First fun dives
Our first fun dives were a year after our Advanced Open Water Course. We went to New Zealand to visit my sister who was having chemotherapy and needed some help with childcare. I was recovering from surgery myself, so we decided just to do 1 day, 2 dives, at the end of our visit, when my scar was fully healed. We were in the Coromandel (north east point of the North Island) and found a dive centre who would take us to the Aldermen Islands. I explained that I was very inexperienced, not very confident, and that we wanted a dive guide. No problem they said.
We arrived the afternoon before and completed paperwork. The water temperature required that we wore 7mm full suits – a new thing for me, as all my diving up to this point had been in a 2mm shortie.
In the morning, there were another couple on the boat, plus the owners son and another experienced diver. We were told that the other couple had a certification that required that they must be with a dive professional (the equivalent of PADI scuba diver) and the owner would be guiding them and not us.
Our previous dives were in Jamaica with 2mm shorties, and we worked out that with a 7mm full suit I probably needed 12 pounds of weight, and Gary would need 16 pounds. We were given weight belts on the boat, which seemed heavy, but then, we were taking extra weight for the 7mm suits.
They told us to do a backwards roll entry, but I was too scared. We were in an unfamiliar dive site, without the guide that I had asked for, and I had never done a backward roll entry before. I found somewhere on the boat where I could do a giant stride entry and jumped in. I felt heavy in the water, but we did our dive. I was nervous all the time, because I didn’t know where we were, but Gary seemed ok.
When we surfaced we were a long way from the boat. Gary fully inflated his BCD and was struggling to stay on the surface. I called the boat and they replied that they couldn’t get to us, we would have to surface swim. On the long swim back I was really worried about Gary. He was barely able to keep his face above the surface. I told him to drop his weights, but he said he could manage, and we eventually made it back to the boat. I handed up my weight belt, but it was so heavy I dropped it before the guys on the boat could grab it!
During lunch, the owner and the experienced diver found the weight belt that I had dropped, and we realised that they had given us 12 and 16 kilos rather than 12 and 16 pounds – so we had twice the weight that we needed!
The second dive was much less scary – we were better weighted, and we were able to follow the dive guide, so that I was able to relax and enjoy the dive. We were in a marine reserve and the shear amount of fish was amazing.
What did I learn from this experience?
It’s easy to get confused in a new location and with new gear. Remember that your equipment is there to keep you safe, and your gear is your responsibility. While your dive guide may suggest weighting, it’s your responsibility to check the weight that you have been given. If you are not sure, it’s important to do a weight check on the surface before you start the dive. If you are moving to an area that measures weight differently, work out what you would expect to use in the new units. The same applies for pressure gauges – know what the signals are for tank pressure in the different units.
