9.187
11 (Wed) July 2018
BBQ
2.0
on a deserted island
-Maldives-
with DV and friends
Summer Solo Vacation in the Maldives, Day 5.
- Day 1 (9.183 Grilled Y/F Tuna)
- Day 2 (9.184 Grilled Reef Fish)
- Day 3 (9.185 Chili Spaghetti)
- Day 4 (9.186 Roast Beef in Mushroom Gravy)
In Male. Here for my first liveaboard experience: diving from, eating on, and sleeping in – i.e., living aboard – a boat that takes divers from site to site. I join a group assembled by my dive teacher DV, comprising his students and friends. For 7 days, we’ll be sailing through and diving amidst the central and northern atolls of the Maldives.
As a special treat – I suppose – we were invited to a beach-side bbq.
Meh.
Dives 96-98.
Still in training for my rescue diver license, DV had me deploying the SMB (surface marker buoy – aka balloon, blob, sausage) at every safety stop, which is both a safety precaution to let passing boats know that divers are about to surface, and lets our own boat know where to pick us up if we’ve drifted from the entry point.
The trick is to take the regulator (the mouthpiece that gives air), manually pump air into the SMB – but only half full, as the air will expand to double volume as it rises to the surface from a depth of 10 meters (many an amateur diver has suffered severe lung injury by rising too quickly and holding his/her breath, which expands and ruptures the air sacs in the lungs) – then release, careful not to get tangled in the cord.