Open Water Diver Certification I

I've wanted to take my open water license since...5 years ago. It was delayed because one course is almost RM1.5K or so? But I decided this year I either have to climb KK (which I wanted to do since 5 years ago too wtf) or go underwater. When Stephen send me the details, we booked it without thinking twice. Nola who am I kidding. Of course I thought about it for weeks before I decided to spend the money.

1st class was nothing much. We were shoved into a room and watched DVD for 2 hours then we took the 1st section quiz and that's about it. The instructor told us to go home and finish the rest of 5 sections and the next time we see her would be for the final theory exam.


Final exam was easy peasy lemon squeezy. haha lame. In fact, I did not read the whole book, just the quick notes and the DVDs. Those are enough for you to understand almost everything about underwater and the scuba equipments. I finished the exam pretty fast, and then stayed there taking photo of him who's still hard at work.



Right after final theory exam, we jumped right into the pool, for a 200m swim and 10 minutes floating test. If you can't swim, fret not, as there's a 2nd option where you can swim 300m with the fins, snorkel and mask.



If you're going to buy your own wet suit, then remember to get the long sleeves ones. I wore this during my swimming pool sessions, but I had the short sleeves ones when I go to the sea and it's horrible! It leaves tan lines around my elbow and knee area :(



After we suit up, we were given a brief training on each piece of scuba equipment, then trained to assemble the BCD, regulator and the tank.



I was with a group of 4 guys and each swimming pool session was about 3 hours or so for 2 days continuously. I fumbled with my equipments and kind of failed the CESA training too. CESA requires me to continuously exhale and swim for 9 metres. The instructor will want to hear the "Ahhhhhhhhh" sound we make when we exhale to make sure we didn't hold our breath. I had to do this twice in the pool and even then, the 2nd time I barely pass.

The other skill trainings are piece of cake. As long as you can master neutral buoyancy, naturally everything else becomes very straightforward.




To me, swimming pool session is fun and interesting since it's our 1st experience breathing through the regulator and tank underwater. BUT I had to hold my pee for the whole 2 hours training session underwater and it's awful! After I finished both days of swimming pool sessions, I have trouble peeing.

I'm serious! I couldn't pee normally for a week after that. When I was sitting down, I didn't have the urge to pee. Right after I stood up, the next 5 seconds, the urge to pee came so quickly that I didn't have time to even run to the toilet. It was beyond horrible. I thought I kena don know what disease and someone told me it's Urinary Tract Infection or something.

Anyway it recovered after 1.5 weeks. I asked around if anyone else experience the same problem but everyone told me they just pee in the water!

After the confined water training, we head to Perhentian island for 2 more dives and our final exam! This time, I learnt my lesson and peed into the sea too HUAHUAUAHUHUA