One one things

I woke up on independence morning with a dodgy throat and a few sniffles. I shrugged it off - nothing a bit of coffee and fresh air can’t cure. The others hadn’t woken up and there was half an hour to kill before the dive so I padded down to the Zimmer, still in sarong. Tilak was away but I enjoyed a fresh cup of Kandyan coffee and played with the pups till S came by and we eventually made our way back to Hikkaduwa. We were to start the day with a quick video screening followed by our second open water dive after a quick on-shore briefing by Raina. It felt like we were learning really fast - which was good in that we could progress quickly but at the same time I was concerned about retention. But so far so good. The 2nd dive was all about the unconventional - getting equipped in the water, secondary breathing and so on. The reports from morning divers suggested that the water was good but not as great as the previous day. Sarath brought the boat to shore and we were ready to go - again the starting point would be Sandfield but we were going to go on a different dive path this time.

The nerves of the first time had all but disappeared, the circumstances were also different - we were to jump into the water with only the wet suit, fins and mask on. Soon as we were in the water the crew chucked in the BCD and oxygen tank into the water - we had to kit up in the water. It looked complicated when Raina did it but it was quite easy in the end. Then followed the weights which were a bit trickier bc if it slipped out of grip it would go all the way down. As it turned out there were no problems, we were good to go down. I had a few problems equalising this time and felt myself struggling to go down smoothly. Theory lessons kicked in - if there’s difficulty equalising go back up a bit and try again. Eventually it worked and I was able to get to the bottom without any pain or discomfort. We began the dive with a few exercises including octopus breathing - which is basically breathing out of your buddy’s secondary oxygen supply in case you run out of air, buoyancy exercises, mask removal and so on. After about 15 mins we were ready to go exploring. As expected visibility wasn’t quite like the previous day but it was still good at around 10m. Again there were loads of fish and I felt I was able to take more of the surroundings in since I was more used to the circumstances and procedures. Equalising happened almost automatically, the buddies were synchronized better - everything was a lot smoother, allowing us to pay more attention to the fish and other marine life.

The highlight of the dive was the “cave”. When Raina said we’ll try the cave I expected a long dark tunnel - but it turned out to be quite small and you could see the end from the beginning. Nonetheless it appeared challenging to control buoyancy such that you don’t go crashing into surrounding rocks and the roof of the cave. The whole buoyancy thing remains a bit of a mystery to me - it seems to happen very naturally for me simply by controlling the air in my lungs which requires no concerted effort on my part. But as Somay said on our return, buoyancy is the most important factor and if buoyancy can’t be controlled you can never dive properly. Maybe it becomes more complex with greater depth. We went through the cave one at a time, led by Raina. It was a breeze, and though the cave itself had nothing to write home about, coming out of the cave was fabulous. There were loads of fish on the outer roof of the cave and the bubbles were pretty cool. It’s as if the whole rock is breathing and the bubbles expand slowly as the air in them increase in volume as they ascend - much like the air in our lungs if we were to ascend too fast. We played around with the bubbles for a few minutes, intoxicated, watching them burst on our masks and catching them in our hands (after missing them several times due to the difficulty in judging distance underwater bc of refraction). One of the things I love about being underwater is the way things happen so slowly - everything has its own pace, it’s calming, peaceful and almost meditative. The inability to recognize and name fish continued to frustrate me - I needed to invest in a book of some sorts. When we finished the dive I felt a bit nauseous - probably due to the dehydration caused by the dry air being inhaled combined with a touch of sea sickness. The first weekend of diving had come to a close - four days of anticipation till we returned.