More Open Water divers in Okinawa!
Well, after a course that has lasted far too long, I am happy to to announce that yesterday the numbers of certified divers here in Okinawa increased by 2. Yvonne Lambert and Everette Milligan completed all 4 Open Water dives at Sunabe seawall over the weekend, and were certified yesterday afternoon as PADI Open Water divers. To be honest I was very impressed with their work and the way they went about their dives, especially with regards to buoyancy. Usually buoyancy is something that will take new divers 10-20 dives to get honed as it’s a tough thing to get right. In contrast, these ladies had their buoyancy almost perfect from the second we descended into the water. Always nice when you’re not having to grab one person from floating up to the surface, and then another from just plunging to the bottom and scraping along the floor as they go!
The water at Sunabe was warm, and the warm water brought in quite a few box jellyfish too. For those of you unaware, the box jellyfish are one of the really nasty jellyfish (or rather, nasty if you have physical contact with them). They can cause injury, paralysis and death in a number of cases. I have never seen them at Sunabe before so when I suddenly saw one about a metre away it was a bit of a shock. The worst part was that they came in where the water was warmest, which was the shallow channel that all the divers walk down to get to the descent point. And it’s where a lot of the Japanese dive shops conduct their diving skill sessions. One of those jellyfish went within a foot of a couple of the divers and I was signaling to the instructors and pointing them out like a madman. Instructors just looked at me as if I was the crazy foreigner and just carried on. I heard no blood-curdling screams though so I assume nobody got stung while I was there.
So another 2 Open Water divers here in Okinawa and hopefully they will keep up the diving and get into the water as much as they can.
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Hi Dave,
Good on you, another two happy OW divers and two more ’scalps’ uh, I mean certs for your MSDT rating.
Regarding the box jelly fish, I would recommend you to contact John Lippmann at DAN AP and tell him about your sightings. They’re very interested in tracking them.
Hi Dave
I wrote to you a few weeks ago using the “contact me” link at the top of your page asking for more details of your diving course, did you get it?
I can’t wait to do my PADI in Okinawa next summer!
Jan
Camille - Am sure I posted an update a while back - got my MSDT rating a few months ago!
Jan - Not sure I did get it. Let me look through my old emails and get back to you.
Hi Dave,
Sorry about that Dave, slipped my attention. Congrats though! Follow up on that John Lippmann contact thoug, I uarantee you that he’ll appreciate it.
Camille - thanks. I have just sent him an email giving some details.