Today is the day I took my first breath underwater. I met with my diving instructor - Pablo. He's from Argentina and I met Joo, another dive instructor. Joining me are a group of friends who are taking dive course - Graham, Debra, John and a French couple doing DSD. My friends join for the DSD, which means we go though the same material together. Also, NO CAMERA is allowed during DSD. This is because, you never dive so you'll never know how to balance your self let alone handle a camera.

My DSD dive buddies. I took my first breath underwater today!

I have to do some underwater exercise for my confined water which includes underwater distress signals and low on air exercise. We then went to the deeper side and watch some fishes. I then had to do a 250 meters swim test - Pablo said that I just have to circle the boat. hehe.

 In order to qualify for Open Water certificate, you need to pass 80% for the theory exams and complete several confined water dive and open water dives. For confined water, you will do some exercise in a shallow part of the water. These exercise includes removing mask, swimming without a mask, wearing your gears underwater, CESA (simulates out of air situation and you have to swim 9 meters with 1 breath).

I finished my DVD course on the 2nd day and usually after finishing the course, you will have to go through some quizzes with the Instructor. This is to ensure you passed your final test.

I was with Pablo for half of my course - he then contracted a flu, which means he cannot dive and I was handed over to Joo. Well, the common mistake for all rookie divers are the buoyancy. I barely got mine under control. Graham was floating most of the time and Joo keeps on training us for our buoyancy.

I love the Open Water dives since here is where I can see a lot of marine life. My favourite dive spot here is D'Lagoon. is is just so beautiful. After 2 days, I find that I loss some of my hearing, but I continue to dive the next couple of days. On my third day, we decided to do our final test. Joo was strict on cheating, so the four of us have to sit part from each other.

This was taken during my last dive.

On the 4th day, we did our final open water dive which is the 18m dive. During descend, I felt a sharp pain in my ears and suddenly the pain was gone. Well, Panorama had a ritual for passing the diving license. After returning our gears and taking pictures, they made announcement to the dive shop and restaurant on our success (well, we have to shout of course).

The entire team and divers

Joo our instructor

Pablo

Last dive

Diving with the Panorama team is just priceless. I had a lot of fun while learning and diving. The instructors are very nice and bubbly. Perhentian itself offered a variety range of diving experience suitable for all divers. The dive sites a rich with marine life - big, small and even macro. I finally get to crossed off one of my bucket list and had a lot of fun at the same time. Thank you panorama team!