Open Season Dive, 2008

It has finally come to the time where the waters in Kuching are suitable for diving!!!

30 March 2008, Sunday.

I was up before the day broke into light. Grandpa sent me over to CS's place, and I was kicking myself behind because I had forgotten that it was the darkest hour and Grandpa was having problems with his vision at night. But he got on safely in his little Honda City. I was relieved.

CS came to let me into his place, all the while grumbling about the early hour to depart. It was, by means of the PADI students who could not do their Open Water Examination the year before, arranged that early so they could satisfy their urge to be submerged. I agreed with him half-heartedly, knowing full well that one hour could make a big difference in outing time, or none at all.

We reached the Sematan jetty a little past 8.30a.m., loaded our tanks and equipments, and was out towards the Talang-Talang islands just before 9.00 a.m. It was a sunny morning, and we were on Adi's new boat. Gotta love it for the space and speed. Though none the faster than a speedboat, it was faster than his previous little boat.

We did our first dive out beside Talang Besar. Ed had ten students to go that day, and I was the assistant that was assigned to be in the water with him. The students were divided up into three groups, all doing different levels of skills, since some of them had done part of it the year before. For two hours, I was in the water with strong currents, fly-away students, and a visibility of 2 to 3 metres.

I did four dives in that two hours, with no surface intervals in between. I knew that that was not ideal, but I had seen Ed doing it before. I wanted to try myself out, so I had asked earlier to follow him in all his dives. He had agreed to it, and that was what I did.

Little did I know that my body was worn out after that four dives. After a surface interval of forty minutes, at my fifth dive, I started to feel the sense of vomitting while herding the students towards Ed.

After that, I asked if Ed had still wanted me in the water, and he said he could handle it on his own, and asked me to abandon dive. I gladly took his advice, and climbed out of the water.

It took me only a while to disassemble my gear, throw them all into my basket, and crawl pathetically onto the tanks lined at the front. There, I lay like a kicked-in-the-belly kitten.

Kim was laughing at me good naturedly about how I was knocked out after five dives.

I was not strong enough yet, but I did my best. That was my best on that day, and I knew, that I would be stronger than that after that Sunday.