Doing a dive course

We all have a ‘to-do list’ of things we’d like to tick off, but never get around to achieving. For Miah Dixon, diving sat equal-first with catching her first marlin…

Having spent my formative years learning the ropes with a fishing line, I figured it was time to make a start on what has become one of the most exciting adventures I could have imagined – getting into scuba diving.

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Facilitated by the great team at DiveHQ Westhaven, the PADI Open Water Diver Course was my first foray into diving. Our group of 11 divers was made up of people from widely varying walks of life, all learning to dive for different reasons. Whilst the more common motivator was the desire to join the ranks of hunter-gatherers, there was also a nature-loving science graduate, father-daughter duos, and those who just wanted to experience something new.

These days a PADI Open Water Diver course is made up of three main parts: some comprehensive theoretical learning; five confined water dives in a deep pool; and four open-water dives in a local bay. With the help of a little bit of technology, you can also complete the theory portion via e-learning. Being a bit short on time, this is the path I chose to follow.

By no means can a computer replace the expertise that an instructor in a classroom can offer, but the PADI e-learning comes as close as you can get. Videos and quizzes throughout help test your knowledge and allow you to backtrack when revision is required. After completing the five sections and with a healthy 97% score on my final test, I was ready to take the plunge!

The practical aspects of the course involve a set of skills taught in the pool and then repeated in open water. These skills cover a range of scenarios that could arise while diving, everything from the basics of clearing a flooded mask, right through to an emergency ascent. Admittedly, some of the skills were a little harder to master than others, particularly the fabled ‘full removal’. However, what I loved about the course was the emphasis on getting the skills right, and not just mastering them on the first go. So, with a little practice and a couple of repeat tries, we mastered the pool skills and were ready to take the next step into the big briny.

The gear

I was fortunate to have been kitted out in my own gear for the open-water dives. Whilst the team at MARES was amazing in getting me all rigged up with a BCD, regulators, fins, and a mask and snorkel, getting the right wetsuit was a little bit harder. This simple dive-shop trip turned into an hour of squeezing myself into wetsuit after wetsuit, only to find that none properly fitted my body shape. Fortunately, the team at Seaquel Dive on the North Shore came to the rescue, customizing my MARES Flexa wetsuit by adding additional panels to the legs and back to accommodate my ‘Dixon thighs’ and tall torso.

After spending the pool dives in a training wetsuit, getting into my own custom-fitted suit was like being in my own little underwater cocoon. Having experienced both ends of the spectrum, I can honestly say that learning to dive in my own gear, even just the wetsuit, made a significant difference to my first postcourse dive experience.

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Whilst the gear can be a bit intimidating at first, and definitely tests your strength, it doesn’t take long before you’re assembling everything and swimming around like a pro.

The first dive

My first real dive in open water was a drop into ‘cray country’, an area of foul 14 metres deep in Bream Bay. Unfortunately for my dive buddy, dad’s fishing mate Ivan Penno, my attention was more transfixed on the wonders of the depths: rocky outcrops covered with life of all kinds and fish that I never knew existed in New Zealand waters. Having spent all of my time up till this point exploring these depths with no more than a fishing line from the surface, I was in complete awe.

Snapped back to attention by my buddy, I was drawn to the cracks in the rocks, along with the bugs that inhabited them. I had always been a little hesitant to grab at crayfish that Dad had brought up to the boat, and seeing them in their natural habitat really cemented that hesitation! Fortunately, Ivan wasn’t having a bar of this, grabbing my hand and working it onto a squirming crayfish lodged deep in one of the crags. A gentle shake saw him free of the shelf and safely tucked into the catch bag. My first crayfish, bagged and destined for the dinner table!

I’ll never forget initially seeing the sea bottom on that first dive – and the desperation to get back down there the minute after I’d surfaced. All it takes is one great dive and you’re hooked! Thinking about what once frightened me most about diving now excites me – that of jumping into the unknown depths to explore new seascapes, and encounter sea creatures and sights along the way.

Whilst I may now have a PADI qualification under my belt, there is definitely still room to improve my cray-hunting skills, so I’m keen to keep on practising. (Fortunately, there are always plenty of people willing to reap the benefits of this.)

A few days later I dived in the murkier waters of Whangarei Harbour, where scallops were successfully targeted – another experience tasted.

For others like me who have spent years with a dive course on their to-do list, there’s no better time than the present. And with such great tutors, cheap gear hires and a world of underwater opportunities awaiting you, there are no more excuses, so get amongst it. Now, where is that marlin?

   This article is reproduced with permission of   
New Zealand Fishing News

February 2016 - By Miah Dixon
Re-publishing elsewhere is prohibited

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