Today is my fifth consecutive day of at least two dives on Gili Trawangan, and it will be my last for this trip. I have completed my Open Water and Advanced Certifications, and now have two additional certifications in my sights. Why do more? Positives: these open up the ability to do any recreational dive in the world and I get to have my tried and true Italian Stallion instructor Maury; Negatives: more SSI online coursework, online exams, and handwritten exams.
I headed to Manta Dive, met Maury, and we went over theory and the dive plan for the first dive. This dive would be another Nitrox dive, that would give me the Nitrox specialty certification and allow me to dive with Nitrox tanks. We did some measurements (FO2) and calculations (Max Operational Depth), readied the equipment, then boarded the boat and set out for the dive.
The Nitrox dive was at Deep Turbo site, had 31min duration, EAN30 (30% Oxygen Air), 33.5m max depth, and 22.4m avg. depth. Wildlife observed includes stingrays, sand eels, pufferfish, and the usual Gili gills (angelfish, butterfly fish, clownfish, surgeonfish, sweetlips, grunts, parrotfish, soldierfish, banner fish, and trumpetfish).
I took a quick nap back at Diver’s Compass hostel in between dives, then returned to Manta for the second dive of the day. This dive would be for the deep specialty, where we would go down to a depth of nearly 40m. Diving at deeper depths requires more rigorous dive planning as multi-level dives, as air gets consumed more quickly at deeper depths (increased pressure), there’s increased risk of oxygen toxicity, nitrogen narcosis, decompression sickness, etc. Maury and I did the calculations and carefully planned out how much time and air I should be spending at each depth, prepared the equipment, then set out for the dive.
The deep dive was at Shallow Turbo site, had 36min duration, EAN27 (27% Oxygen Air), 39.3m maximum depth, and 18.6m avg. depth. Wildlife observed includes an adult white tip reef shark, sand eels, lion fish, pufferfish, and the Gili gills. Another Manta Dive instructor and my friend Gabriel joined us, taking pictures of wildlife. The reason we went down to 39m instead of crossing the 40m threshold is because we would be required to do decompression stops during our ascent in addition to the safety stop, and we didn’t account stops into our dive plan with our air constraints. Still, it felt amazing getting all the way down to 39.3m under the surface in the ocean. During our safety stop, we adhered to deep diving practices and used a spare breathing tank dropped down our surface marker buoy line by the Manta boat.
Back at Manta, Maury and I kicked it while I worked on the materials. I finished the Nitrox exam and was fully certified with Nitrox. Too exhausted by the late night before and the multiple dives of the day to begin the deep dive coursework and exam, I headed towards the hostel. Along the way, I ran into some familiar faces. The four Swedish guys from my Ha Giang Loop group in Vietnam, Anton, Erik, Gustav, and Theo had just arrived to Gili T that day and were looking to celebrate their first night on the island. Sadly there was zero chance I had any party in me, but I enthusiastically shared some recommendations before continuing towards the hostel. Once there, I was asleep before sundown.