Diving-Club@Billabong

Diving Group 2 – Rai and Izman (Former students)

The day before February 1^st was complicated because of two reasons; the first one was that there were several cancellations among the group of former students that was originally intending to dive on February 1^st. The second reason was because January 31^st was such a windy day that Into Scuba Diving Centre had to cancel their diving trips.

After finding through the internet that the wind speed on Friday morning was going to be at an acceptable level, and confirming that on my way to our meeting point, Rai Hassan (who didn´t hesitate in taking one of the spots available due to the cancellations), Izman Suhail and I met at Hulhumale terminal to begin what would become, up until today, the very best dive of the diving club.

When we arrived at Into Scuba, things were ready so that the former students could start filling the forms and watch the introductory video. Once they completed a brief test about the basic diving rules and guidelines, played with the center´s cats for a while and had their BCDs, fins and weights ready, we all went to the boat that would take us to MaaGiri.

Rai and Izman filling the forms

Watching the introductory video

Into Scuba cat is impressed

During the boat trip to the diving point, some more explanations were given to the former students on how to check their levels of oxygen, the exercises that were going to be conducted and the rest of the equipment. By the time we arrived at MaaGiri, everyone was ready and we all jumped into the water for the shallow water exercises.

Izman and Rai managed to do the skills so well that it took only around 10 to 15 minutes before all six of us (two former students, an Open Water student, the diving Instructor, an assistant of the diving instructor and I) started heading to the deeper area.

Rai and Izman paying attention

Rai enjoying the shallow water exercises

Haisham Ali giving some instructions

Heading towards deeper water

Once we reached a depth of 12 meters, we started diving along the reef. The visibility was very good and it didn´t take long before we saw an eel and a trigger fish fighting for some food. Surprisingly, the fish didn´t seem scared at all and would attack the eel whenever it would approach.

Just as we were watching the fight, we also noticed a honeycomb eel and a smaller eel around the area. Some minutes later we saw an anemone and a family of clownfish living in it. Clownfish living in anemones (such as those from the movie Finding Nemo) are quite common; this is because clownfish are immune to their poison and they, therefore, use the anemone to protect themselves from other predators.

Going to deeper water

Rai and the reef in the background

Izman and Rai looking at fish

The eel trying to eat from the food of the trigger fish

A honeycomb eel

Some clownfish and the anemone

The best part of the dive was when I heard dive Instructor Haisham Ali calling us while he was making the diving sign for turtle. All of us went straight to his location and we indeed saw a shy turtle that, unfortunately, had part of its shell damaged. The turtle swam around for a while, and then decided to rest under a rock as if asking for no more pictures to be taken of it.

The total time of our dive was 55 minutes and, although it was wavy, we had great visibility. While we were heading back to Hulhumale on the boat, I asked Izman if he was nervous or felt unsafe at any moment during the dive, to which he replied “Right before jumping into the water I was thinking about all the possible ways in which I could die, but the moment I was in the water, it was all so pretty that I forgot about that. Besides, I always felt quite safe.” It must have been true, as he has already joined us on a second dive, hopefully he will join us on a third dive and he is already saving money for the Open Water course.