Certifiable

Having thoroughly enjoyed our first scuba dive, we decided to continue on with subsequent training, dives, and the exam to obtain our scuba certification.  The dives continued to be amazing.  You never know what encounters await and it seems as though your surroundings find you as often as you find them.  The only nervous moment came when we had to practice emergency techniques at a depth of 12 meters as opposed to where our head could break the surface with our feet in the sand.  Though Laura was not a huge fan of one maneuver, having trouble with it on two occasions in the shallow water, she breezed through it at 12 meters despite giving Atheef a beating trying to remain neutrally buoyant.  When we asked her how she handled her nerves with the exercises at depth, she mentioned death as a strong motivator.  She was in good hands.

There were also some nerves out of the water.  There was a test involved in obtaining certification, and you had to go 28 of 30 or better on 178 pages of material.  That's a lot of reading to do on a beach vacation.  Though different studying methods were employed, I'll let you guess who read ever last word of every page, we both passed.  I will tell you studying while sipping blue mojitos on a beach with an ocean breeze is the way to go.  If that were a college campus, I'd likely be working on my fourth doctorate in subject matter I needed the first three just to pronounce.

In all, we made five dives.  Two on the house reef, one on a reef about a 15 minute ride from the island, and the last two back out in whale shark territory.  We hounded the scuba crew all week to make a trip back out there.  Unfortunately we did not see a whale shark while scuba diving.  But ....

Studying for the big exam.  I won't tell you who aced it and who didn't.

Jumping in off the dive boat for another swim.

Laura and Atheef descending.

Anenome

Two lionfish near the center of the image,
you can just make out their spiky fins.

Right in the middle of a fast moving school of small fish.

Think they were running from the tuna that hung out near us.
The tuna is where that small bright strip is at the bottom center
of the picture.  They are very difficult to capture on camera.

Spotted unicornfish.  They are curious, often lingering
near us throughout dives on the house reef.

Starfish.  They look funny to me when clinging to the cliffside.

Clown triggerfish.  Neat looking guy that was a favorite of many.

We came across quite a few turtles and tried to
hang out with them as long as possible.

He was resting right beneath us during our 3
minute hold at 5 meters before surfacing.

Black-blotched porcupinefish

There is a mouray eel sticking his head out amongst
the rough coral near the center of this picture.

Another funny starfish.  Looks like he ate too much.

Oriental sweetlip.

Another turtle.  He was hard to spot amongst the table corals.

Laura practicing emergency procedures again, this time at
12 meters where quickly surfacing wasn't an option if you
screwed up.  Unfortunately Atheef took some abuse from her here
trying to maintain her buoyancy level through the exercises.

Me.

Me and LT sort of.

Atheef sending up the float for pickup from our last dive.

It's a tough climb out with the weight
of the tank and wet gear.

Certified.

Mirhi dive boat.