Diving We Will Go, Dive Day No. 2

Day two of our PADI Advanced Open Water (AOW) certification was another 2-tank dive day.  Mia and I left Kewalo Basin Boat Harbor at 7:30am with Drew again and a new friend, Jessica Cowell, and headed out to our first dive site, The Sea Tiger.  The Sea Tiger is a shipwreck about 10 minutes away from Kewalo Harbor.  This particular dive was to fulfill the deep dive for our certification.  After the dive the day before, I think I got out all of my reservations about deep diving.  I woke up prepared and eager for the dive, a nice change from the butterfly-freaked-out feeling I had the previous day.  After putting together our gear and (struggling) into our wetsuits, we were off.

Drew briefed us right before the dive, telling us that our depth goal for the dive would be about 100 feet, along with a no descent line descent and ascent.  That freaked me out a little, thinking about the trouble I had with my descent the other day with the descent line and at about 10 feet shallower.  Nonetheless, I got in and went for it.  The descent was easier than I expected.  Going down I paid more attention to just getting down there when suddenly, the wreck appeared in all of its grandness.  The Sea Tiger is HUGE.  Much, much bigger than the YO-257 for sure.   

Right away we began touring the wreck, an awesome experience in itself.  There were literally hundreds of fish all around.  Massive schools of fish bigger than I've ever seen, rivaled only by the footage I've seen on the Discovery Channel.  After we reached about 100 feet, Drew administered a Nitrogen Narcosis test, holding up fingers and having us show him how many more fingers we would need to make what he showed equal to ten.  Thankfully, we both passed with flying colors.

This dive was a big accomplishment for both Mia and I because we both felt that it was the most relaxed we had ever been on a dive.  I didn't worry about a single thing during the dive, not even my buoyancy.  The dive felt completely effortless, something I never thought I'd feel with the amount of dives I have under my belt.  Our dive depth total was 102 feet with a bottom time of 29 minutes.

Jessica, who is an amazing photographer, got some shots of our dive day and graciously shared them with Mia and I.

My stride entry

The Sea Tiger wreck

 

Mia above the wreck.  Such an epic picture!

 

A turtle just chillin' on the wreck

Drew (left), Mia (middle), and I (right) on our mandatory 3-min safety stop during our ascent

All photos courtesy of Jessica Cowell

Our second dive was at Horseshoe Reef, a reef we've all dived before.  The only difference was that this dive would be the dive to fulfill the navigation portion of our certification.  We practiced with the compass on the boat first then when we got in the water, Drew had both Mia and I navigate using kick cycles and the compass.  With the compass, we had to navigate from a point and make a square, 10 kick cycles each way.  It was a lot harder than I thought but I passed!  After our navigation test portion, we all just cruised around the reefs.  Jessica took some amazing shots of the sea life when we were down there.  A really big thank you to Jessica who shared her pictures with me!  I hope to dive with you again! 

Me, waiting as Mia took her navigation test

An awesome little Fried Egg nudibranch.  These guys are so cool!!

I love sea turtles, they're just so chill.

This guy was just swimming as we were cruising by.

 

All photos courtesy of Jessica Cowell