diving

Firstly, let me apologise for the shitty quality of these underwater pics. (A) We were learning to dive and had bigger things to think about than taking pretty pictures, like breathing (B) we didn't really know what we were doing and taking underwater pics is a whole new ballgame.


This is us after one of our dives, not our first one I don't think but then it hardly matters.


These are little cleaner fish that hang out at cleaning stations. It was the first time I got to see a whole mass of fish moving in the way you see schools of them do on TV. We were hoping they'd come out to clean us but obviously we didn't need it.


NEMO!


blue spotted ray


Ayman, our dive instructor, took this pic because none of us were brave enough to get close enough to take the snap. This moray was hiding in a crevasse in the coral and was huge. How big exactly I have no idea, especially as everything is magnified by about 33% underwater due to goggles. He was a big mo-fo though.


I'm pretty sure this one was taken after our final dive. Left to right, Ali, me, Becs and Clara.

Learning to dive was awesome. I'm also really glad that I did it in a group, especially the girls from work because we were all really supportive of each other and it meant you didn't mind making a dick of yourself because everyone would laugh good-naturedly and you'd know that someone else would be looking gamby with something else. Because we were just learning, we didn't really get to go to any supercool areas but that was okay because most of my attention was on my buoyancy and not knocking in to coral and just getting used to everything. I've definitely caught the bug though and am already planning how I can keep this up and when I can get back. In my mind, I'm thinking November for setting my advanced but we'll have to see how things go. Ever since finishing my course, I've had severe water withdrawal and am looking in to joining a pool near me (when I find one) which, for those who know me well enough, is a pretty big thing because I don't do public pools. Two main factors in this are, in no particular order 1- little kids pee in pools (in fact not just little kids) 2- swimming togs. I don't do togs. I don't do skintight and I don't to skimpy. Well I can't do anything about #1 but urine is sterile and it's not like I'll be bathing in concentrated pee and #2 is fixable by shedding some pies and getting over myself. ;-) I think what I love about being underwater, ignoring all the cool wildlife and the peace and calm, is that you can move so freely in all dimensions. It's made me realise how limited I can feel being stuck to the ground so I need to get back in a pool and soon so I can just get underwater and fool around.