SCUBA Steve Says…

Boat at sunset off Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii
Boat at sunset off Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii

I’m now officially a PADI certified open water diver. This means I can sign up at places to do basic SCUBA dives with compressed air.

I still had issues going down in depth. Everyone else in my group could dive to 20 feet with no problem. I had to sink down a few feet at a time and wait for my ears to clear. Once I got down I had no problem, but I can’t just zoom to the bottom.

I also seem to have water in my ear. In particular my right ear. It’s really annoying.

The actual dives I took were amazing. I wish I had an underwater camera. I saw about five large male sea turtles. I was amazed at how big they were. They were easily bigger than me. Up close, they were enormous. Most of the coral I saw was encrusting coral, which isn’t that interesting, but the fish that inhabit the reef were. I saw jawfish, triggerfish, angle fish, puffers and a flounder. We even saw a pretty large, white eel sitting out on the sand.

I actually looked into a waterproof enclosure for my camera, but it costs more than the camera….and it’s huge.

I’m guessing I’ll get enough dives in over the next few months to get my advanced open water certification. You only need five I think.

I didn’t take any video on Maui. I was mostly confined to a neighborhood near my room or I was in the water. I don’t have much on my schedule this next week, and doing video editing will be a priority.