Diving-Club@Billabong

Diving Group 1 - Rafhaan, Rai and Sajuan (Former students)

On January 24^th, 2013, the first group of former students from Billabong High went to Jumeirah resort to take the Discover Scuba Diving course.

Rafhaan Shah, Rai Hassan, Sajuan Mushrif, Sajuan´s father, Ms. Eda and I, met early on Friday morning and departed from Male´. After a quick speed boat trip, we arrived to the island and immediately headed towards the diving center.

Rafhaan Shah, Sajuan Mushrif and Rai Hassan

The former students and a parent

At the diving center, we were received by PADI Instructor Ali Sham who gave the former students some forms to be filled and checked the sizes of fins and BCDs as well as the number of weights that everyone would be using later on that day.

Once the doctor checked the medical condition of each one of the former students and gave his approval for them to go diving, Ali Sham began his explanation to familiarize them with the different parts of the diving equipment and gave general instructions on how the dive was going to be conducted.

Rafhaan, Rai and Sajuan then proceeded to put on their BCDs, masks and tanks and we all headed towards the lagoon for the shallow water exercises.

Listening to the instructions

Ready to go

On our way to the lagoon

Shallow water exercises

Once we were underwater and while some shallow water exercises were conducted, Ali Sham spent some time with Sajuan who had never snorkeled before and was practicing how to equalize. On the meantime, Rafhaan signaled to me that his mask was foggy so I recommended him to add a little bit of water inside the mask to clean it, however the water filled around 1/3 of his mask so he then signaled that he wanted to get rid of that too. I explained to him that he had to look up and lift his mask while blowing air out through his nose, a maneuver which he surprisingly managed to master on his very first try during his very first dive and with a non-verbal explanation.

The dive, which lasted 41 minutes and had a maximum depth of 6.1 meters, gave us the opportunity to see different kinds of fish, some coral, an eel and even an octopus. Although the visibility wasn´t very good, the students managed to see some very impressive wildlife, had an experience that few others have ever had and are now aware of the amazing things that can be seen underwater.