... Ok, so it took two attempts when most normal people need only try once... but who cares now? I finally completed my Open Water certification, I made two subsequent dives without hanging on to my instructor's apron strings and now, I can't wait to do more.
My qualifying dive with my instructor was a very eventful one. Apart from the fact that I still had to overcome the demon of removing and replacing my mask with my eyes wide shut, I also had an innate tendency to breathe through my nose (a very bad combination, I assure you). It took a while to psyche myself up because this time, Han (my friendly slave driver) took me down to 18m... there was no escape and no entertaining the thought of surfacing "in case of an emergency". Seriously tho, Han knows how to work people's motivations and inhibitions while never losing their trust in him and I do recommend him to anyone who is thinking of taking up diving instruction.
Anyway, so I composed and psyched myself up and used a lot more air than I really should have but I did it in the end. Off came the mask and I fumbled to get back on again since I couldn't see what the hell I was doing, cleared the mask and coughed out half a breathful of sea water and that was it. Done... he shook my hand, offered me congratulations and that literally, was it. 5 minutes was all it took... in other words, I was a mere 5 minutes short of being certified the last time around...!
So, the rest of the time was spent on what Han calls jalan-jalan. And the extraordinary events were just beginning. Now, please keep in mind that this was my 4th real dive. The first two were in confined water where there were nothing more than schools of ikan bilis to look at. I was new to the underwater world and looking like a total klutz, no different from a child learning to walk, my concentration was merely to keep up with Han and to not touch the bottom. And aside from ikan bilis and a lot of sandy bottoms, I had no idea what wealth of creatures there were around me.
We were about 10 minutes into the jalan when Han stopped to look at something at the sandy bottom. He took out his dive knife and probed among the sea grass at something that looked like a chip of wood... and then he got excited. He looked around him and there were literally hundreds of them. He kept pointing at them, playing with them, attempting to make them 'dance' in the water and in spite of being under 18m of water, he looked like a little boy in a candy shop and I really had no idea why he was so thrilled since these wood chips were all over the sea floor. After a while, I thought it might be because these little wood chips were all bonking one another... it was wood chip mating season and perhaps Han liked watching marine creature porn.... I shrugged.
It wasn't until we surfaced that he threw off his mask and squealed, "Ju, this is your lucky day!" and I thought, "yeah, lucky that I didn't drown in 18m of water without my mask on..." He explained that those little bonking brown wood chips were actually nudibranches.
"Ooooh, ok... I've heard of those and now I know what they look like" but he went on to say that although he had seen that particular nudibranch in Indonesian waters before, he has never ever seen it anywhere on Perhentian Island. In other words, it was a rare nudi to be spotted where we were.
So ok, great. But the occasion was to get even more auspicious. At a dive briefing after getting back on land and one cold shower later, Han plonks a voluminous encyclopedia of nudibranches on the table and opens it to a page full of brown looking wood chip-like nudibranches. "It's got your name". That's all he said. I looked at where his finger was pointed and there it was... a picture of the same brown chip-like creature which we had seen just an hour before and the name below it: Juliana Sea Hare (Aplysia Juliana). "It's your lucky day," Han said again in affirmation.
I got home and told the world about this via Facebook and was quite amazed at how many people were envious that I had seen not just A sea hare, but hundreds of bonking ones. Some said that they had never had an opportunity to ever spot a sea hare and some said they had only the benefit of rare sightings of one at a time.
It was now becoming clear that something which almost completely passed me by as a non-event was indeed to be the high point of my trip. And I think it's realizing that it isn't about actually getting my certification that was the achievement but that it merely allows me to now stand on the threshold of many such great sightings and personal discoveries that still lie ahead. And I will never be as blind and assuming again in my new under water world.
I now burst with anticipation and almost cannot wait for my next dive.
No comments:
Post a Comment