9 Dives Later

I am a PADI certified "advanced diver!" This course was a little more intensive than the Open Water course, as I had to complete 5 adventure dives in 2 days. The first day we worked on navigation, having to find my way to and fro specific positions and maneuver myself in a square using bearings from a compass, as well as using finding our way back to the dive boat using natural navigation (basically looking at the terrain and familiarizing myself with my surroundings). We also worked on our buoyancy, getting more comfortable hovering, streamlining ourselves, swimming through hula hoops and doing flips with all our gear on. Final dive for the first day was the naturalist dive, where we spent time searching our surroundings for different species of plant and animal life and writing them down on an underwater slate and identifying them once we got to the surface. Our first dive of day 2 was the Deep Dive, which we went down to 30 meters. Light waves have difficulty penetrating deep underwater. The first colors to go are reds and yellows...which seemed to be the biggest difference so much further underwater. I was expecting to have difficulty with my ears under so much pressure, but the biggest change in pressure if the first 10 meters, making it seemingly easy to get too deep without noticing. Must keep on eye on the depth gagues! The last dive was awesome...we went into the largest sea cave in the world, called Rikoriko cave. A couple of concerts have been held inside because of the incredible natural acoustics. I can't really even begin to describe the amazing wildlife we saw but it was not limited to a HUGE sting ray that looked like it could kill 3 Steve Irwins with nothing but a glare, lots of moray eels, scorpion fish, urchins, snapper, kingfish, bluefish, nudibranchs......

^My Open Water dive instructor Tamra showing another student the sign for "swim behind me"

Looking out at the entrance to Rikoriko cave from inside

Chilling up with the skipper of our dive boat for the ride out to the Poor Knights.

Ups and Downs

I've been having a lot, both physically and emotionally. Let's start with the first. As you hopefully all know the organization I've been working with practices and preaches marine conservation...and what better way to understand what needs to be done than to check it out for yourself? The next town over from where I live is the kicking off point to the best diving in New Zealand, and according to Jack Cousteau, some of the best in the world. The Poor Knights Islands were discovered by explorer Captain James Cook in 1769, were declared 'tapu' (taboo) by the Maoris in 1820 after an inter-tribal massacre, and have been a marine reserve since 1981, NZ's second. Thanks to a connection we have at the dive shop, I was able to get a massive discount on a course to become a certified PADI Open Water diver, which I can now proudly say that I am. Day 1 was full of theory in a classroom: I was back in school. Day 2 was applied skills in a pool all day...more tolling than I thought it would be. Days 3 and 4 were two dives each at the Poor Knights working on skills learned the day before in the pool. Some were easy, like signaling and descending while equalizing the pressure in your body's air spaces (basically by plugging your nose and trying to blow through it), but others were a little more tricky, like taking your mask off at the bottom and replacing it, underwater and surface navigation, Controlled Emergency Swimming Ascents (resurfacing safely without getting the Bends when your air supply has run out) and breathing off of your buddy's alternate regulator if something goes wrong with yours.

Don't I look sexy? But seriously, the last two days of my course I had the pleasure of being a part of a world so wonderfully different than anything we find on ground...spoken like a true little mermaid I know. Breathing underwater is something so unnatural to us as oxygen-breathing humans, but swimming with sting rays and moray eels, discovering, exploring, 'breathing,' in a world so unfrequented by us mere mortals I felt not only privileged, but at home. Below is a video taken at the site of my fourth and final dive of the course...the number 7 dive site in the world. It was absolutely stunning and difficult to describe, so promise me one day you will go and see it for yourself. As a marine protected area, it should only be getting better with time.



On to the emotional ups and downs. I wish I could write every time with complete satisfaction at where I am in my life. I am in one of the most beautiful countries in the world and am living with two of the most amazing English people on the planet. But like any girl in her young twenties, living far away from home and from anyone familiar, I am constantly second guessing myself, my goals and my future. Working with such a young and inexperienced non-profit is proving to be...interesting. Having only ever been involved with well-established non-profits with funding, fully paid staff, offices and the like, it is obviously a different playing field. As one of the only people in the office here, I have more say that I would have at a bigger organization, which is helping me learn a lot. But as a really new organization, it is still young and forming. I do not necessarily agree with much of what goes on at the "upper level" of decision making, but then again it is not my NGO. I know now what not to do if I ever want to start my own in some walk of life. I've been so up and down with what I'm doing next...going on the boat to do field work in the South Pacific Islands, staying in New Zealand and doing something different once the boat leaves in May, heading home to the States in June to find a job, taking the GREs, applying to graduate school...the world is my oyster I guess. I just wish I knew what the right thing for my future is, and I'll hopefully figure it out soon. Claire, Tom and I are being thrown around a bit right now as the higher ups are choosing the crew for each project. After being told that we had definite spots on the boat heading up to the South Pacific to do conservation work, it is slowly becoming clear to us that was apparently never the case. Spots are still open for anyone else with the right background to apply, so we have given our superiors deadlines...it isn't fair for us to be jerked around like this, especially when we have been working so hard for the past few months for no pay. See, even with living in New Zealand comes with downsides...but I sure can't work as till-girl at the Marina Pizzeria for the rest of my life (see below). There is definitely something more out there for me and I can't wait to get there because I'm going to kick ass at it, whatever it may be. For now...solace in brownies and a GRE book from Mom and Dad.