Remember how I was just talking about first time experiences and their real importance, well that happened once again. Saturday I did scuba for the first time. It was incredible. Another experience I will never have. Learning everything anew, knowing for the first time what its going to feel like. Well, the whole ride there I was nervous. More so when I actually thought about it or we talked about it, my heart began to flutter. We get there, get our gear together and all that fun stuff. Nothing too exciting. Then. We load up the boat. Time is getting closer and we get in the back of this old ass truck. It is the coolest truck ever, old, powerful, painted for the dive shop. It sounded awesome too. We make our way to the beach and it is a beautiful drive up there. And the beach from where we drop the boat off is beautifully amazing. It's everything you dream of, a bay with mountains to one side, the Julian Rocks in the not so far distance, a white lighthouse over looking the bay 118m high at the most easterly point on Australia. We all help get the boat in. It's such an experience just being a part of the team. We together are going to scuba dive. We are just in shock and awe of the surrounding. Just thinking back now sends chills down my back. Mt. Warning is in the background (tallest peak in Australia, will be blogging about climbing that as well). We get the boat situated and the guys help the girls in and the guys then just in. We're off. No turning back now, we're on the boat. Minutes away from being 12m under. The boat ride was half the fun. Seeing Byron Bay and the surrounding beauty from see is a site all it's own to behold. The waves were these walls of water flowing synchronicity. The boat jumps over each wave as we get closer.
We make it to our dive site and we begin with our fins, check, spit in goggles and put on, check, and finally the weight belt. And we wait....to get the BCD on. Our lives are in that equipment. And we gear up completely. There is no hesitating when it's your turn. No "just a sec," "wait a minute," you just GO. It was my turn coming up and I knew it, my heart beat faster and I didn't know if I was ready or not. I look back and my buddy was far enough away. "okay Brian you're up" I didn't even think. You don't have time to. I scooted back and I splashed it. It was serene. You hit the water and sink, open your eyes, bubbles all around a little sunlight, and you're actually breathing. In that instant it felt it would last forever. That first time experience was incredible. This crazy contraption is working. You float to the surface and I've made it. It was a crazy feeling. We get situated at the rope and get (sorta) use to floating. As our first time it was very awkward. We look around and can see the bottom and there are fish everywhere. This is real life. I'm really living and experiencing a world like this. One by one we begin our decent and make sure enough pressure stays in our ears. Deeper and deeper we head down and everything is just beautiful. There is no thinking at all you just look and that's it. Very weird feeling.
So the first day. Our first dive was just for fun and trying to get neutral buoyancy and just trying to get the hang of it. It was hysterical to see us rise and fall and just have no handle on it (okay wasn't that bad). From the get go you just look. I couldn't look fast enough. Sure enough there was a leopard shark at some point to greet us. And we actually had the opportunity to see and octopus. Which, during a dive at any time and essentially anywhere is very rare. Saw and eastern blue grouper, sting rays, clown fish, just everything you can imagine and then some. I found a little shrimp in a shell when we were on our knees on the broken coral and shell bottom. Just moving along like nothing were different. It was awesome. I just wish I could remember it all. It was incredible. The second dive of the day was just as beautiful. Because it was training dives we had to do skills and practice what we did in the pool. We had to put our weight belt and BCD on while already in the water and we also practice the buddy assisted ascent. Austin (my buddy) and I didn't do so well with the second ascent (the first one we practiced and the second time we actually performed it). We had forgot that we were actually going up. We finally get to the top and Rob, out instructor goes "What the fuck were you guys doing??" We were a little embarrassed but he was cool with it, he realized we are just learning and we all laughed about it later.
Day 2 of diving. Oh man, it was incredible. We are actually getting very confident in the water and we don't look quite as sloppy moving around underwater. Dive 3, we see another octopus!! That's TWO, talk about unheard of. Rob tried to get him to come out of hiding and grab him, but he didn't go for it, but did change color and that was really cool. On this dive we had to fill our mask up partially and then we had to take it off and put it back on. It was very weird to feel the water on my face and it's a very mental thing to be able to do it. People have freaked out and the girls with us were a little nervous. I did just fine, both times I took it off. The first time I thought the snorkel was caught on the headband part and tried to fix it. Rob helped me but he realized it was backward so I took it off AGAIN, he took it and then gave it back. And was a-okay after that. Everyone else did just fine with it. While I waited for everyone else to do it, I made friends with a little fish I saw on the ground. It was a white streaked grub fish (parapercis Stricticeps). We make our way around the bottom and it was cool, just in pure awe and amazement. No thoughts. Ever. We get to the top and the skipper tells us that a manta ray was spotted a couple moorings over. We decided to head over there and just snorkel around and see if we could spot it. We sure did fucking find it. God that creature was magnificent. He looked like the king of the ocean. Even had a posse of large fish following behind and underneath him. He was a behemoth. I loved every second of it. He was damn near 7-8 ft from side to side. At one point he was to my side a bit and I swam near him and he went down and turned a bit toward me. To experience that sort of creature coming at you is something I won't soon forget. Tori was next to me and she actually screamed and hid behind me. That was pretty funny. Unfortunately he left and we got back on the boat to get new gear.
It was depressing to know there was only one dive left. We get out there and by now we feel like we are pros and know exactly what we are doing. Up at the mooring we see these little tiny fish, maybe a quarter of and inch swimming next to it. And if you look closely you can see all sorts of small jellyfish moving around. Oh, also in dive 3 we practiced CESA (controlled emergency swimming ascent). We all did fine...well sorta. On dive 4 we just had to learn how to use a compass whish was sorta weird underwater but we did that just fine, really get our buoyancy down and "hover" and practice a safety stop and what it's like. We did everything just fine. This time I tried to pay as much attention to the wildlife around me as I could. I still can't remember nearly half of the things I saw. But I do remember it was beautiful. The highlight of this dive (if not all 4) is that I FOUND AN OCTOPUS ON MY OWN!!! These things are very well camouflaged and everyone else just swam over it. I know it was an octopus because I saw the siphon being used. I couldn't believe I found one and no one was close enough to get their attention. So that is an experience I share only with myself and I am proud of. We headed to an area called the needles which was very cool. Rocks were all around. A leopard shark was sitting at the bottom and we got near and when he moved he was maybe a meter from me. To see that thing pass by was just awe inspiring (just like the manta ray). We finished our dive. It was all over. We are certified. We have done it. Getting to the surface we all had smiles on and I just wanted to scream out of pure enjoyment.
This was without a doubt the most incredible feeling ever. I hope I don't forget this. This first time experience is one, again, I will never re-experience in my life. I just say. I loved every minute and can't wait to get back out. I, Brian Wesolowski, am actually a certified Open Water diver. For anywhere in the world and for life. That's a damn good feeling.
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