33 Meters Down, Who Is Coming?

For those who don't know anything about scuba diving, you have to know that when your are a level 1 like me you are allowed to go at a maximum depth of 20m. In Tahiti this maximum depth is 25m because the water is very clear.


Barracudas

That restriction is huge because it is fairly easy to dive quite deep when you are in the blue, you just have to forget to check your dive meter and you will get a nice surprise 5 minutes later: there is no reference point in the blue. It is important to always keep an eye on your instructor because he/she will show you at which depth you should be.



For this dive we went quite deep because we were looking for hammerhead sharks, they are usually difficult to see because they swim near the ocean floor, we had to dive deep to increase our chances to see something. We slowly swam down and were greeted by gray sharks, 10 minutes later the silhouette of 1 hammerhead shark appeared. We slowly came closer as to not to disturb him but were not fast enough to fully enjoy the view. Once he was gone, i checked my depth meter, i was at 33.6 meters under see the level!


Napoleon

We slowly swam up to catch a tide that would make us drift inside the lagoon. Doing a drift dive is very fun but at the same time very tiring when you are not used to the exercise because you have to accept the idea that the flow will take you without you doing anything. Your first instinct will be to start swimming but doing this will get you tired thus you use more of your air supply. Anyhow it is a great feeling to be "floating" in the water enjoying the landscape that appears in front of your eyes. From time to time, you will have to avoid something, at some other time you will have to swim again the tide to not be separated from the group.


Remora

At the end of the drift drive, we ended up in a small aquarium full of small lagoon fishes, it was amazing, if you could you would take a piece of it and bring it back to your home. I am always using a lot of air during those kind of dive, my instructor waited till my air supply was totally empty to give me her emergency regulator so that the dive would last as long as possible, if not for her the dive would have been 10 minutes shorter.
I just love diving.


Surgeonfish