It's going to be a big challenge to not overuse the words awesome, amazing, and incredible in my diving posts. Let's just get it out of my system right away: Diving is awesome! Diving is amazing! Diving is incredible! If you haven't got a really good reason not to, PLEASE try it. You'll be blown away by how fascinating (and fun) it is.
Here are some facts about the dives we did during our 19 days on Kwaj:
Total number of dives: 19
Number of boat dives: 2
Number of shore dives: 17
Number of night dives: 2
Number of wreck dives: 6 (on 4 different wrecks)
Maximum number of dives in one day: 3
Maximum number of consecutive days without diving: 3
Total hours spent underwater: almost 15
Average dive duration: almost 46 minutes
Number of sharks seen while diving: 2 or 3
Number of turtles seen while diving: many
Number of rays seen while diving: 3 or 4
Number of toilets seen while diving: 1
Total cost for us to dive on Kwaj: $100 USD each. No joke.
(P&M and John: THANKS!!)
I'm going to save most of our marine life photos for the next post, leaving me to focus on divers and shipwrecks in this one. (In my opinion this order makes sense because it will get progressively more mind-blowing as you read on!)
Here are some photos of us...
 |
| Me |
 |
| Me, with Marissa in the background |
 |
| Ben (Marissa's photo) |
 |
| Ben |
 |
| Us (Marissa's photo) |
 |
| Messing around (Marissa's photo) |
And our fantastic hosts and dive buddies...
 |
| Marissa, dive buddy and spotter-of-interesting-fish extraordinaire (here holding a cushion star) |
 |
| Marissa towing the line |
 |
| Peter holding a sea cucumber |
 |
| Peter at the bow of K5 Side, a shipwreck lying on its side on the ocean floor |
Every one of our 19 dives was done with Marissa, and most were done with Peter too (but a few times the three of us dove while he was at work). On some dives we were also joined by one or more other locals - Rob, Bob, Betina, Jay and Dave.
Marissa did her 200th dive not long after we left Kwaj. She is a fantastic dive buddy, skilled at underwater communication and pointing out interesting sea creatures long before anyone else sees them. Peter's dive tally is less than Marissa's, but apparently he read the entire US Navy Diving Manual... for fun. Needless to say, they are both very competent, safe and knowledgeable divers - we couldn't have wished for better dive leads and buddies!
After our first couple of dives, Marissa became my dive buddy - and Peter became Ben's - for the rest of the trip. This was so that Ben and I - the two most inexperienced divers - didn't have to look out for each other. This arrangement made Ben and I feel a lot safer, although it probably didn't have the same effect on Peter and Marissa!
Underwater, we all used hand gestures to have conversations like this..
M: "Are you okay?"
A: "Yes, I'm okay."
M: "What's your air tank down to?"
A: "1700 psi."
M: "Ben's at halfway. Let's start heading back to the shore."
A: "Okay."
And after a while, Marissa and I could have underwater conversations like this, using only hand gestures and facial expressions:
M: "See there? That's one of those fish I was telling you about."
A: "Yes, I see it. You mean the ones that bury themselves in the sand when you startle them? I'm going to startle it so I can see."
*A startles fish; fish plummets into the sand and instantly disappears.*
A: "That is extremely cool!"
M: "I know!"
Or this...
M: "Did you see this stonefish? There are three stonefish here."
A: "Yes, I saw all three of them. Look here - there's a pufferfish. It's a teeny tiny one."
*M swims over; sees tiny pufferfish.*
M: "That is so cute!"
A: "I know! And look - I found the juvenile emperor angelfish you told us lives here. Can you see it through the coral?"
*M sees juvenile emperor angelfish.*
M: "Aww. I love them."
A: "I know. I can see why!"
We're pretty sure the boys did not communicate anywhere near this much. Guess we ladies have to reach our daily word quota somehow. It gives a whole new meaning to this Aussie saying!
(I must confess, however, that one of the conversations we had early on went like this:
M, thinking "I'll tell A to go where she wants to and I'll follow": *indecipherable hand gestures*.
A, thinking "M must be telling me to stop wandering off": *sticks close behind M for rest of dive*.
Haha!)
Of our 19 dives, six were "wreck dives", which means dives on or around sunken ships. (Penetration diving - i.e. actually going inside the shipwrecks - is banned on Kwaj, even for people who are qualified to do it. Likewise for diving deeper than 130 feet, and diving alone.)
There are many incredible aspects of wreck diving: seeing the outline of a sunken ship slowly appear through the watery gloom ahead... swimming along on top of the deck and thinking of the people who lived and possibly died on board (most of the wrecks around Kwaj are Japanese ships that sank during WWII)... observing the marine plants and animals that have since taken up residence... it's quite surreal, and utterly fascinating!
Here are some of our best wreck dive photos...
 |
| Me |
 |
| Me |
 |
| Peter |
 |
| A gun turret on deck |
 |
| A pile of unexploded mortars lying on the ocean floor near one of the shipwrecks. We swam right over the top of them. Does that thought make you nervous?! |
 |
| Me... always posing! |
 |
| And again... |
 |
| ...and again! (By the way, this is the hand signal for "awesome".) (Marissa's photo) |
 |
| Ben taking photos (Marissa's photo) |
 |
| Ben taking photos (Marissa's photo) |
There aren't many photos of Ben, as he took almost all of our underwater shots (and did a superb job of it too). At one stage a fair way through the trip, I took the camera for part of a dive and we quickly realised I was NOT ready for it! The effort and concentration involved in operating a camera underwater immediately made all of my steadily improving dive skills evaporate. I ended up lying on my back between two pieces of coral, legs flailing rather like a bug that has been flipped over and can't regain its footing. The camera was quickly thrust back into Ben's hands!
 |
| Many Kwaj residents are such experienced and relaxed divers that they can operate an amazing assortment of sophisticated camera gear without ever looking like upended bugs! |
You may have noticed that I mentioned a toilet earlier in this entry. It wasn't a typo! Out near one of the dive sites called the "Coral Mounds", someone has placed a toilet. It's become quite a popular photo opportunity. When I showed the first photo below to one of our friends, she was quite horrified, and expressed confusion as to how one could perform this function underwater while fully clad in scuba gear. Rest assured that I'm not "oversharing"... it's just a prop!
 |
| Ben (Marissa's photo) |
 |
| Dave |
 |
| Me |
 |
| Me on a different day. The photos of me making my approach to the toilet are funnier than when I finally got there. It's harder than it looks! |
 |
| The dunny |
I'll leave you with a shot of us exiting the water. The next entry will be all about the creatures of the deep!
 |
| Peter and me |
9 comments:
Great post Anna! It brings back some very good memories. Can't wait until you come back and we can do it again! :)
Oh, Anna! You had me in stitches!!!!!! You are such a fantastic blog writer (and a great dive buddy, too - don't sell yourself short)! Like Peter said, this did bring back some super memories. Hugs to you both!
Awesome, incredible, amazing post Anna! Great reading and photos.
Loved the photos of your toilet approach!!!! Very funny. Great photos as always.
Amazing photos, and so jealous of your trip! Each post just makes me want to go more, and then I remember how it's essentially impossible!
I love scuba diving too, but I have real difficulty equalising my ears, so I never seem to make it past about 4 metres!
Wow Wow Wow!! Awesome photos!!! I can imagine it was even more incredible in real life!
I wish I could snorkel, let alone dive! Maybe I should be joining Miss L for swimming classes so I can get UNDER the water!! :)
Great post again. Really looking forward to seeing the underwater creatures now.
Thanks so much for your comments and compliments, folks!
Laura, I'm glad you mentioned your equalising issue, because I might be able to help! Ben sometimes has this problem, and after it caused him to miss out on a dive in Hawaii, our instructor there told him to take a Sudafed tablet before diving in future. He did so before most of our dives in Mexico and Kwaj... and even though he forgot quite a few times on Kwaj, he hasn't had any more dive-aborting equalisation issues. He says his ability to equalise improved the more dives we did. So when you get the chance to dive again, please try Sudafed! :)
What a great idea! I'll definitely keep it in mind - I missed out on a few dives on our honeymoon because it was just too painful, and then I would run out of oxygen too quickly because I was breathing too hard trying to equalise.
Wow, I am sooo jealous of your dive stats from this trip, and of all the amazing things you saw! (In typical Megan style I am reading your posts backwards again!) What an incredible place - and I am totally blown away by the ridiculously cheap cost of diving there!!!
I will definitely have to pass your Sudafed tip on to Justin - he was just commenting a couple of nights ago that he's not sure he wants to dive again, as much as he loves it, because of the major problems he has with equalizing. That might be just what he needs!
Post a Comment