Certified (part I)

I wanted to write about my dive trip to Tulamben last weekend, but I thought it wouldn't be completed if I didn't write about my diving course first. I was determined that I would write down all of my logged dives here, just as I saw in a diver's blog. But apparently I found it very hard to push myself into it (as you see, the last previous post is from August 2010 -_-) Well, I finally did an SSI Open Water Course 2 months ago. It might be quite strange that it took me so long since I had been living in Bali for almost 3 years then. I mean, even some of my friends that live far away from the sea had done that. Maybe I didn't feel the rush for taking the diving course because I used to be very happy with snorkeling once or twice every month here, and I could do some skin-dives... However, I knew that sooner or later I would want more.

So I took the course with D Scuba Club, a dive operator in Sanur owned by my former PM :D The schedule was quite flexible, the duration was 4 days and I requested that it was split into 2 weekends so I didn't have to take a leave from the office. The first weekend was for theory and pool sessions which were conducted in Sanur, and the second weekend was for the open water sessions which were conducted in Tulamben. What I really like from the course is that it was not crowded. It was only me, my boyfriend, and the instructor.

There were some tests required before the pool session. First we were asked to swim 200 m continuously using any style we wanted and without any gears (swimming goggle was permitted), and then float in the water for 15 minutes. Then we were taught essential skills for scuba diving like how to set up the equipments, descend/ascend, control the buoyancy, clear mask underwater, deal with emergency situation, etc.

We went to Tulamben the following weekend to complete the open water session. I'll write about this in the next blog post...