pool session

a very early sunday for me today… the lesson is from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm. had to get up early to eat breakfast, buy lunch and meet the rest at outram mrt before making our way to outram secondary school.

we had no problems locating the school with the help of the map provided, but we had a little trouble looking for the pool.

we started off with the tests. each of us is required to swim 200 metres in any of the standard styles followed by a 15-metre underwater swim with 1 breath and lastly, 10 minutes of flotation or tread water.

all of us did the 200 metres without any problems. doris’ breath was not deep enough for the 15-metre underwater swim. ky didn’t have the stamina to tread water for 10 minutes. maybe he’s too dense. :P hehe… i treaded water for the full 10 minutes since i couldn’t float like doris.

kiat led the training before we were split up into smaller groups. wee san took over our group of 4 and started off with the basics of the mask, snorkel, fins and weight belt.

we learnt the flutter kick for proper fining, then it’s clearing of the snorkel at the surface and clearing of the mask underwater. the ditching of the weight belt was easy even though we had to do it with just our right hand.

all of us couldn’t get the giant stride entry into the water right. somehow, our heads always went underwater. is it so difficult? don't think so but we just couldn't do it.

we had a quick lunch break then we had to don our tank and bc and proceeded to learn the use of the regulator and perform other exercises underwater such as removal and wearing of the bc, buddy out-of-air, cesa and adjustment to neutral buoyancy.

i guess we just need lots of practice to make all the drills become 2nd nature to us. it was a tiring and intensive day of pool training and we were glad when it wrapped up punctually at 4:00 pm.

overall, i felt that we all did okay today. therefore, as long as we do our own revision and keep our wits and nerves with us during the open water next month, we should do alright.

just hoping that i don’t get too seasick! :P