Today is 'D'-day. In the morning we kick off with the Navigation Adventure-dive, then Search and Recovery. When the sun starts to set we will finish the day with a Night dive.
Navigation will be done around St. Georges Island, on the south-west side of it. Search and Recovery will be in Fontana Amarosa and the Night dive will be from shore to Aphrodite's Rock.
My instructor for the PADI Open Water Advanced is David Stangroom from the Latchi Dive Centre. Great diver with a lot of skill and experience, also happens to be calm, funny and very reliable.
After getting ready we jumped in at St'George's and I first had to swim for 30 meters along a line and count my kicks. This is needed to calculate distances under water. Once you know how many kicks you need over a certain distance you can plan dives more accurate and actually find things under water.
After that I had to swim a square using a compass. Set your heading on the compass, follow the lubber line on it and count kicks. Make 90 degree turns and return to the same spot you left from. Wasn't too hard, me being a scout for years most certainly helped on this. It was good fun tho, my first dive around without an instructor or guide telling me where to go. Job done, I succeeded on the Navigation.
All good on this one, time to have a Surface Interval on the boat and head to Fontana Amarosa for the Search and Recovery.
First I had to wait on the boat while David dropped and anchor and some dive-belts on the bottom somewhere. After that I had to go in and look for them. Once I would find them I had to bring them up using inflatable recovery- buoys.
Started the first search using a circular search. David held me on a line and I swam circles around him, giving more line increases the circle diameter and the search area. Second technique was the U-shape. Start at a given point, swim for 10 kicks in a direction, turn +90 degrees 2 kicks, turn +90 degrees 10 kicks, then turn -90 degrees 2 kicks, -90 degrees 10 kicks and start again till you done this about 5 times. That covers quit some area.
I fecked up on the U-shape at first, I mixed up the second -90 with a +90 therefore started again. All good on the second attempt and eventually pulled the line 4 times to let David know I found it and he should join me.
Then we did the knots underwater, tied up the anchor and belts to the recovery buoy. Filled it up with air and made a slow ascent. Tricky because the air in the bag and the air in your BCD both drag you up. Slowly and control both BCD and Buoy for a safe ascent. I managed it correctly straight away.
Successful Recovery, Adventure granted.
We did a 20 minutes fundive after this cause we had some time and air left, good fun. Back in the harbour we sat down and spent some time on the PADI bookwork. Several questions need to be answered to show I learned my stuff, all need to be signed off. Done alright there :)
Rest of the afternoon was just relaxing, we stayed in the harbour to have some Frappés and go over the PADI Night dive manuals again. So far so good, I achieve the needed results and have good fun doing so.
At 1900 we geared up again and headed towards Aphrodite's rock in the truck. Just a 15 minutes drive to a little beach close to Aphrodite's Bath.
An other instructor joined us, Romany Burns, to be the shore-guard in case of emergencies. Joke also joined us to make some film from shore.
Before entering the water I had to check the area and look for landmarks to make sure where I was and how to find my way back.
Our aim was Aphrodite's Rock, go pass it and then have a nice swim around it and back to the beach. The direction was 310 degrees and about 160 meters to the Rock. I had to guide this, David would just follow me and shine a light on my compass. After about 100 meters I noticed I got closer to a buoy then expected, I surfaced and set a new direction. Turned out I was about 5 degrees off. Good thing is I noticed the buoy myself and knew I was off to the right a bit at that point.
Once we were at the Rock it turned almost completely dark, only the full moon lit the ocean bottom a bit ... beautifull.
We just sat down at the bottom a bit and turned our lights off, after a minute we turned the on again and saw the ocean come to life. It is so amazing to see how life changes in the dark, indescribably beautiful, what an experience.
We had a good dive back along the rocks and that really felt good, I love nightlife at the bottom of an ocean
What a nice scenery, sunset at Aphrodite's Rock. What a day as well, learned a lot and achieved a lot. The Search and Recovery was fun to do, it improves your diving skills so much, surely worth it. The Night dive is just amazing. You do improve your navigation underwater with it but it also made me appreciate nature even more. How everything comes to life at night, never realized there is so much to see and discover underwater. The light changes and overall experience made me feel very very tiny and so thankful that I am able to be part of all this beauty.
