SCUBA Diving

Those of you who know me, know that I'm a bit of a 'hum bug' at Christmas time. Personally I find it a depressing time of year, hyped way out of proportion, and celebrated for all the wrong reasons (I'm not a religious person at all). Enough of me winging on, let's talk about diving!

In late December 1994 I jumped on a plane bound for Manila in the Philippines, to visit a couple of mates of mine, Nick and Jim who were working out there on a British Government overseas aid project installing lighthouses around the many thousands of islands of the Philippines.

They couldn't spare much time to I traveled down to the nearest island to the mainland (Luzon) called Mindoro, and stayed in a bungalow (a glorified shed) on Sabang beach for six weeks over the Christmas holidays. I gained my PADI 'open water certification' and a couple of weeks later passed my PADI 'Advanced certificate'. I leart at 'Action Divers', check out their website at www.ActionDivers.com

My Dive Instructors and Fellow Pupil

My First Dive

My first dive scared the shit out of me. After all, your natural reaction when under water is NOT to breath in, I panicked the first time and very nearly gave up. All my friends dive and I felt I was missing out if I couldn't, so I persevered.
For the first 10 or so dives I really questioned "what was I doing this for", then after approx. 10 dives, and I had learnt that I wasn't going to die even if things went wrong, I began to relax and enjoy the sights around me.
After a week of intensive training I passed my PADI 'Open Water' certificate. I then dived every day, or even twice a day for the next couple of weeks.

I was enjoying it so much that I decided to take my PADI "Advanced" certificate which I also passed.

Other Dives

Since learning to dive, I have been fortunate enough to dive in some of the best place in the world here are some 'picky's' of the places I have dived. All the underwater photo's were taken with one of those cheap underwater disposal cameras that you can pick up at airports.

Sharm El Sheikh - September 1995

Sharm El Sheikh is right at the southern most point of the Sarah Desert in southern Egypt, it's famed as a good diving location as well as holding Middle East peace conferences.

Click on picture for a larger version