10th October 2012
Snorkelling - Keem - Mark O’Connor
We had clear skies a sea temperature of 13*C and a fantastic 4m visibility!
- Today I wanted to go over basic snorkel skills.
- In particular my surface dives, because the visibility was so clear.
- I wanted to be able to dive down further and explore the sea life.
We went through possible water hazards at the beginning and they pointed out the rip on the left hand side of the bay and told us to only snorkel on the right hand side.
We were put into pairs (buddy’s) for the session, this meant that we had to stay with our buddy for the whole session, never let them go out of your sight and always check that they are ok.
While we swam out, Weeman asked us to do different skills so he could see how we were doing and give us any advice we might need. We had to do surface dives one by one. We had to swim down 4m, touch the bottom, do a forward roll and come back up, making sure we remember to equalise on the way.
Unfortunately I had trouble equalising, I reached the bottom but then I was in excruciating pain and had to kick as fast as I could to get back to the surface. This is a learning point for me because I learnt to put me before the task. I was concentrating so hard on doing my roll at the bottom, that I didn’t concentrate enough on equalising, which resulted in pain.
Luckily we were coming towards the end of the session and Oisin Foden brought me back in to shore. I had to get out and get warm, my ears were very sore, but it gradually got better, I think a visit to the doctor will be needed to check everything is ok.
The highlight of this afternoon for me was finding the starfish eating a limpet! It was so interesting and some people in the group didn’t know that starfish eat limpets so that was really interesting. Another highlight was to be able to see so far under the water! It was absolutely amazing and I find sea life the most interesting in the world. Even the sea weed and the way it flows in the tide, I think, is absolutely beautiful.
I did well today but I need to concentrate on me, more than the task I have been asked to do...if I’m not comfortable, or my ears are sore, or I can’t equalise, then I should come back up. I spent too long down there trying to equalise because I wanted to be able to complete the task, but it was dangerous.
We saw a starfish eating a limpet today.
I surface dived down to just below the surface and picked up the starfish from the rock. When I turned him over on his back we could see him eating a limpet. (I like the way I have just decided that it was a ‘he’ starfish here!)
We then put the starfish back on the rock where I saw him so that we didn’t disturb him too much.
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