Wreck Dive
It was back to the Bounty Wreck for this dive; the same place as where I had done my night dive. In daylight, I could appreciate the good coral growth. The marine life included mantis shrimp, trumpet fish, orange spine unicorn fish, Andaman sweet lips, rabbit fish and again Moorish idols.
The skill with the wreck dive was more limited to safety aspects; eg. jagged edges, avoiding any situation where you’d have anything overhead.
Fish Identification
Undertaken at Shark Point, this module seemed a bit of a joke. I was given a laminated card of fish species. I had to point to the chart when I saw something.
We saw a black tip reef shark, Hawksbill turtle, a very big green turtle (long and very high dome), nudibranch egg (which looked like a purple rose), tassled scorpionfish and one spot snapper. Some were actually quite hard to find on the chart, and others not on it at all.
Choice of Modules Undertaken
Just to summarise, the modules I had taken were as follows (after a bit of deliberation and discussion with Mike and the boss):
- Night Dive
- Deep Dive
- Navigation
- Wreck Dive
- Fish Identification
I had originally wanted to do Peak Performance Buoyancy but Mike thought my buoyancy just needed a bit of fine-tuning, and I didn’t need to do it as a module. He reduced my weight-belt from 4kg to 3kg and asked me to slow down my breathing and pause between finning cycles. That seemed to help.
Overall Impression
Dive Sites:
- The dive sites around the Gilis have beautiful coral (there is plenty of broken coral too though) and generally good visibility. There is a nice mix of small common stuff with a few big things. You’ll love it here if you like turtles.
- Diving conditions were quite easy during my visit; not too much current. I felt comfortable and competent here where as I’ve been in places that make me feel inadequate as a diver.
Aquaddiction Dive:
- Dive instructors and dive masters make or break a dive centre. Aquaddiction appear to have a nice bunch of good people. I hope to dive the Gilis with them again in the future!
- By the way, they also have accommodation which I didn’t try out.