They Descend

Salyna posted on the LA Winterim FB page the update for Monday from Underwater Discovery. Check out that site to read about their first view of Nemo's home!

Post by Salyna Anza.

This update was received from Mr. Brescia and Andrew regarding yesterday's (Tuesday's) diving adventures:

Today (Tuesday), we became certified divers, which means it is our last day that we are obligated to be with an instructor at a depth of up to 60 feet. We spent a good portion of our dives at “the wall,” where we were on the edge of a 500- or 600-foot drop-off. We saw a host of marine life at this location of the reef, including barracudas, eagle rays, and parrot fish.

Declan Kelly, our dive master, began the day with instructions not to touch the bottom or come in contact with any of the coral, which we learned the other day is “built” by polyps acting like “microscopic masons.” We needed to practice only two skills in our first dive, mask removal at 45 feet and demonstrating how we had mastered neutral buoyancy using our oral inflater. This required that we remove our regulator two or three times in order to inflate our BCDs sufficiently to “hover” without touching the bottom.

On our first dive, we reached 60 feet and stayed there approximately 10 minutes before exploring the wall and then surfacing; on the second dive, we submerged at a different location of the same coral structure, and it was there that we all had our closest encounter with a spotted eagle ray, which glided by with much less effort than we needed to keep breathing while witnessing such grace. Nearly everyone took off their wet suits for the second dive to experience the gradual change in temperature during the descent. Ralph Flores, aka Tuff Love, challenged Mr. Brescia to a “game” of air consumption: he would descend with 600 psi and return with plenty of air when the rest of us would need no less than 1500 psi to complete the dive. Mr. Brescia surfaced with approximately 1200 psi and Ralph had 150, confirming that the dive masters have learned to consume a fraction of air needed by the rest of us.

Armed with a camera, Islambek Mussayev took nearly 100 photos, one of which features these two bloggers, Andrew Jean and Mr. Brescia. (see above)

At the end of our two dives, Declan gathered us all together for a group photo and told us to  be ready for our first open-water dive as fully certified open water divers tomorrow (Wednesday)!