SCUBA Open Water Certification: Dive 1-3

I woke up at 5:00am to go to Monterey peninsula. After 3.5 weeks of class room lessons and pool lessons at Diver Dans, it was down to 4 open water dive before I get my PADI Open water diver certification.

H and I arrived at Breakwater Cove at 6:45am. The first dive of the day was at 7am. I quickly changed into wet suit, setup my scuba unit and got a site briefing from my instructors, Kirk and Alexia. The weather was warm by Monterey standard and the water barely moving. It was a great day for diving!

Breakwater cove is also a very popular dive spot for beginner diver. I did not count, but there must be another 3-6 groups of beginner divers. I could tell the other groups were beginning divers since only people who are trying to get certified will do surf entry and exit on an otherwise calm beach:)

My open water dives went fairly smoothly. We did all our drills correctly the first time, and after each session had some time left over to tour around. And the skills we learned came in handy too. I tend breathed out of my nose, especially when on the surface, so I always fogged up my mask. Mask flood and clear was especially useful for me:)

On one of the tour, my dive buddy accidentally kicked my regular out of my mouth. Visibility at our dive site was not very good and since none of us were navigating, all three students were swimming very close to our instructor. Given we are all beginner and have limited buoyancy control, that was bound to happen. I was actually rather calm, looked up, snatched the regulator, purged and continued swimming! Just like the drill!

Overall though, I am still fairly nervous in the water. Twice, our group had to surface because I was running low on air. I considered myself a decent swimmer and still cannot understand why I have this fear of the water.

We finished our three dives a little after noon. I went to the hotel to shower, hung out my wet suit and rest.

Dinner was at my favorite restaurant in the Monterey peninsula: Passion Fish. H and I shared a tasty Dungeness crab cake to start. For entree, we ordered a red wine braised beef short rib and baked wild Alaskan Salmon. Surprisingly, the braised short rib was excellent and even more tasty than the salmon. Please read my review on Yelp! for more details.