Page 8 - Wish Stream Year of 2017

we participated in our first dive down to six meters. This lesson consisted of breathing underwater, removing our mask underwater, and incapaci- tated buddy drills. Already we were looking forward to moving onto more complex and deeper dives.
Tuesday dawned bright and glori-
ous as we settled down for lessons on first aid and basic life support, including administration of oxygen. The afternoon saw us heading back to Mgarr ix-Xini Bay for another two dives. We reviewed the skills we had learnt the day before, this time heading deeper and conducting our skills with (hopefully) more proficiency. The skills complete, we began to explore the underwa- ter landscape of the bay and the diversity of life down there. The following morning, we headed back to Mgarr ix-Xini. The persistent wind from the north limiting our dive sites was frustrating
and starting to affect our plans, but the rapid improvement in our skills and buoyancy allowed us to explore further and deeper. The last of our skill dives completed we headed back home for our final assessment: a theory exam. The exam tested everything we had learnt from partial pressures
and dive tables to the dangers of holding your breath. The exam passed, we headed out for a celebratory meal, discussing possible dive sites for the following morning.
The wind had changed, no longer from the north, allowing us to explore more of Gozo’s fantastic dive sites, though this did come at the cost of our glorious sunshine passing over to a steady drizzle. Undeterred, we travelled to Xatt-I-Ahmar Bay. The day started well; we explored a reef, covering twenty metres of the sea floor. Our sec- ond dive that day began with a surface swim out to a buoy, before descending down to a depth of twenty metres in the open ocean, just deep enough to see MV Karwela looming eerily out of the gloom fifteen metres below us. The shimmer of the sun above us, and nothing else to be seen in any direction we boldly set out along a bear- ing, and before long the reef we explored earlier came into view. The highlight of the day was a night dive that evening; we decided to return to our favoured location from earlier in the week as its familiar surroundings would ease our navi- gation under the water in the dark. Being dark, many species including octopus were far more active.
Already we were looking forward to moving onto more complex and deeper dives.
6 SANDHURST