We were able to go out with the boys on a morning of scuba diving! SCUBA DIVING!!! It was more fun that I could have even imagined! Unfortunately, we didn't have the camera - dang it!!!! We had a different understanding of what we were doing and we left our bag at the store, thinking we'd come back after we all 'tried out our breathing and equalizing'. We were wrong. We went directly out to the reef - so we didn't have a camera! Oh well. We all have the memories :)
It was a PADI certification introductory Open Water Dive. We watched a short video, got familiar with our equipment and headed to the reef. We put on our fins, weight belts and masks and climbed over the boat into 4 feet of water. We're probably 2 miles off of shore - and it was only 4 feet deep. So cool. Our teacher, Scuba Steve, was a native guy who has been teaching for 22 years, he was amazing!
Scuba Steve hooked the tanks and all the hoses/regulators/etc to each of our vests and handed them over the boat. We all strapped in and he told us to try sticking our faces in the water and breathing. He said it's best to not over think it, or get caught up in the instruction. We just had to remember 2 things: Breathe (don't hold your breath) and Equalize (make sure you continue popping your ears, by holding your nose and blowing, swallowing, whatever you normally do on the plane).
Once we stuck our faces in the water, we could see HUGE grouper under our boat! It was so exciting! He talked to us for a little bit, made sure we were all breathing, then we went a little deeper. At that point, we used the sign language we learned in the video and he went to each of us and made sure we knew how to take the breathing apparatus out of our mouths, put it back in and clear it with water. He also made each of us practice clearing our masks of water. Once we all got the ok - off we went.
It was amazing. Immediately after our little instructional test, we swam across a HUGE sea turtle. Within a minute, a shark came by and REALLY checked us out. He swam right up to each of us and really was looking at us right in our faces. It was awesome! It was a 3-4 foot long nurse shark. We were not supposed to touch anything, but it was all I could do to not reach out and touch it! He had little whiskers in the corners of his mouth. It was so cool. Surprisingly, it didn't make me nervous at all.
I stayed at the back of the pack and kept counting kids. Greg and I went with the 5 boys. My two, the two cousins and Enoch. Greg made fun of me. He said he kept seeing me count. I couldn't help it. I honestly thought someone would struggle with something. The only trouble we had was some floating. The instructor had to add extra weights to Greg and I. The boys were able to be regulated by their valves alone.
Almost everyone swam through a little cave - very tiny cave. I was having trouble getting down that low (this was just before he weighted me a little more) and Andrew was having trouble with his ears not popping, so he had risen a little and re-decended as he was instructed and it fixed it. I heard there were Moray Eels inside looking at everyone like, "Hey. What are you doing in here?" That's a direct quote from one of the boys.
We saw 3 Eagle Rays, 2 sea turtles tons and tons of coral and all sorts of interesting fish that I had never even seen pictures of before. It was unbelievable. We went as deep as 22 feet and were out for about 30 minutes. I think we could have all gone much longer, but that amount of time left a "safe" amount of air in our tanks. I can see now how easily it would be to get busy and run out of air. I was watching my regulator early on, but then completely forgot the thing existed as the sea came alive right in front of my eyes!
It was so much louder than I expected. When you go underwater it is typically so quiet. Sounds are muted. This was surprisingly loud. Each breath is loud as you inhale and exhale. The inhaling reminds me of Darth Vader and the exhaling is like you've just exhaled a mouth full of bubbles (you have) and that is surprisingly loud. Not annoying or anything, just surprising.
We're all ready to be certified for real. It was amazing. Next time we'll have to plan and work certification into our schedule. It was awesome!
The boys rounded out their day by climbing a tree, picking coconuts and then husking and cracking them open. They are gathering coconut water and drying out the meat so that they can make coconut milk. We have 3 cans in the cupboard, but I am sure this will take so much better!
Andrew was the first one to decide to climb up for a coconut. He did the same thing in the Galapagos. He was excited to find another coconut tree! The only problem; in the Galapagos, there was a man nearby with a machete. No guy with a machete here.
So he had to figure out how to husk it. He used shells.
After Andrew finished his coconut, cracked it open and shared the goodness with others, we had a whole herd of coconut-ers!
Alex declaring his coconut officially shucked!
Keep in mind this took them REALLY working at it for a few hours - so completion is something to celebrate :)
