Shark!!

So yes, on my second ever open water dive I came across a 10 ft tiger shark. Glad to say, we both survived the encounter.

Anyhow, this post is about scuba diving and how I got hooked up on it and eventually got my certificate. I loved snorkelling since I was a kid, and even though I've been really lucky and had the chance to see octopus and all sorts of fish in the Mediterranean, ray fish in Cuba and green sea turtles on my previous Hawaiian trip, it seemed to be the obvious choice to take it a step (and a tank) further and learn scuba diving. Especially, that Szabi has been going on and on about it from time to time, who even had aspirations to be a diving instructor at some sunny place.

As soon as Dani and I had our itinerary ready, I started the PADI Open Water course in London, first with an e-learning course with tests (took ages to go through, about 20 hours) then the so called confined water skill traning with Oyster Diving at Marshall Street centre. The former had great instructors, super friendly, and I can only recommend them, the latter had a 30m pool with 3m depth that made it ideal for scuba skill practice. It took three evenings after work to complete these.

Done that, the first opportunity to complete the full course with the necessary four open water dives presented itself here in Kona, on the Big Island of Hawaii. The first day the captain overheard reports of pilot whales hanging out near the shore so we made a little excursion to meet them. 

Wow, a pack of four, about 15 ft whales I've seen even without getting into the water. 

The first dive went okay, a bit all over the place, then during the 60 mins rest got a bit seasick, but hey, I guess none of my ancestors were even out at sea so no surprises there. Anyhow, on the second dive while the instructor, my assigned diving buddy and me were at the bottom getting ready for some hovering skills, there it came. A 10 foot tiger shark swimming towards us then passing along merely 10 meters away. Since I was too busy anyway with breathing properly and keeping my buoyancy, managed to stay calm and just noted silently, oh, that's a shark. The instructor was super chilled, even wrote the kind of the shark and the fact that it was safe on her underwater scatch pad. Fine then, I thought.

The second day we continued, I personally armed with Bonine, a sea sickness magic pill that made me much more glamorous than I was the day before.  During the third dive we came across about a dozen dolphins, super cute, swimming among us. So was there a manta ray, a turtle and a unicorn fish. I like school rooms like this, I have to say!

I believe, if you are still reading this, you are probably my parents (Szia Anyu! Szia Apu!), or interested in diving indeed so I will just write down some details about the dives, logbook style.

Dive no 1, Golden Arches North, visibility 16m, water temp 27.5C, depth 11m, dive time 49 mins.

Dive no 2, Harbour, Manta Ray Bay, visibility 18m, water temp 27.7C, depth 11.5m, dive time 34 mins.

Dive no 3, Wash Rock, visibility 24m, water temp 28C, depth 12m, dive time 38 mins.

Dive no 4, Pyramid Pinnacle, visibility 18m, water temp 28C, depth 18.2m, dive time 44 mins.