Day 73- Buoyancy. Like "Coccyx" It's Not Nearly As Dirty As It Sounds.

Following three straight days of having to wake up early for diving school, we were finally afforded the opportunity to sleep in as Colleen and I were not scheduled to start our Advanced Adventurer Diver Course until after lunch.   Sadly though, I could not sleep in as my "real world" habits of an internal alarm clock and such were starting to creep back into my system.  If there's one thing I don't like, it's the real world.

Sadly, my attempt to sleep in failed, but things could only improve.  Unless I intended to commit suicide 50 feet below the ocean's surface as I had attempted to do the previous day, it was inherently going to be a step in the right direction.  For our Advanced Adventurer course, there was no classroom work.  It was strictly diving.  To receive our credentials we would have to complete a series of five different underwater dives, each highlighting a different skill set.  We settled on navigation, buoyancy, a wreck dive, deep water dive, and night dive.  Unlike when we did our beginner's course, Colleen and I were not alone this time.  In addition to our instructor Amber, we had another student, Jon, and Martin who was in training to become an instructor.



Our Advanced Adventurer crew. Jon, Colleen, Amber, Myself, and Jon (left to right).



For our first dive of the afternoon, we headed over to a shallow dive spot where we were set to practice our navigation skills.  Jon, Colleen, and I were given compasses and had to navigate our way to certain spots under the water.  Thankfully, Jon was a much more experienced diver than Colleen and I, so we just kind of followed him  and pretended to look at our compasses as if we actually had a clue as to what the hell we were doing.  Jon was definitely an alpha male type of guy, while Colleen and I were just fish in his school.  I apologize for the shitty pun.

For our second dive of the afternoon, we boated over to a spot known as "buoyancy world".  I'll let you guess what skills we practiced here.  There were a wide assortment of obstacles, hoops, and other related crap under the water that we had to float through in an attempt to master the ever important skill of buoyancy.  Mostly though, I just like using the word buoyancy. Buoyancy. Buoyancy.  By far the most exciting part of the afternoon was when Jon was almost attacked by a triggerfish.  They are hyper-territorial fish that do not like it when people swim into their areas.  Needless to say Jon made that mistake and provided all of us with some free entertainment.  While we made it through both of the days skill tests unscathed, the one problem I was still suffering from was the fact that I was going through my oxygen supply at a far greater rate of speed than anyone else.  This in turn meant shorter dives for me, and less of a chance of seeing something of note under the water.

Divers' worst nightmare...the triggerfish. *Not an original photo

That evening was slightly more low key than the previous evening's affairs.  We hit up Chopper's again for dinner before retiring to our abode.  Colleen and I were both pretty banged up on our legs and our ankles were totally mashed up from the friction caused by the fins.  The ocean was trying to defeat us, but we were determined not to let it win!

~Brentski~