Diving Group 13 – Ibu Jaleel and Ismail Rasheed                                           

Because throughout 2013, I had received some requests from parents asking if a diving trip could be organized for them, on January 26^th, Billabong´s Diving Club restarted its activities by taking two parents with a long Billabong High history: Mr. Ismail Rasheed and Mr. Ibu Jaleel.

At 8:00 am on Saturday morning, the three of us met at jetty number 5 where the regular diving briefing and safety instructions were given. After both of them knew the basic underwater sign language, the most important rule while diving (never hold your breath) and what to expect during the upcoming hours; we were picked up at 8:30 by Dive Club Maldives and headed towards Hulhumale´ for the equipment.

Our first dive of the day (and their first dive ever) took place at around 10:00 in Feydhoo Finolhu, an island which used to be run by the Ministry of Education but is now guarded by the Maldivian police forces. We were told by Dive Club´s divemaster that this is the only wall in the area as the rest of the locations have only regular reefs.

During the 33-minute dive at Feydhoo´s wall, both parents managed to do the Discover Scuba Diving exercises and enjoyed the good visibility while getting used to not using their hands, breathing through the mouth and keeping themselves in a horizontal position.

After a one-hour break which was used for snorkeling by some of the tourists on board, we went to Kurumba for the second and last dive of the day. At Kurumba, we managed to see eels and many more fishes than at Feydhoo. While the more experienced divers went deeper to see some sharks, we kept ourselves at around 10 meters but still enjoyed the good visibility and light current. During this dive, I noticed a big fish that looked like a parrotfish and which was changing colors depending on how close I got to it. Two of the pictures below were taken almost at the same moment and show this bicolor effect.

The first diving trip of 2014 concluded successfully at 2:30 in Male´ with the first two parents (of what we hope will be many more to come) who have followed the steps of their son and daughter by becoming Discover Scuba divers.

The parents are being instructed by the Divemaster.

First moments underwater.

Discovering Feydhoo.

And discovering the Maldivian underwater world.

Some Maldives´ anemone fish.

Front view.

Mr. Ismail and Mr. Ibu.

Closeup picture.

Underwater nature.

We were not the only divers in the area.

Big fish and coral: color number 1.

Same fish and coral : Color number 2.

Clark anemone fish.