Michael and my adventures in diving are not yet over!! Immediately after the Open Water Course ended on Wednesday, I signed myself up for the Advanced Open Water Course. This course took only two days which was perfect as I had two days left in Sharm. Taking this course enabled me to do deep diving (30 meters), perfect my buoyancy, navigate underwater, effectively drift dive, and calculate multilevel diving. There were many other options to complete this course, but these were the most practical for my time left in Sharm. In addition, Michael and I were able to be on the same dive boat and go to the same places.
Day one of AOW, Thursday, was an awesome day! My first dive that day was my first time to go to 30 meters. Once down there, my instructor had me do some timed easy tests which I would repeat at the surface so I could see how much reaction time slows down. She gave us a math problem that I just could not solve and was quite happy with my lack of producing a solution. At 30 meters, something called nitrogen narcosis begins to take affect on divers. The affects vary from person-to-person, but I was unbelievably happy and overjoyed to see a fairly large Napoleon fish swimming by us. In fact, I semi forgot that I was actually down there for a purpose. Within ten minutes of being down at 30 meters, we shallowed our dive to allow for more breathing time under the water. We swam around and looked at the pretty fish. Michael swam about above me with a group also admiring the pretty fish.
During my second dive, I working on something called Peak Performance Buoyancy that helped me to establish better neutral buoyancy in the water to conserve air and enjoy the scenery that much more. Not too much else exciting happened while on that dive, however yet again, I saw a Blue-spotted Stingray! The reason why I get so excited to see these animals is because they are Michael’s favorite creature in the sea. In fact, for those of you who do not know, he has a tattoo on his right shoulder of the ray. Needless to say, those animals always make me think of him while underwater.
Now onto the third dive of the day. This dive was amazing! The purpose was to learn how to navigate underwater with a compass. It was not as easy as it sounds, but I did just fine. This dive was so special because I saw a Manta Ray gliding out in the blue!!! I came down the mooring line in front of the boat with my group, looked out, and there it was. Never in my life have I seen something so majestic in the water. Effortlessly it was swimming past. My instructor shot off like a bullet as the mantas sometimes like to play with divers because the bubbles tickle their underbellies. Alas, it did not stay around, but still I saw it. There were other cool fish too, but the Manta Ray was the highlight of the day. There are divers who have been diving for year with over 200 dives under their belts, and they have never seen a Manta Ray. I know that I have been extremely lucky on this trip with the creatures that I’ve seen, but it was still a phenomenal sight to see!!!
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