This week in Lembongan… I
t’s been an eventful week over here on Nusa Lembongan; our divemaster trainee Eanna McAtamney, completed his 6 week course. We have had some up and down water temperatures which normally starts to happen with the seasonal change of the currents. With these changing currents, visibility at the manta dive sites has been a little low, but it has not scared the manta rays away. Some dives, divers have reported seeing 10+ manta rays and staying around for most of the dive.
One part of the Divemaster course is the swim tests, 400m swim, 800m snorkel, 15 min treading water and equipment exchange (which is usually the most fun to partake in), but the one swim test that stands out to me was the 100m tired diver tow. Not only did Eanna have to tow a diver but he also had to spend most of this exercise with a totally over friendly and very heavy local dog tagging along for the ride. Eanna blitzed through the theory then got stuck into all the usual tasks of a divemaster: early starts, loading tanks, packing gear, having fun meeting all the divers or helping out with courses. It was great for us all getting to know him and help with his progression through the course plus it was a total bonus finding out he is a two star Michelin chef, he kindly put these skills on show cooking everyone a fantastic staff meal. It was also great to see just how enthusiastic Eanna was about project aware too, he organized weekly beach cleans and managed to get the whole team and customers, down to the beach collecting all the straws, plastic bottles, plastic bags and micro plastics that wash up onto the beaches around Lembongan.
So after 6 weeks we now had a fully capable divemaster, all completed and ready to head off to Australia and hopefully into the world of professional dive guiding.
So no sooner had Eanna left we were joined by our next candidate Marissa who is going to be spending 3 weeks with us here before continuing the course up in Bunaken and Lembeh, in north Sulawesi. Giving her the nice opportunity of trying out many different types of locations and dive sites that we are able to offer our divemaster candidates here at Two Fish Divers.
