IN the Ocean--Part Two

Guest Writer
David O Brown

David takes a break from paddling around Lake Lida to write about diving in the Persian/Arabian Gulf

We did it - we came back alive from the ocean (actually the Gulf). On Friday we got up nice and early, got on a small boat and went into the Gulf for 35 miles to a small island called Qubber Island. It wasn't really an island - more like a dot of sand and rock with a cell phone tower and some beach umbrellas. Apparently, it's quite a party place, but at 10:00 in the morning during Ramadan it was empty.

We got all our equipment on and Eslam our guide told us the plan. We stepped into the water and practiced things like controlled descent, clearing our masks of water, out of air partner breathing. Then we swam. It was amazing. I was not expecting much as the ocean environment has been degraded here. Just recently a sewer plant broke down and released a bunch of raw sewage into the gulf. There has been a ban on beach swimming and a warning to all fish eaters for the last 2 weeks.

At the reef I was expecting lots of dead coral and few fish, but it wasn't bad. It was like being in an aquarium. Imagine all the fish you see in a dentist's office aquarium and that's what we saw. The visability was about 5-6 yards so it was good. A couple times we lost the guide as we were dawdling looking at something - that was a bit unnerving but he would come back or we would catch up. The worst thing that happened was I was starting down and my mask wasn't on tight enough so it flooded. That made me a little nervous,but I was just at the surface so I went back up and cleared it.

We dove for about half an hour and rested on the boat for a half an hour and then back in. We practiced things we had learned in the pool and then swam for about a half an hour. Back to the boat and then anouther hour ride back to land. It was a tiring day. Saturday the same thing, but this time we had quite a strong current so for our second dive we drifted and because it didn't take so much air we went for an hour.

So now Anna and I are certified open water divers ! Next stop--the Red Sea in Egypt. I bought some underwater cameras so my next post should have some pictures.

So I say this to my ten year old self - I did it - I'm a scuba diver.