Under the sea - diving in Mauritius

As promised, this entry is dedicated to my amazing experience diving in Mauritius.

Diving is one of those things that you either love doing, have always wanted to do but never got around to getting your flippers on and sitting the course, or have no inkling whatsoever to do even if somebody paid you! Up until two weeks ago I fell into the second category (I still have the brochures next to my bed to prove it!), so seized the chance to do my PADI Open Water diving course on my second week in Mauritius, visiting my Dad who is living and working on this island paradise.

The course took four days and I instilled (my gorgeous, very calm and patient instructor) Brian with my complete trust. A very rare thing for me to do but I was out of my depths, excuse the lame pun!

So on day one, after a quick rundown of the equipment, it was into the pool for some basic training. The best part was having to walk through the lobby of the hotel scarying the Italian tourists who the majority of, as I later found out, would rather die than go swimming in the ocean letting the 'fish touch them'. And this was coming from a good looking guy, about my age covered in tattoos. Boy, did he soundly seem so unattractive!

So out into the ocean we went. Our first dive was a wreck dive but I am buggered if I noticed or enjoyed my surroundings. I was so busy focusing on breathing and what I was doing that i may aswell still been in the pool. But I must confess, after 15 minutes I did the signal that I wanted to surface - and we did. I wasn't freaking out but was short of breath. We got the to top and I was like, right I am ready to go stright back down, much to Brian's shock!

I guess my reason was that I just needed to know I could safely surface and get out of there if I had to or even needed to. And well, I now knew I could. Go on - call me a control freak!

So after that it was amazing and by my third open water dive to 18m for over 40minutes I had completely forgotten I was underwater and was just loving swimming with all of the amazing fish. Brian realised he could now have fun with me and on one of my levitating excuses decide to position me over a live lobster on the ocean floor - unbeknownst to me - until he pointed and I looked down at this poor creature freaking out just 20cm away from my thigh. I had a great dinner that night - lobster! No, not that one but obviously a close relative.

The hardest part to getting my lisence was the theory side. I had decided to do the course in 4 days so had a lot of reading to do, before sitting the test on my last day. What I found was the more reading I did, the better I understod the situation and my equipment and the more at ease I was. I passed the test despite horrible flashbacks to high school mathematics when it was time to complete the dive table section and am now a qualified diver. Man I love being able to say that!

Diving in Mauritius is relatively affordable and my course cost around AUD$450 which is over half the cost of what it would have been at home in Australia. The only major downfall is that most instructors speak French so you must find an English speaking dive centre for when hand signals just won't do. So now I need a dive buddy to continue my underwater exploration in my own backyard now that I am (sadly) back on home soil.

Simone x

Snow one day, sunshine and surf the next

The 2007 snow season has officially come to a close, but not without drama of course. On the final days, we had 20cm of snow fall, not only keeping most resorts open for business for another two weeks but also nearly forcing me to dig my way out before driving home to Sydney after 4 amazing, fun and hard working months!

So, after two days at home, I unloaded my winter gear from Bertha the backpack and then reloaded her with my summer gear, leaving a wake of clothing mayhem behind me. It was off to Mauritius to visit my family who are living/working there at the moment and to defrost.

I had such a fabulous trip that I am going to have to break all my adventures down into a few blog entries as there is too much to write and too many gorgeous pictures to show.

But for those of you not familiar with Mauritius, it's a small Island off the coast of East Africa, not far from Madagascar. There is a large French/Mauritian population as well as Indian population now too, asthey were originally brought over to help with the sugar can crops, Mauritius' main export.

So stay tuned for my next blog on scub a diving in paradise....

Sim x