Day 4: First Day of diving

We carried all of our dive gear out to the prep area and looked for the dive shop supervisor, Etti, so we could find Paul, who was supposed to be my dive instructor. Neither of them were to be found last night. I found Etti and Paul had already made plans to do something so he would not be going out with me, but I would still be able to dive. I know my stuff, but I would still like to play by rules. I thought this was supposed to be organized before? It seemed to me that this was a surprise to them. I’ll give them the benefit of a doubt for right now.

I had wished for pancakes, and I received them for received them they would become the a regular for the breakfast buffet and in my stomach. As would the cocoa puffs, eggs (I would only eat the fried or scrambled), rice (if I was eating the eggs) and toast with peanut butter and strawberry preserves.

We met our divemaster, Tomo, and he gave us the lowdown of where we would be going. It took us about 45 minutes to get out there. I was a little nervous at first, but I was over it once I hit the water. As we decended into the water, I was amazed at what I saw. We were diving in one of the most well known coral walls in the world. At times, it will go down over 200 feet. It looked pretty deep from what I could see. And the coral was amazing. I saw so many different types of fish. It was an over stimulation of the visual senses with all the colors and types of fish/coral. The visibility was very good.

We had the Germans on our boat also. There was nice smell of BO and the periodic sound of very loud nose blowing (for this reason, they were named the Blowhards). One of men looked like Cliffie from Cheers with a much bigger stomach.

The two bad things about today: sunburn and no vegetarian on the boat. Luckily we only did two dives, so we did get back early enough. The kitchen made up something for Lynn and they head fried bananas. I decided to try a little Elvis trick and add a little peanut butter. Deeeelish!

Back in the resort, I wanted to get some good pics of the sunset. I did so. It was a very clear night. That night we also were able to meet Paul, my instructor for the next day. He is the owner’s son. He laid out tomorrow’s dives, where I would finally complete my certification.

We also met someone from Holland, (insert name). He had arrived from diving somewhere else in Indonesia. He was a very experienced diver and he had discussed some of the great diving areas. One of the areas that he had discussed was Egypt. This, in my less than worldly travels, came as a surprise to me. I would have never thought of the Red Sea as being one of the greatest diving locations in the world. As I had heard from several people since then, this is true.