Sunday 10-07-2011

Today Finley started at 09:30 with the PADI Advanced Open Water Course! It was a great group with 10 students from her last Open Water course and 2 new students, 3 Instructor's and 4 Divemasters.

First she got an orientation about the different Adventure Dives Finley could choose from. For the PADI Advanced Open water course you need 5 Adventure Dives. Finley choose the following Dives: Deep, Navigation, Digital Underwater Photography, AWARE Fish Identification and the Nightdive. On top of that Finley decided to also become an Enriched Air (Nitrox) Diver after the Advanced!

After some theory and lunch it was time to go on the boat. One of the best things about conducting these courses is that Finely has many opportunities to talk with other students and certified divers about the condition of the Sharks in the world and how they are in trouble.

The First Dive was the deep dive at Hin Wong Pinnacle. Really nice visibility and a very friendly dive site to go deep for the first time on the Advanced course. Finley was amazed about the color change and was giggling a bit at 27 meters, but she had a great time! The second Dive was at HinDeang on Koh Tao. Here Finley learned more Navigation Skills with the Navigation Dive. Normally Finley doesn't need a compass to navigate but it was very interesting to see how the humans did it. The third Dive that day was the Night Dive at Japanese Gardens. Wauw!!!! Finley loved this one! The colors where so bright with the torch, Finley said it felt like being in a Lord of the Rings Elven Forest! What a great day!

Monday 11-07-2011

Only two more adventure dives left. The first one was the Digital Under Water Photography. Finley rented a nice underwater camera and was ready to shoot some photos. Finley learned a lot about White Balance, ISO, the Flash and positioning of the Camera to make nice pictures underwater. The second Dive was the last and also the best so far! This was the AWARE Fish Identification dive! Finley not only learned so much more about different fish, families and relationships but even more about how to dive slowly and really pay attention to the smaller creatures on the dive site. After the dive Finley said she had never seen that much fish before! Everyone should take the AWARE Fish Identification Adventure Dive or Specialty! After some extra information about different dive equipment Finley was Finally Certified as an Advanced Open water Diver!!!

Check out Finley's Pictures to learn more about her EFR Instructor course Enriched Air (Nitrox) Specialty course!

Marcel van den Berg # 492721
Ban's Diving Resort, Koh Tao