Guitar shark

Guitar shark

I had an awesome dive this afternoon at Finohlas, the viz was great and we saw a guitar shark chilling at 30m! It was so cool to see. We also saw moray eels, trigger fish, oriental sweetlips and an array of other beautiful fish.

moray eel

Oriental Sweetlips

Trigger Fish

Finding Nemo expedition

I absolutely love kids; I find their endless energy, inquisitive questions and untainted innocence utterly amazing and I really enjoy teaching them. Today a boy attempted to do a DSD but didn't feel comfortable under the water so instead I took him snorkeling whilst the rest of his family went for a dive.

He pointed out to me that he kept seeing fish he recognised from the movie "Finding Nemo" so we decided to go and see how many characters we could find whilst snorkelling. It was adorable how excited he was and how much he enjoyed it and afterwards I took him to see the marine discovery centre where they breed "nemos".

Bloat

Crush

Dory

Nemo!

I find it so rewarding teaching children, especially when they enjoy it so much :)

My ideal car

After years of searching I finally found the perfect car for me!

Happy weekend

A little reminder for those of you desiring some freedom this weekend.

 In my opinion, the ocean is the cure for everything. Go experience it.

The Manta Trust

I had a day off yesterday and I was lucky enough to go out on the manta research boat for the day. We went to Hanifaru, Baa Atoll and got to freedive with 100 feeding mantas.
Visit their website here: http://www.mantatrust.org/

It was absolutely incredible, check out my video of me free diving with them here: http://youtu.be/nZka8lv7-d8

Favourite quote

"Life is short, break the rules, forgive quickly, kiss slowly, love truly, laugh uncontrollably, and never regret anything that made you smile. Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." Mark Twain

How to: Neutral buoyant hover

Good buoyancy is paramount for any diver as it will; help protect aquatic environments as well as your dive equipment and conserve your energy and air. Part of peak performance buoyancy is learning and being able to demonstrate how to hover.

The way to do this is by following these steps:

1) Whilst kneeling on the bottom deflate your BCD completely

2) Cross your legs behind you

3) Inhale and exhale as normal

4) Add a little bit of air to your BCD by pressing the inflator button briefly

5) Continue to add small amounts of air until you rise upon inhalation and fall upon exhalation

6) Maintain the hover position for 30 seconds using a visual reference to ensure you are hovering

7) Remember not to kick or skull or avoiding adding too much air too quickly which will make you positively buoyant

Always dive conservatively

Whilst working in the scuba industry it is easy to become complacent, diving every day becomes routine and therefore it is easy to assume "it will never happen to me" but it is imperative as a diver to remember that "it" can happen to anyone at any time and for me dive safety is always paramount.

"Scuba diving is itself a hazardous sport. To do it without any training is tantamount to playing Russian roulette with a loaded revolver."

ROBERT F. BURGESS, The Cave Divers

 Dive conservatively, never push limits and stay vigilant about your safety.

Happy safe diving

"Once it casts its spell it will hold you in its net of wonder forever."

As Dave Barry once said “There's nothing wrong with enjoying looking at the surface of the ocean itself, except that when you finally see what goes on underwater,you realize that you've been missing the whole point of the ocean. Staying on the surface all the time is like going to the circus and staring at the outside of the tent.”

This summarises how I feel about the ocean. As much as I love being on a boat or a board going over the waves, it feels as though you're only experiencing the outside of a beautiful and unknown world. People  zealously speak of discovering new worlds, or of chartering new territory whilst completely overlooking that we know less about our oceans than we do about space. 

For me, every time that I go beneath the surface it fills me with the same sense of wonder and awe as it did the first time I discovered scuba diving. It is my form of escapism both literally and metaphorically, being immersed in a beautiful silent world that has so much to offer and discovering its secrets as I defy gravity free-falling through the water.

Dolphins, mantas and swim through caves

This morning we went out on the boat for 2 dives in the Baa Atoll, Maldives. The first dive site was Dharavandoo Thila and before we even got in the water we saw dolphins jumping out of the sea next to our boat! 

This was a good omen as the following 2 dives proved to be spectacular. On the first dive the max depth was 28m, water temp was 29oc and about 20m viz. We saw a giant stingray, moray eels and huge grouper. 

During our surface interval on the boat we spotted manta rays in the water so we all grabbed our masks and fins and jumped in the water with them! We saw 4 manta rays and also an eagle ray! One of the mantas was huge and it was absolutely amazing to be swimming with them in their natural habitat. 

Check out my video of swimming with the manta rays http://youtu.be/4g0dqei11pU

We then reluctantly boarded the boat and headed to the second dive site: Milaidhoo. This was an interesting dive site as there were swim through caves and caverns.

The ocean never lets you down

I’ve always been this way; I learnt to swim before I learnt to walk. I’m a mermaid. You could stick me out in the middle of the ocean and I’d swim my way home.

I find my peace in a force that’s forever and constantly changing. On a bad day, I’ll walk straight into it, clothes and all, and float on my back like a starfish. The rest of the world disappears. All I can hear is my own breathing. All I can feel is my own heart. Everything around me is moving, but finally, I am still.

The ocean never lets you down. It might surprise you, or frighten you, or challenge you, but it’s always there for you. There’s nothing more powerful. It’s stronger than wind, than fire. You can get to know it but you can never 100 percent predict it. Some days the swell will come up faster than you could ever imagine, and you’ll have to battle your way out. You’ll take waves on the head over and over again, swallowing water, barely able to catch your breath. You’ll be scared and exhausted, but you can’t give up. If you give up in the ocean, you’ll never walk out of it. So you keep swimming, keep thinking, keep moving. You find your inner reserves. And when you make it out, you’ve never been so grateful. You have accepted what the ocean has offered you, and you’ve proven yourself in the process. It’s a metaphor for life. What you believe you can do, you can. 

Free diving with manta rays

This morning was spent practicing demonstrating skills for our upcoming IDC, however when we came back we heard that manta on call was happening. This basically means that the manta team have found mantas somewhere in the Atoll and they organise a boat of guests to go out to see them. I was lucky enough to be allowed to go along and I was so glad I did!

We were free diving and snorkeling with 4 manta rays for 45 minutes and it was incredible!

Me free diving with the manta :)

Me and a manta

"You can hold your breath for an incredibly long time!"
I was pretty happy when a guest said this to me

In the afternoon we practiced some more skills and then went on a fun dive around the house reef, and we saw a turtle! It was a great day in the water!

PPB at it's best 

Bubble rings 

Regulator recovery video

A video of me demonstrating how to do regulator recovery

http://youtu.be/6FSwSQjwXLw

Sharks and turtles

Today was my day off. I had planned to go out on the manta research boat but there was a problem with the boat so it was cancelled. However I still had an awesome day off as I went to the staff beach in the morning and discovered that there were juvenile blacktip reef and lemon sharks in the shallows!

 Being a shark fanatic I was so excited that I grabbed my camera and jumped in the water. I spent over an hour swimming with them which was an amazing experience and it was fascinating to see how scared they were of me which is ironic considering the unfortunate reputation sharks have.

In the afternoon I was lucky enough to be able to go out on the turtle safari boat. We went to a reef just off another island, and all jumped into the water with our snorkelling equipment. We saw 3 turtles, moray eels and a whole host of amazing fish and coral.

I found nemo

Pufferfish

I went free diving with the turtles which was one of the best free diving experiences I’ve had!

I had a fantastic day but I am really looking forward to diving again tomorrow J

Teaching navigation: AOW course

This morning we had 3 new AOW course students doing their navigation dive. For this we gave them each a compass and explained the theory behind underwater navigation; both with a compass and using natural navigation. We then practiced reciprocal compass bearings on land and how to navigate a square. 

After entering the water we explained that we would go to a suitable location underwater and ask each student to navigate a reciprocal bearing and then a square. I went with each of them to ensure that they had the correct compass bearing and that the current didn't move them off course. They all did very well!

In the afternoon I went on 2 boat dives, the first dive site was Dhonfan Reef which was a wall dive. It was a very interesting dive; we saw 2 turtles, trumpet fish, moray eels and tuna. However when we surfaced the conditions were pretty rough and there was a strong current so I let the guests up onto the boat first and then the boat came back to pick me and one of the captains (who had jumped in to help)!

The second dive was Kakani which was a pinacle dive, however the current was very strong so we went with it for most of the dive. The maximum depth was 26m and we saw a barracuda!

Due to the Cyclone in India the conditions here haven't been as good as we would usually expect, the viz has been affected as well as the currents and surface conditions.