Open Water Dives 3 and 4

Today I completed my final 2 dives so I am officially a PADI Open Water Diver.

Once again we had a bumpy ride with our quiet Swedish instructor. We arrived at a spot called White Island, which was much calmer. This had to be my favourite dive of the trip. We swam along at a depth of 5 metres and then there was a sheer drop to about 100 metres and we swam along the reef at a depth of 18 metres. It was just stunning.

There were a couple of other divers beneath us that were at about 30 meters, it was fun to look down and watch them. There were a lot more fish to see today, the same colourful ones as yesterday but schools of them. I also saw two very pretty miniature jelly fish, very cute but I still didn't want to get too close...just in case! The dive lasted for 45 minutes and my end bar was 40. Quite respectable I hope!

At one point though I realised my arm was caught on something. It was another girl's regulator hose!!! I quickly withdrew my arm and checked she was ok. This is why you keep your arms at your sides! At the surface i apologied profusely, she was very good about it and says it happens - but I still felt quite guilty.

The second dive of the day was at Caves, the second spot we were at yesterday. But we went in a different direction at a maximum depth of 11 metres. I had to complete the last of my flexible skills, which was using a compass underwater, pretty easy as I only had to go 20 metres. The skills required for the fourth dive were to remove and clear my mask, easy, and hovering, not so easy. I was all over the place trying to hover and kept falling backwards. I can control my buoyancy going along the bottom but not in an upright stationary postion. Will take practice I guess!

During the dive the instructor led us to what I thought was a cave and motioned for us to follow him. I point blank refused and signalled to my buddy that I was scared to follow. All I could see was darkness and I thought that if something went wrong, I would be screwed. It turns out the overhead only lasted for 3 metres and we could have swam straight through (i.e. it wasn't really a cave) but the instructor hadn't explained this at the surface and I couldn't see the other side. The bottom line was I didn't feel comfortable so I think I did the right thing by refusing. I really enjoyed the rest of the dive though and no one made a big deal about me refusing to go in. The second dive lasted for 36 minutes and my end bar was 70.

I'm itching to plan my next diving trip. I have to say that starting the PADI course was the best decision and I have loved every second so far...apart from the bumpy boat rides!

Dives to date: 4
Cumulative time: 2:29

Open Water Dives 1 and 2

Today was finally the day. I am in Santorini on holiday for a week, after first stopping off in Crete for 4 days exploring the island. I researched the local dive centres before coming here and chose to dive with Navy's Waterworld as they were the most helpful and responsive to emails.

The dive centre arranged for a car to collect my boyfriend, who is PADI certified and I from our hotel. After filling in the paperwork and getting into a wetsuit and boots we were taken by car to the south of the island and then travelled by boat around the south coast past White Beach and Red Beach to two diving spots: White Caves and Caves.

The diving instructor was not at all talkative but he was a crazy driver, the boat was bouncing up and down along the waves but thankfully the waters were very calm at the sites.

The instructor helped me into my BCD and fins and then I dropped backwards into the sea and we descended for my first dive under water. I was pleased to not feel too nervous, perhaps my early days of snorkelling had something to do with this.

There isn't a great deal of aquatic life off the coast of Santorini but there were lots of small colourful fish, which I'm trying to find out the name of.

We dove to a maximum depth of 11 metres and the dive lasted 38 minutes. Visibility was great, 25 metres. For dive 1 I performed the flexible skills; cramp removal, tired diver tow and snorkel/regulator exchange.

The first dive ended earlier than planned because I started to ascend and couldn't control myself to stop and broke the surface. This was extremely frustrating and I felt that along the way either my last or this instructor should have explained at some point that if you start to ascend you should actually keep your body upright, rather than pointing down, so that you can let air out of your BCD. I was trying to do this but as my body was pointing down the air had nowhere to escape.

The second dive was much more successful. We went to a maximum depth of 11 metres again so I was able to control my buoyancy along the bottom. For the second dive the flexible skills completed were removing and replacing scuba and weights at the surface, performing a controlled emergency swimming ascent and a safety stop. There were also more dive skills that I had to complete underwater, but my boyfriend commented that the instructor rushed through these compared with his experience.

The second dive only lasted 30 minutes because my buddy was getting low on air, however I still had 120 bar remaining so I don't think my air consumption is too terrible. Despite what I thought was a lack of good communication and instruction from the instructor I thoroughly enjoyed the dives and can't wait for day 2 tomorrow!