SCUBA Diving
Those of you who know me, know that I'm a bit of a 'hum bug' at
Christmas time. Personally I find it a depressing time of year,
hyped way out of proportion, and celebrated for all the wrong reasons
(I'm not a religious person at all). Enough of me winging on, let's
talk about diving!
In
late December 1994 I jumped on a plane bound for Manila in the Philippines,
to visit a couple of mates of mine, Nick and Jim who were working
out there on a British Government overseas aid project installing
lighthouses around the many thousands of islands of the Philippines.
They couldn't spare much time to I traveled down to the nearest
island to the mainland (Luzon) called Mindoro, and stayed in a bungalow
(a glorified shed) on Sabang beach for six weeks over the Christmas
holidays. I gained my PADI 'open water certification' and a couple
of weeks later passed my PADI 'Advanced certificate'. I leart at
'Action Divers', check out their website at www.ActionDivers.com
My Dive Instructors and Fellow Pupil
My First Dive
My first dive scared the shit out of me. After all, your natural
reaction when under water is NOT to breath in, I panicked the first
time and very nearly gave up. All my friends dive and I felt I was
missing out if I couldn't, so I persevered.
For the first 10 or so dives I really questioned "what was
I doing this for", then after approx. 10 dives, and I had learnt
that I wasn't going to die even if things went wrong, I began to
relax and enjoy the sights around me.
After a week of intensive training I passed my PADI 'Open Water'
certificate. I then dived every day, or even twice a day for the
next couple of weeks.
I was enjoying it so much that I decided to take my PADI "Advanced"
certificate which I also passed.
Other Dives
Since learning to dive, I have been fortunate enough to dive in
some of the best place in the world here are some 'picky's' of the
places I have dived. All the underwater photo's were taken with
one of those cheap underwater disposal cameras that you can pick
up at airports.
Sharm
El Sheikh - September 1995
Sharm El Sheikh is right at the southern most point of the Sarah
Desert in southern Egypt, it's famed as a good diving location
as well as holding Middle East peace conferences.
Click on picture for a larger version
San
Pedro - Belize - December 1996
For those of you who are not quite sure where Belize is, it's
right at the bottom of Mexico and boarders Guatemala as well.
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