Scuba

0630 saw the Gorse Fox up and about and preparing for another adventure. The Silver Vixen opted to stay in bed and enjoy a cup of tea and her book. The Gorse Fox bade adieu and headed south to Kantiang Bay where he met up with Cousteau-cub.

Today was to be the second pair of dives needed for his “Open Water” diver’s qualification. A throng assembled. He would like to have thought they were well-wishers, but actually they were just other divers lost in their own thoughts preparing for today’s adventure.

The speed boat was pretty full, with 16 divers, the boat crew, and five or six instructors. The destination, as before, was Koh Haa. This is fine because it’s only 35 minutes to and from the site. As before, the Gorse Fox had personal attention fro Cousteau-cub and this time there was a student doing his Dive Master who was along to observe. Stepping off the back of the boat into the blue saw the Gorse Fox bob back to the surface where he had to show how he could get into his scuba gear in the water. With all the grace of a walrus (mountaineering) he managed to push the gear down and slip his arms through the correct opening and do up all of the fastenings. Then he had to put on his weight belt in the water. This involves holding the belt in one hand whilst rolling such that the belt warps itself across your back and you do it up whilst face-down. Again this was not an elegant motion, but again it was completed without fuss or grace.

Descending to the bottom GF managed to take on sea-water. This was neither pleasant, nor intentional – and it certainly made the next few minutes a little unpleasant. He had to practise a controlled swimming ascent (CESA) that went without incident, and then kneeling on the bottom had to remove his scuba equipment then put it back on, and finally remove his weight-belt and put it back on. Skills demonstrated it was time to enjoy the dive and we headed off round the coral surrounding one of the limestone karst stacks. This time the Gorse Fox was allowed to go deeper and stay under for longer. It was a magical world with angel fish, clown fish, barracuda, octopus, eels, sea snakes, box fish and so forth. The corals themselves were a fantastic mixture of hues – reds, russets, yellow, vibrant blues, whites and so forth. Unfortunately the magical mystery tour had to come to an end and we recovered the surface, got back on the boat and rested until the next dive.

Again curry and rice was the order of the day – creating a good ballast and store of carbohydrate for the body to call on. The heat was stifling and the air was so thick you could almost cut it. The thought of another dive was an exciting relief and meant that we would soon be back breathing dry, cool air, albeit in 31c water.

We rested nearly 90 minutes between the dives and then began the second adventure. This saw Cousteau-cub, the Gorse Fox and the trainee Dive Master drop over the side and swim to the wall of the island. Then, working with the surge we dropped below the surface and entered the peace of the underwater realm. GF had the last of his skills to exhibit – with a full mask removal and replacement and then underwater navigation with a compass. Done, we then headed round the island to huge cavern below the surface. Entering we marvelled at the way the various fish were silhouetted against the light behind us, and we looked for some of the denizens that C-c had expected to find. This time we were not so lucky and they had obviously gone off for morning coffee. We swam from one cavern into another even larger one, known as the Cathedral. We had discussed surfacing in there, but decided the surge was too strong so moved on through another passageway to exit back out into the mottled sunlight below the waves.

After about 45 minutes we headed back to the surface, climbed aboard the boat and headed back to land. With the exception of the final exam – GF had completed his course… and was feeling smug.