Conquering fears - Diving @ Blue Lagoon

Tuesday, 31 July 2012

It was a glorious day for diving. We woke up 7:30 am in order to be at the diving place at 9:00. The incredible snorkeling experiences we had the last couple of days made want to try out the real thing. Priscilla pushing me made it hard to turn down to. So, I agreed to out our lives in the hands of a old retired German.

We had breakfast at Bayu on the way over to the other side of Flora Bay. Alan had pancakes and Priscilla and I eggs. We met our diving instructor Marcus at the PADI certified diving center at Arwana Resort 9:00 am sharp. We started picking out our gear, followed by a 30 min briefing on how the equipment worked and what rules to follow, in short - breath slowly and don't panic!

After the briefing we had a short test on what we had just learned, all extremely easy questions, although we're all a bit in doubt on the statement "as divers, it is ok to touch and/or harass sea animals and corals" ;-)

We put on our gear and set out to the Blue Lagoon on the other side of Perhentian Besar, about a 10 min boat ride. The Blue Lagoon is really beautiful with crystal clear water and a sandy bottom. Marcus was only instructing the three of us today and was going to take us out to 12 meters depth.

As we jumped in Marcus gathered us in a circle to test out what we had learned on shore. First test was to clear out water from the mouth piece if it was to pop out of our mouths under water and then a test on how to get water out of our mask below water. We all did it one by one while Marcus was watching us at 1m depth. We all managed it fairly quickly, except Alan (who is the experienced diver among us) who had some trouble figuring out the difference between the mouth piece and the button to the floating device. It must have been too early for him. It was all pretty funny though, even the German laughed out loud!

The feeling of diving with full equipment and breathing under water was very strange and cool at the same time. It was as if everything is in slow motion. The first couple of minutes was a bit panicky, especially the breathing, but I soon settled down and enjoyed it. The dive site was mainly made out of huge single rock/coral formations scattered on the sandy bottom, which slowlg slopes deeper. This helped us not realize how deep we were going, as we saw the bottom all the time. During the dive, we saw a huge grouper, a puffer fish (the kind that's puffed out all the time), sting rays, nemos and all the other school fish that are familiar faces by now. We stayed down for about 40 minutes and reached 12.9 meters. None of us had any major problems, except all of us were a bit nervous when the bar meter hit the critical level of 5, indicating that it was time to get up. However, Marcus had full control.

After the dive we went back to the resort for lunch. We picked a few dishes to share. Priscilla had to work a bit, so we decided to stay at the beach the rest of the day. When Priscilla finally had figured out her working capital calculations, we went to the room, showered and went for dinner.

We chose to have dinner at one of the few places we hadn't eaten yet, a restaurant next to Bayu. They had some good looking seafood, so we went for the good old BBQ again. This time it failed us. The shrimps were ok, but the snapper and squid were really dry. At least they served Tiger ;-)

After dinner, Priscilla needed to work some more so we went to the restaurant at Flora Bay Resort for wifi. While Priscilla was working, Alan and I played a few games of Norwegian Asshole and War. I'm not sure if me being a Norwegian gave me the advantage, but I came out victorious in almost all the plays ;) We were all pretty tired so we turned in around midnight.