Page 31 - Wish Stream Year of 2017

continued to improve their diving skills in the local harbour, practicing buddy rescue drills and emergency buoy inflation. We were back in the centre for lunch, after which we continued our theory lessons with a few more presentations to round up what had been an exciting day.
Tuesday saw the Sports Diver and Ocean Diver groups head to Bugibba’s local dive site. First, the Ocean Divers practiced snorkeling tech- niques, then we kitted up and strode off the jetty to begin our first proper dive. Our buoyancy control was not exactly perfect, resulting in a lot of flapping about in the water and uncontrolled ascents. We descended to around 6 metres and settled on the sea bed around our instruc- tor, who began the skills phase of the day, again practicing what we had learnt in the pool. The Sports Divers commenced practicing more advanced skills such as navigation, rescues and diving with buoys. The remainder of the day was spent studying in the classroom, interspersed with coffee breaks and kebabs.
Wednesday was the first day that Ocean Divers got to experience diving at depth and perfecting the skills learnt in the pool. It was also the first day that they did two consecutive dives, hav- ing learnt about decompression and the theory behind time out of the water between dives. We
were lucky enough to see a scorpion fish, and on exit we had to dodge a huge wash-up of jel- lyfish. The more experienced Sports Divers prac- tised under water route marking, manoeuvred through swim throughs (small cave like tubes in the rock), and dived to a depth of 20 metres. On returning to the diving centre, lectures exploring under water rescue and the dangers of different air mixes were explained, but an earlier finish allowed the group to visit the local coastline.
On the fifth day we chartered a boat which allowed us to dive further afield in more exciting areas. Our first dive of the day was a wreck dive,
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