Scuba Diving in Tofo Mozambique

Mark and Annie Ok?  Ok!

Exploring Clown Fish Reef

Getting ready to scuba

“Action-figure Chad,” as our esteemed PhD of International Travel is known among the students, went into “Negotiating Chad mode” and got us a killer discount on our PADI Open Water Scuba certification.  Instead of the $600 we were quoted, he used his status as writer for Grand Valley Magazine and Outdoor Program Director at Mesa State College to get us a final price of $400 per person at Liquid Divers.  We were stoked; everyone signed up.  Heidi and Chad already had their certification out of the way, so they went on real dives while the rest of us sat through a day of videos.  After videos, the group split into two and alternated two ½ days in the confined water (pool).

The first five minutes under water were weird.  It felt like I wasn’t getting enough air, couldn’t take a full breath.  I had to mentally tell myself it was okay to have an inflated vest (BCD), heavy cylinder tank, oversized fins, and a foggy mask strapped to myself in water deeper than I could stand in.  There’s nothing natural about scuba diving in a pool for the first time, but the longer we trained, the more I felt comfortable breathing through the regulator, switching to alternate air from my buddy, clearing my mask, finding my buoyancy, and equalizing my ear pressure during the descent.

Clown Fish

My fav, a puffer fish

Blue Starfish

Angel Fish

Can't remember, but I think it's a crocodile fish- it's poisonous.

Eel

Sunday morning, January 9^th, we trained ½ the day in the pool as scheduled, then received a surprise announcement from instructor Piere (think blonde haired, blue eyed, tan and chiseled Derek Huff, Dancing with the Stars).  He announced that we were going scuba diving in the ocean.  We downed a plate of cheesy seafood pasta and ran over to kit up.  We were a mixed cocktail of nervous excitement.  The clouds had rolled in, so I grabbed a wet suit just in case.  Pulling on that glamorously thinning skin (I’m being 100% facetious) is a chore, but it seemed better than being cold under water (I didn’t account for the choking hazard crew neck).  We pushed the boat out into the waves navy seals style and gunned it toward Clown Fish Reef.  My feet were tucked into the foot straps as I clung to the black line to stay inside of the boat.  I was immediately sea-sick.  Normally, I would pop a Dramamine tablet, but we hadn’t packed for the ocean, just the pool.  Further complicating things, I was overheating in the wet suit and it was restricting my breathing.  I told myself to calm down, breathe slowly, look to the horizon.  Piere instructed us to put on our gear and as I strapped on my spitty mask, weighted belt, BCD vest, and tank, I thought about the best place to throw up.  Everything felt  too tight.  Breathe, stay calm, loosen.  “Final okay.”  “Countdown.  3…2…1…”  Clutching our weight belts with one hand and our masks/regulators with the other, we all hurled ourselves backward into the water, fins up, James Bond style.

We descended a blue line, equalizing our ears and masks all the way down.   From the top buoy, we could already see the bottom of the reef 10 meters (30 feet) below.  We waited doing fin tip exercises while everyone arrived, then took off in a loose school of humans marveling at the colorful movement of angel fish, clown fish, and puffer fish along the reef.  We kicked our fins and slowly chased after blue starfish, eels, and fluffy, pretty things I don’t have names for.  It was totally relaxed, a slow, foreign world of beautiful chill activity.  I had the distinct sensation we were dropped in an oversized aquarium- these were all of the fish that people put on display in tropical marine tanks.

About 40 minutes later, we made our ascent, dumped our gear into the boat and were handed celebratory suckers.  I was exhausted (Piere said this is normal, as is being hungry after a dive).  We filled in our dive journals, and got them stamped, like an underwater passport booklet.  Whoo hoo, my first scuba dive!

While Diving I Feel Cool... Looking At Pictures, I Feel Like A Puffer Fish