Phuket is considered one of the top ten places in the world to scuba dive. So, although Beth had only been scuba diving once before - an experience she found both terrifying and exhilarating - we decided to book a diving trip to see this incredible underworld.
In order to best prepare and increase the chance of Beth feeling comfortable during the dive, we organized to do a practice "dive" at the diving company's pool. This would allow us to practice taking out and replacing our regulator and filling/clearing our masks in the safety of a controlled pool environment. Although the pool may have been safe in that it was shallower than the sea, we were somewhat alarmed to arrive at the diving center to learn that they used the local community pool and that the pool's filter and cleaning system had broken several weeks ago. They assured us that the pool was cleaned about 5 days ago and that there instructors were in the pool all the time and no one had suffered any problems. Shallow comfort.
Nonetheless, we braved the murky and very green water and passed the safety tests with flying colours, likely motivated to work quickly and effectively to minimize our time in the pool and thus our chance of catching some kind of fungal infection from the dirty water.
We were picked up early the next morning and driven down to Phuket town to board the boat and head to Racha Yai for two dives. The boat, an old clunker with a few cockroaches running around seemed pretty upscale after our pool experience the day prior and we sat down nervously but excitedly to talk to our guide, Andre, about what to expect. Our two dives that day went smoothly and well and the wildlife we saw (and captured on our Go-Pro - thanks Fred and El!) was awesome. We saw an eagle ray, manta ray, blue damsels, parrot fish, a moray eel, sea urchins and schools of colourful fish. It felt like a completely different world down there.
So excited about our experience that day, we decided to book another dive a little closer to our hotel that would allow us to get out again but require less of a time commitment. Upon meeting Michael at Sea Bees, a scuba diving centre right on our hotel's property, we learned that we could actually try for a scuba diving certification with just one additional pool session.
Feeling comforted by the idea of a pool session in the hotel pool, which seemed far less toxic than our previous experience, and not realizing just how extensive the pool session would be, we decided to take the plunge.
The next day, we spent three hours in the pool, repeating all of the tests from the previous dive day and then learning new ones. At one point, we had to sit at the bottom of the pool, remove our mask entirely while continuing to breathe underwater and then put the mask back on and blow all the air out. For some reason, Beth found this easier than actually finding a mask that would fit on her face because of all of her crazy hair!
Our actual dives started out a little shaky as Beth took some time to get reacquainted with being underwater. But Michael, our German instructor (and owner of the dive school) was incredibly calm and reassuring and somehow, in the face of any panic moments, would always seem to find a school of fish to turn Beth towards so she was distracted from her nerves. In the end, Beth (and Geoff too!) really enjoyed both dives and completed all of the required tasks under the water.
We are pleased to report that after two pool sessions and 4 open water dives, we not only managed to avoid any pesky infections from the nasty pool water but we also became Certified Scuba Divers!
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