The next day we had a little sleep in. Once we got up we went downstairs and checked with the dive shop what dives we could do. Afterwards we had some breakfast. We decided to sign up for the wreck and nitrox diving course. It would involve learning to dive and penetrate a wreck and to dive with enriched air, which basicly means there’s more oxygen added to a dive tank which enables you to stay down longer at a certain depth.
The course was going to start the next day. The rest of the day we did some admin stuff like bringing the wet clothes from the boat ride to the laundry, getting money and checking out town. At the end of the afternoon we had to come back to the dive shop as we were going to meet our dive instructor and she was going to explain us what we had to do for the course.
Our dive instructor was a Canadia girl called Rebecca. She told us we had to study three books. One to refresh our diving skills and the other two on wreck diving and enriched air. We decided to have some food and afterwards to go back to our room to do some studying.
The morning after we started the day with a test of the refresher. Reading up on the diving techniques had helped a lot and we knew nearly all answers to the questions. After the test we went into the water to repeat the skills of the open water course which includes taking your mask off under water and giving each other air in case of an emergency.
Once we got back out of the water we had half an hour to eat some food because this afternoon we were going to watch two training videos on enriched air and wreck diving. With the study books in front of us we watched the video and answered the questions presented in the book.
Two hours later our instructor came and checked our answers to see if we had understood the course material. The wreck diving didn’t include an exam, but the enriched air course did. After we had gone through the material we did the test. Apparently the studying paid off as I passed without any mistakes. It felt good we had the studying out of the way, cause now we could actually go diving.
The next morning we started off with diving to the wreck. The wreck, a big boat bought by the diving shops, was sunk in the 90’s for the purpose of having a wreck to dive to. The wreck is situated at exact 30 meters, which is good cause that way it’s easy to reach for advanced Padi divers. We went down and inspected the wreck, dove around it and went through the wheel house. We were down for about 30 minutes.
The second dive we had slates and we had to map the wreck. The goal of this is that you have a general idea of what the wreck looks like and where possible entry and exit points are. Jannik and I both had a slate and a pencil and started drawing. I ended up drawing a 3D sketch of the map, while Jannik drew a more schematic sketch. The nice thing was that for the first time the instructor told us to lead the way and she would follow us. Uptill now I would always follow the dive master on where to go. It felt great to go my own way.
After our second dive we went back to the dive shop to log our dives with Rebecca. The rest of the day we had time to relax. That night we went back to bed early, as the next day we were doing our two dives in the morning again.
The next day we had to be at the dock around 7am. We grabbed our nitrox tanks and our gear. We got onto a little boat and went over to the wreck again. The purpose of this dive was to use a line and reel. We had practiced using the line and reel on the dock before we headed out. The line and reel help so you don’t get lost inside of a wreck. In case of an emergency or being lost you can always use the line to get back to the entrance of the wreck. Jannik and I started using the line outside of the wreck to practice how to use the reel. Jannik also practiced taking his mask off and used the line to get back to where he started.
The second dive was the most exciting one. Jannik gave me the opportunity to use the line and reel on our penetration dive. This dive meant we were actually going into the wreck. Rebecca told us we were going to go in through the smallest hole in the wreck; the gate the captain used to get up in the wheel house. Because I was going to operate the reel, it also meant I was going to be the first one to go in.
Eventhough I was excited, I was also a bit nervous. Having to dive head first down into a small hole in an old wreck with the light of my torch seemed a tad scary at first. Once we were down there I became excited. I attached the line to the entrance point and dove head first down into the small hole. I bumped the tank a few times but I was finally able to get through the hole.
Once down in the wreck I got lost straight away. Also the line was strangled around my gear which didn’t help either. Jannik was behind me, but I couldn’t find the way to the second floor down. Finally Rebecca dove in and showed me we had to dive around a corner. From there it became more obvious. We dove down to the second floor and we finally ended up all the way down in what used to be the engine room.
It was incredible to be able to dive inside of this wreck. So far I had always been diving around corals, but this was far more technical and therefor a lot more interesting. We also found a rubber ducky. Apparently it’s a game among divers to hide a yellow rubber ducky somewhere in the wreck. Once you find it you have to hide it in another location. Rebecca thought the ducky might be a myth as she had never found it, but this time we did. She was probably even more excited than we were. Especially when she found out we were in the wreck much longer than planned. She asked me to start going back while she was looking for a good place to hide the ducky again.
Once we were outside of the wreck we dove one more round around it and then we went back up. It was an incredible experience. That afternoon we decided to do two more fun dives as so far we had only been diving on the wreck. Those two dives were nice too, but at the end of the day we were quite tired as we had done four dives of which two were deep dives.
We had a little power nap once we came back. After the nap we had enough energy to go out, as it was a Saturday night. There was a beach party in town where we went to. The beach party wasn’t amazing but we still managed to stay out till about 4 in the morning. The next day was going to be our lazy Sunday, as finally we were able to do a bit of sleeping in.
The Sunday became a day of relaxing and drinking. At the dive shop every Sunday means Sunday Funday. All instructors and dive masters have their afternoon off and they all go together to have drinks. This time they went to a bar called Neptunes which is on the other side of the island. It takes a boat to get there. The nice thing about it is that it has a nice beach and the bar does really good cocktails. Once we woke up we had a quick breakfast and then joined the dive shop to the beach.
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