scuba - my 1st sea dive!!!

on saturday the 8th june we met at long beach, simonstown for our 1st and 2nd sea dive. i was extremely nervous, i was hoping it would be cancelled due to the weather. it was freeeeeezing cold and it was raining, definitely not the perfect weather to go diving.

all kitted up and briefed on what we were going to do, we headed into the sea. i inflate my bc so that i can float and i start sinking, so i inflate again and still something is not right. the instructor comes over and we inflate it again and then hear the bubbles (air) coming out the back of the bc somewhere. luckily he had a spare, so back out of the freezing cold water, sopping wet, we walked back to the parking lot to change the bc.

once changed we go back into the water, by then i was really freaking out. i was shaking/shivering i was getting so cold.

we all swam out to a point and then one by one we had to do a controlled descent. well, i did it, descent went ok. i battled with the equalisation though, my ears hurt like hell. once totally down, i managed to equalise and all was fine. the first dive had no skills involved, just the controlled descent. we then went exploring, there wasnt much to see unfortunately, a couple of fishies. 

we were in for about 30 mins and went to a depth of 7m. 

i was so happy when the instructor signalled that we were going to go up and that the first dive was complete. YAY!!!! i did it!

we then had to swim back to shore and get out, there we stood on the beach, in our wetsuits, sopping wet and freezing our asses off. we were out for about half an hour and had our briefing for the 2nd dive.

going back into the water was horrible, it was colder, my hands were red, couldnt feel my feet much as the coldness made my toes numb. this time the controlled descent didnt go as well, had to be pushed passed the first 1m to be able to descend. my ears were really sore when going down, had to ascend a bit to try equalise. with the 2nd dive we had to do a couple of skills under water and at the surface. so we didnt explore much with the 2nd dive as the skills took some time and a couple of the people were low on air. we did the same depth and time more or less.

i was really chuffed with myself that i did it, so happy that i went! wish i had photos, will definitely try make a plan with dive 3 and 4 to try get some pics.

so now i have 2 more dives to do and then i should hopefully qualify, super excited!