Going Underwater

Blather attempts to take over the other 2/3 of the planet.

loodies and gintlepong... greetings from Corfu. There's thunder and lightning outside, so I'm cowering in an internet cafe.

An Eventful week... I lost my mobile phone, and learned how to drive a moped, and to dive to 18m (60ft)

I am now a qualified PADI Open Water Diver. Got 96% in my written exams (pretty easy really) and did my final qualifying dives this morning, down to 18m. Had to navigate around with a compass at that depth, take my mask off and clear it of water, etc. Tricky enough. Visibility is usually around 25m here, but with the storms and all, it's down to about 8m.

Lots of colourful fish: damselfish, peacock wrasse, parrotfish and small golden groupers, moray eels, scorpion fish, sea slugs, saupe, flying fish, loads of clams, corals, urchins, etc.

This morning's dive was off the rock in the pic below:

More: Diving Corfu >>

Only 18m? with the FFESSM (Federation Francaise d'Etudes et de Sports Sous-Marins) Level one, You are allowed to 20m, it only seems like a little more but our instructor took us as deep as 23m, and there was no written exam. Also we did not have to navigate by compass. Although there are 4 levels to this, I do not know how many levels there are to PADI

PADI divers are only allowed dive up to 40M, and even then, that's only for experienced/qualified divers. More here:
http://www.padi.com/