres of the boat, surfing the waves made from the prow. Everyone on board cheered and peered over the side, wishing our arms were just another metre longer so we could touch them! We couldn’t have asked for a more uplifting experience (or excellent photo opportunity) before our final dive of the day. A storm was on the horizon so we had to crack on…

 There was a strong current and so our last dive today was also a drift dive. Luckily there were no more drills for the rest of the day, just fun! “You have to remember to make it fun because that’s why people want to learn to dive”, said Thomas. And we weren’t disappointed. Right at the start of the 12 metre dive, we saw a white tip reef shark and then as we floated along in the current we saw some fantastic creatures amongst the beautiful table corals. There were two large hawksbill turtles and at least five large green turtles, none of which seemed in any particular hurry to get away from us. In fact, one of them let me get within a metre of him, he barely seemed to notice that I was captivated by the sight!

We saw a white tip reef shark too. They look a little more 'sharky' than black tips, but don't get them confused with oceanic white tips, these ones are pretty small!

As well as this, there were honeycomb moray eels and giant black moray eels peering out of holes in the reef, a large pufferfish, pretty anemone fish and many other brightly coloured reef fish.

Just under an hour later we emerged smiling from the incredible experience of seeing so much marine life to discover half a rainbow hanging in the sky and some dramatic-looking storm clouds. It was a beautiful end to an amazing day. I floated on the surface for a few moments with a smile on my face. Yes, diving sure is fun!

Well, I now have one more day left of my PADI Open Water Course. I have the day off tomorrow but the day after that we’ll be running through some more techniques and enjoying the incredible underwater world, after which time I’ll hopefully be a certified diver! Read all about my final day of learning to dive in the Maldive here!