Bravely stepping into the underwater world!
Well, I am not the most ‘out-doorsey’ person in the world, so when I was told ‘you need to do something new and active’ I immediately panicked and poured myself another glass of wine. The extent of my outdoor living is doing some very mediocre pot-gardening on the balcony and if I am feeling particularly energetic, I walk to my local pub.
Long-suffering ‘A’ (my other half) had been talking about doing his PADI course for ages but had never quite made it to the dive centre, so as we were about to disappear off to Mallorca for two weeks I thought what better present than a day’s Discovery course at El Buceo in Port Andratx.
As it turned out, this was an inspired present! ‘A’ convinced me that I should have a go too (which I have to say, I was not particularly enthusiastic about). Well, we arrived on Sunday morning with absolutely no idea what to expect – we were met by our fabulous instructor Matthias who sat us down with a cup of coffee and explain the numerous things that could go wrong with diving – this did not help my underlying fear… (He did also tell us, if you do everything properly then nothing will go wrong). Anyway, we were then kitted out with wet suits, BCD’s, tanks and regulators (oh, and about half a ton of weights to make us sink) and taken to the shallow waters just off the beach where we learnt how to breath as well as the absolute basics to diving.
One thing I must put in at this point is that ‘breathing’ is not as obvious as you would expect – every piece of me wanted to hold my breath and not breathe, which is an absolute NO NO when diving! It took my body a while to be convinced that the perfectly good tank of air on my back was for using….
So that afternoon, we heaved us and our kit onto the boat and were taken 10 minutes out of Port Andratx to a beautiful little bay called S’Aquillot where Matthias took us into the water and showed us the wonders of the underwater world. After 40 minutes in the water (which seemed like about 5) we re-emerged on the surface, both of us bowled over by the sight of the biggest Octopus ever and a Moray Eel. That afternoon we signed up for the PADI Open Water Course which then took over the second half of our holiday.
What started out as a one-day-see-if-you-like-it course, turned into a get-your-qualification-and-then-dive-as-much-as-you-can course! By the end of our holiday we had done 9 dives, been down to 18 metres, swam with barracudas, acted as victims for the rescue diver course, oh, and did a little bit of homework for our qualification! It was by far and way the best thing I have ever done.
So now that we are back in the UK I am desperately trying to sort out diving off the slightly chillier Dorset coast. I have already started ‘borrowing’ the office copy of Diver Magazine to learn more about the world of diving and am investigating the different dive centres locally.
Long-suffering ‘A’ (my other half) had been talking about doing his PADI course for ages but had never quite made it to the dive centre, so as we were about to disappear off to Mallorca for two weeks I thought what better present than a day’s Discovery course at El Buceo in Port Andratx.
As it turned out, this was an inspired present! ‘A’ convinced me that I should have a go too (which I have to say, I was not particularly enthusiastic about). Well, we arrived on Sunday morning with absolutely no idea what to expect – we were met by our fabulous instructor Matthias who sat us down with a cup of coffee and explain the numerous things that could go wrong with diving – this did not help my underlying fear… (He did also tell us, if you do everything properly then nothing will go wrong). Anyway, we were then kitted out with wet suits, BCD’s, tanks and regulators (oh, and about half a ton of weights to make us sink) and taken to the shallow waters just off the beach where we learnt how to breath as well as the absolute basics to diving.
One thing I must put in at this point is that ‘breathing’ is not as obvious as you would expect – every piece of me wanted to hold my breath and not breathe, which is an absolute NO NO when diving! It took my body a while to be convinced that the perfectly good tank of air on my back was for using….
So that afternoon, we heaved us and our kit onto the boat and were taken 10 minutes out of Port Andratx to a beautiful little bay called S’Aquillot where Matthias took us into the water and showed us the wonders of the underwater world. After 40 minutes in the water (which seemed like about 5) we re-emerged on the surface, both of us bowled over by the sight of the biggest Octopus ever and a Moray Eel. That afternoon we signed up for the PADI Open Water Course which then took over the second half of our holiday.
What started out as a one-day-see-if-you-like-it course, turned into a get-your-qualification-and-then-dive-as-much-as-you-can course! By the end of our holiday we had done 9 dives, been down to 18 metres, swam with barracudas, acted as victims for the rescue diver course, oh, and did a little bit of homework for our qualification! It was by far and way the best thing I have ever done.
So now that we are back in the UK I am desperately trying to sort out diving off the slightly chillier Dorset coast. I have already started ‘borrowing’ the office copy of Diver Magazine to learn more about the world of diving and am investigating the different dive centres locally.
posted by Vicky at
14:12
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