Today I completed my first two official open water dives in the Indian Ocean. It was definitely worth doing although we had a lot of small trouble on the way. The worst part for me was that my mask didn’t fit really well and it applied constant pressure on my forehead, eventually giving me a headache from hell. The instructors promised to try and find another one, which will hopefully be more suitable for the shape of my face. I also had a mild nausea after getting back to the boat, probably because of the headache, all the whirling around and possibly also the sun. Tomorrow will tell me more about how my body reacts to diving.

Apart from the trouble, all that stuff down there was really worth seeing: a lot of colourful fish, sea cucumbers, shellfish and finally a WW II era shipwreck site on the coast of Grande Island. The ship had been caught in a storm, hit some rocks and been cut in half from the middle. The front half was carried towards the shore by the waves and gradually washed back to the sea afterwards. A lot of fish colonies seemed to be living inside the wreck and parts of the hull were all around the area. My favourite part was to examine the insides through the holes in the sides, and of course seeing a part of the ship’s transmission (or something similar) with all the gears still in place. Wrecks are definitely one of the things I like SCUBA for.

It has been an unbelievably exhausting day and I’m thinking of hitting the hay already before nine. Spending the rest of the vacation like this would eliminate much of Goa’s downsides for me. The tranquil of the sea, the good company onboard the diving boat, good night sleep and a bonus feature of having effective exercise every day – what’s there not to like?

Tags: diving, holiday, natural beauty, practical stuff