First, I want to say that scuba diving ROCKS! You see, I was a bit skeptical about scuba diving because first, I can't swim. second, I have this love and hate relationship with water. You may assume that, I'm a little phobic when it comes to water. Which is why I don't like to bath. Just kidding. Really. Don't give me that look. Anyway, third, I actually tried diving. Once. I could barely be in the water for more than a minute. Okay, I panicked. And thus, I gave up. That was two years ago. So, when the rest chose scuba diving over white water rafting, I was, like i said earlier, skeptical. But we went ahead, booked ourselves Discovery Scuba Diving course with a dive operator called Downbelow (Highly recommendable), and the next thing we knew, we were on a speedboat to Gaya Island. This time around, the group consists of me, Oliver, Lucas, Steph and my two younger brothers, Mitchel and Marshal.
Anyway, we departed from Jesselton Point, Kota Kinabalu and it took the speed boat a mere 15 minutes to reach Gaya Island. Once we reach the island, we were led by Ashley to the reception area to register and sign some forms.
Applying sun block all over
Ashley (Downbelow Staff) briefing us on the program
Signing some forms
This was us fitting into our dive suit! Cool right!
Meet our dive intructors, briefing us on some basic knowledge on scuba diving.
And off to our preliminary dive in the confined area which is about 5 metres deep. *Gulp*
So, first we were learning how to descend into the water and vice versa. Double gulp. Anyway, the rest did fine while I was struggling at first. But once I overcame my panic attack, I managed to dive with the rest. But not without the dive instructor who was patient enough to guide me all the way. Like literally pulling me along during the dive.
So not cool.
Anyway, preliminary dive lasted for about 45 minutes. We took a break afterwards. Went hiking for a bit around the island, and had lunch.
Off to our second dive. The real deal. This time, it was out on the open sea near by Sapi Island. Water depth, 12 metres. Yikes. But, the second time around, surprisingly, the dive was smooth. I was more calm than previous dive and I was able to actually enjoy looking at the corals and fishes. It was really cool being underwater.
The boy who did not check his oxygen tank level
But the second dive was cut short because, Marshal, my youngest brother, did not check his oxygen tank and thank goodness, Oliver checked on it and noticed that the oxygen level indication was a little alarming and when Oliver notified Kelvin, true enough Marshal's oxygen tank was nil. So, we ended our dive and swiftly made our way up to the surface. And yeah, that was pretty much how our scuba diving went. We got our certificates, took group pictures, and sadly, it was time to return to Kota Kinabalu. Thus, the end of our scuba diving trip.
Everyone agreed that it was an awesome trip and maybe next time, we will take the actual Open Water Diver course so we can dive all over the world. Alrighty then. Next post would be on our Mountain Climbing adventure and of course, one of the most memorable moment for both Oli and I. For now, that will wait. :)
Resminicing island days.
And missing each other.
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