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I haven't written anything in my journal in like....um..many months? Maybe? So yeah, last semester ended up pretty well, I now have Ouran complete in my computer (I love that series to death) and I finally have enough money to buy a tablet! biggrin I just don't know which one.... sweatdrop

Anyways, I spent all of last week in Flamingo Beach in a Diving Course to get an Open Water Diver Certification. The first part of the course is in the pool. I found out that breathing through your nose is sadly unappreciated. For one, just being able to breath under the water gives you mixed feelings of fear, awe and weirdness. The air in the tank is also extremely dry, so your throat gets freaking dry and of course it's not healthy to drink the water around you....and coughing with the regulator in your mouth is not as easy as it might sound...

But the pool is one thing. If you panic or need to breathe for real the surface is a second away. The sea, however, is a completely different thing. For example, the mandatory exercise of letting your mask flood with water/taking it off and then putting it back on under the water to practice getting the water out of it is not quite as easy when sea water gets into your eyes/nose (this last one usually ends up in having to cough and swallowing a whole bunch of salty water). Also, at 12-18 meters under the water, you're at least a minute away from the surface, so if you panic or need to breath you just have to deal with it.

Anyways, the first dive was pretty cool. It was just swimming around surrounded by a bunch of pretty blue, orange, yellow and brown fishies, just watching not to scare any blowfish, and seeing for the first time puffy colorful starfish. The second one wasn't as cool, because I had to to do all of the mandatory exercises to prove that I knew what to do in case something went wrong, and I seriously dislike the whole let-water-into-your-mask exercises. Oh, and a storm started on surface, so we had to cut that one a bit short because it was raining really hard and there was a whole lot of thunder near the boat, so it started calling for us. The thunder part was really neat though, I love thunder, and from the boat you could get a wickedly good look at them.

The third and fourth dive (you need at least 4 for the license) were done another day in a different site. The trip towards the site was awesome, there were dolphins! I love dolphins, and I'd never seen them outside of an aquarium before, so that was awesome. The third dive was in this sort of canal like place, and it was all good until the Guide started making some noise. I looked at him and he signaled to stay calm...I was like, huh? O_o And THEN I looked behind him and was like OMG SHARK! Actually, after taking a second look it was more like OMFG SHARKS! O.O Yup, around 5-6 sharks lurking around the canal. And the freaking guide started moving again....towards them!!!! I started swimming behind him because I was sure as heck not being left behind in a shark-filled place, but I was beginning to doubt the guy's mental health. Anyways, we got to at least 2-3 feet from one of them....way closer than what I'd ever wanted to get to a shark. The 4th dive was in a coral reef, and I was never happier to see ONLY fishes, octopuses, eels and corals.