Diving Group 12 – Zuhura, Shasha, Muzeyna and Izza
In the morning of September 14th,
the bad weather cancelled a diving trip that would have seen some Billabong
students successfully accomplish the Discover Scuba Diving course. Fortunately,
that only increased their excitement in diving for the first time so that, one
week later, Zuhura (Grade 8), Shasha (Grade 8), Muzeyna (Grade 8) and Izza
(Grade 7) were ready and keen on taking the trip to Hulhumale´ and learn how
to dive.
On September 21st, the four
students and I watched the introductory video along with three other tourists
who were also about to experience diving for the very first time. Afterwards,
we all checked the sizes of their BCDs and fins so that we could take the
equipment and head for our usual shallow water exercise location: MaaGiri.
Once we arrived there and jumped into the
water, the current forced us to swim for some minutes until we reached the spot
where the shallow water exercises were conducted. The first one to finish was Zuhura
who, because of a stubbornly foggy mask, became quite skilled in cleaning it
and then removing the water. By the end of that dive all four students managed
to equalize properly and reached a depth of 8 to 10 meters.
After seeing eels, clown fish and many
other species which the girls easily identified from the movie Finding Nemo, the boat picked us up and we headed to Kurumba. While waiting
for things to be ready, Shasha and I decided to snorkel along the reef and
practice some free diving. One thing I have noticed is that when learning how
to free dive, students tend to improve considerably after just a few tries… she
was not the exception.
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| The students after watching the introductory video. |
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| Ready to jump into the water. |
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| A honeycomb eel. |
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| Some Maldives clown fish. |
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| Zuhura enjoying her first dive. |
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| Izza waving at the camera. |
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| Muzeyna receiving some instructions from the Divemaster. |
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| Zuhura and Izza. |
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| Zuhura´s cleaning her mask while Izza´s enjoying the view. |
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| Having some snacks and on our way to Kurumba. |
The dive at Kurumba took 45 minutes. This
time we saw a much greater variety of fish which included Maldives anemone
fish, Clark anemone fish, many Spade fish and also a considerable amount of
Banner fish among others. Later on, we were told that a shark was spotted by
one of the Divemasters although, unfortunately, none of us managed to see it.
This diving trip didn´t only represent a
unique experience for these four students (all of which have requested to be
taken on a second diving trip) but also the youngest group of students to take
part in the Diving club activities.
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| Zuhura during the second dive and some Banner fish in the background. |
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| Shasha right before her sneezing attack. |
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| Muzeyna managed to avoid touching corals. |
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| Zuhura´s happy. |
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| From left to right: Zuhura, Muzeyna and Shasha. |
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| A spade fish. |
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| One of the last group of fish we saw during the second dive. |
