My Deep Dive

DURING MY JUNIOR ADVANCED OPEN WATER

BY TISYA PANIGRAHI – GRADE 7 STUDENT OF RAFFLES WORLD ACADEMY, DUBAI

Being underwater is like being in another world, especially when you are 70 feet deep. When I got my Junior Open Water diving license, I decided that my next goal would be to get the Junior Advanced Open Water diving license. Since that moment, I had patiently waited two years until my 12th birthday.

I started my course on my birthday, the 8th of June. My family was rushing to get into the car for our two-hour long drive to Fujairah to get me to the best coral reefs in the country. I was going to do two dives that day; my deep dive, and my navigational dive which were both mandatory to acquire certification. I was especially excited for my deep dive because it gave me the opportunity to be a more qualified diver than an open water diver. I found it quite amusing that I would be more qualified than my 46-year-old father in terms of diving. I would be going to depths up to 21 metres, but my father was limited to 18 metres.

I had my laptop with me in the car, rushing to finish one of the online learning courses that was supposed to tell me everything I needed to know along with the tests that were in the course. I had not finished two of the courses the night before, so I had no choice but to do them en route.

My dive was set in the morning, so we had to reach the dive centre by 9 O’clock. Once we were there, I went in and got all my gear, and then hopped onto the boat to head to our first dive site, Martini Rock.This dive was going to be my deep dive, so I was a bit nervous and a bit excited because I had never been this deep before. While the instructor briefed all the divers on the boat, we got all our gear on and proceeded to enter the water. I back rolled in and began to search for the descent line before descending. Slowly, we went deeper and deeper, and eventually I crossed my previous maximum depth of 12 metres. I was distracted by all the pretty fish and corals even though the visibility was not the best at 5-6 metres, but nonetheless, I had lots of fun which is the main goal of diving.

Eventually, I felt a tap on my shoulder from my instructor and he pointed to the dive computer fastened to my wrist. I had a look and realised I was at 20.8 metres! Once I understood how deep I was, I began to get a better sense of my surroundings. Could I feel more pressure? Am I taking in more air? Has my No stop time changed? It was a strange feeling, because I felt the same as before.

On a mission to find a way to indicate how deep I was without the help of my computer, I looked up and was blinded by the bright white light coming from the sun, which was surrounded by green murky water. It was not what I had expected from a deep dive, I thought I would have difficulty breathing or feel a lot more pressure, but it was just the same. If I dived deeper, would I feel more effects? That was beyond my limits.

Instead of fearing the deep, I now wanted to do deep dives for the rest of the dives in my course. I was trying to challenge myself, but I reminded myself that the difference between impressing someone or not, is life or death. You may not be trained to manage such depths, so never exceed your limits.

As I surfaced after finishing the dive, I noticed I had a headache caused by the mask. This had not happened to me before so I was confused. But then it hit me, as the pressure increases, the air compresses and becomes denser. So, the air in the mask might have compressed and clamped down harder than usual, which was the reason for my headache. Before my next dive, I had to pick up a looser fitting mask from the dive shop so it would not happen again. Luckily for my first deep dive to 70 feet, the only problem was my mask.