I had planed to go scuba diving on the afternoon of the airplane flight above Mayotte. Medically speaking, there is nothing preventing you from going scuba diving right after stepping out of an airplane but even so that dive was a huge mistake!
Barracudas
My head was still full of what I had seen in the plane in the morning when I jumped in the water with an air tank on my back and a regulator in my mouth. I think I was so relaxed that I forgot to bring with me the concentration needed to dive properly. I quickly found out that something was not right. You probably have had this feeling like something is out of sync around you but there is nothing you can do to make it stop.
Red Anemone
Emperor Angelfish
Here I was underwater but my mind was in the sky still admiring Mayotte, I was never diving with my group because of that. To have a successful dive you generally need to stay on the left or the right of the dive master and be slightly behind him not to be surprised when he changes direction or when he shows something. If you are taking pictures you will often be behind and catch the group once you are done. I was either above or below the group, I couldn’t maintain my depth even though this one of the thing I do best when I am underwater. I was handling myself so badly that at one point I started heading to the surface, I managed to stop myself with the help of the dive master but I really had no clue what was going on with me. The dive master was so stunned by my behaviour that he made a sign to the other person with us showing that I was either drunk or on drugs.
Potato Cod
The rest of the dive wasn’t smooth, I was starting to come back to earth and was making less mistakes. By the end of the dive I found out that I was emptying the air in my vest each time I wanted to fill it and I was filling my vest with air each time I wanted to empty it. It explained why I could never stay at the same depth. Even with all this we managed to stay underwater during 60 minutes which is not bad for a level 1 diver doing a lot of mistakes. Thankfully it will be a while before I fly above Mayotte before going for a dive.
Green Humphead Parrotfish
La suite!
