Hi, I'm Sunny from Thailand & This is one of my bucketlist story!
Haven't you heard " If it excites you & scares you at the same time, it properly means you should do it! "
Well, This is my very first Scuba diving: Open water course, it's my first time visiting Maldives & Obviously first time in open water environment of Indian Ocean. Like everyone else, I love being next to the sea, enjoy swimming, watching fishes & sunset.
I always wanted to do open water diver course along with discovering underwater world. This time I travel with a strong will to cross off my bucketlist. After some researching, I decided to join "Eco dive club" at Maafushi Island-Maldives. I was quite confident with their professionalism that they would be capable to teach me both on land theoretically & most importantly to provide proper knowledge about underwater world.
Even though I've never done any snorkeling trip in the sea, don't know how to used any equipments & have no ideas about how the Open water course in Indian Ocean supposed to be, nevertheless my instructor "Coco" has the ability to understand exactly what I want, applying variety of teaching & learning techniques, being very approachable with positively relaxing attitude, enthusiastic & always willing to elaborate on materials if I get confused or need further clarification on a topic.
He was very patience in explaining each & every pieces of detail in scuba diving step by step as to make sure that I would be most confident, comfortable, caution & aware of different kind of things underwater in advanced.
I first started with the basic "Discover Scuba Diving course" which includes the underwater exercises test. My instructor was very careful to examine & focused on this first course in particular. As the performance & my result outcome's quite important to see whether I could be a potential open water diver or not & later able to move forward for full open water training & officially certified.
After I passed the underwater test from the basic course, my instructor then comes up with 4 full days tailored made Open Water diver course which consists of Theory (SSI E-learning application), 5 sessions of confined water training in Lagoon & the 4 open water boat dives in Indian Ocean.
The session was tailored to me with his full concentration. My first confined water sessions, I went to shallow parts of the lagoon before going to actual deep dive in the ocean. The lessons was clearly structured, well-prepared & good balance with practical to experience the real ocean environment then followed by the reading theoretical part in E-learning at home.
The underwater practical in Lagoon & Open Ocean (12-18 meters), both sessions were quite challenging, but enjoyable & rewarding at the same time. I knew it would be hard to learn the new set of skills in 4 days. I had to understand & memorise different kind of exercises during the classroom to be able to repeat the same thing underwater.
As days go by, I build up my inner strength physically & mentally along with the knowledge of SSI open water course in a friendly, supportive & encouraging learning atmosphere at Eco dive club. Overall, It was simply very pleasant life time experience. Completing this course definitely gave me confidence, a feeling of accomplishment, & absolutely joyful memories of underwater world, marine & coastal systems.
This wonderful time was far greater than I ever imagined. Special thanks to my instructor "Coco" Maahil Ahmed & his supportive team at Eco dive club - Maafushi for seeing the impossible - possible & believing in my abilities throughout the open water course, such believe made the most differences. I never realised that the other side of life would begins at the end of my comfort zone.
From this personal experience, I truly believe if I can do, anyone can!
So, "Let cross Scuba diving off your bucketlist!", Will you?