Some interesting links for Ramadan                 

As it is Ramadan in the Maldives and most of my students are fasting during daytime, the Diving Club activities have been put on hold until August. In the meantime, there are some very good links which I would like to share with those of you interested in diving and the underwater world:

1. This is a great advert from PADI promoting its Open Water course: PADI - Go Dive
2. The story of an underwater camera lost in Hawaii in 2007 that has now been found in Taiwan with its memory card still working: Five years, 9600 km later, tourist´s underwater camera found
3. The story of an underwater picture that went viral: National Geographic Live! - Diving with Whales
4. This article was published last year and is about divers in Bandos helping manta rays that were in trouble: Manta Ray Saved by a Divemaster from Bandos
5. Karin Sinniger has a very unique record, as of February 2013 she has dived in 115 different countries. She has more than one thousand logged dives and received her first certificate in 1992. This is her story: World Record: Scuba Diving in 100+ Countries
6. And finally, a list of the ten best scuba diving destinations in the world according to opentravel.com. This list includes Australia´s Great Barrier Reef, Belize´s Great Blue Hole, Indonesia, Mexico and of course Maldives: 10 Best Scuba Diving Destinations

Diving Group 11 – Ithaf, Jaish, Ayham and Maiz.        

On Saturday, July 6^th, Ithaf (Grade 11), Jaish (Grade 11), Ayham (Grade 10), Maiz (the first Grade 8 student to take part in one of our diving trips) and I met at Hulhumale´s terminal for what would become their first two dives and Discover Scuba Diving certification.

After going through the basics of diving and watching the introductory video, the students joined two European tourists on a trip to MaaGiri where the shallow water exercises were successfully conducted in around 10 to 15 minutes, after which we went to deeper water and saw a huge amount of fish banks, a lobster, many anemone fish and eels.

Watching the introductory video.

Listening to the instructions.

Maiz, Ayham and Jaish with their Divemasters.

Maiz´s first dive.

Ayham´s first dive.

Jaish´s first dive.

Ayham and Ithaf.

Ayham equalizing.

One of the many banks of fish we saw.

A hidden lobster.

A honeycomb eel.

Some Maldives anemone fish.

All four of them and their Divemasters.

After the first dive.

During that first trip along MaaGiri´s reef, I noticed two unusual events, the first one occurred during the first minutes of the dive and was Ayham´s talent for underwater sneezing; the second happened during the last ten minutes and was something I have never experienced before while diving: dolphins singing. Although I have heard rain while diving, the sound of dolphins around, even when we couldn´t see them, was a very nice experience which I hope will happen soon again. Later on I was told by the Divemasters that they were most likely swimming around Banana reef.

Our second dive took place along Kurumba´s reef. There, we saw two black-tip sharks, a lot of spade fish and bleaching coral which I decided to photograph along with some bubbles which tend to be a lot of fun to play with when someone´s experiencing his or her first dives.

Ithaf saying hi to the camera.

Jaish diving at Kurumba.

Two eels.

A spade fish.

Heart-shaped bleaching coral.

Clark anemone fish.

My reflection on the bubble.

Second bubble caption.

Last bubble caption.