If someone told me one year ago today that I would be living in Sydney getting scuba certified, I would have looked them in the eyes and called them insane. Over the last two weeks, I have been putting a large amount of effort into getting certified. The first seven days of achieving certification were, to say the least, painful. In order to achieve open water diving certification you must first pass an online course. This course took around 10 hours to complete. Once the online course was completed, I was required to do a training dive at a pool and then four training dives in the open water. The program I got my certification through was excellent, and I have no complaints besides there was not a clear disclosure on where the first training dive would take place. So when me and my friend arrived at the pool where our first day of training would be, we were embarrassed to find out it was a public pool. Not just a public pool, it was the most public pool I have ever seen. It was a gorgeous day out and every chair or lawn space in the area was filled. As it was not a big deal by any means, it was slightly embarrassing waddling across the concrete with a large cylinder on my back. The first day flew by and now I had the open water dives the following week to look forward to.
(Photo taken at first dive site 2/16/2025)
Although it was short lived, I felt like I got to ‘tap into’ the diving community in Sydney. In addition to this, I made new and unexpected friends. The class size for the certification was small. Originally it was 5 students and two teachers, but by the second and final weekend of training one of the students had to drop the course. The students were me, Harry, Michael, and Rom. Harry is my friend from Bucknell who is in a separate abroad program. Michael, Rom, and my instructor Raul were all people that I have never met before. Michael went to Memphis University, worked in finance in New York City for 10 plus years and now moved to Sydney. Rom is from the French Alps and is a pastry chef at Charles Brasserie in Sydney. Raul is an experienced diver from India who has embarked on some of the wildest scuba diving adventures I have ever heard. As a group, we were all different but had a great time exploring the underwater world.
The training dive on Saturday was located at Camp Cove and focused on allowing the diver to develop confidence. On Sunday, our diving skills were put to the test at an aquatic reserve that provided one of the coolest experiences I have ever had. We as a group got lucky and had the opportunity to explore the nationally protected aquatic reserve as opposed to the regular dive site. We did two dives, the first one we had our skills assessed by the instructor and then the second we had a “free dive”. In other words, the second dive was focussed on exploring the aquatic reserve as opposed to learning skills. We went around 14 meters deep and were exploring hidden crevices. We saw things such as Octopus using seashells to protect themselves and also saw multiple large Wobbogong sharks. The underwater world was flooded with wildlife. Whether it was meeting new people or exploring beneath the surface, this week was great!
(Photo taken from Gordons Bay, 2/23/2025)