Training: Hye Sook's 3rd Open Water dive. She had 3 bottom skills to perform: fin pivot for buoyancy, mask flood and clear, and ESA (buddy breathing, optional, not performed). We also practiced hovering, and did a compass out and back. After that I started leading us in measured square patterns (since I wanted to return to the buoy line for the ESA. Hye Sook participated in the squares and eventually took over leading them, showing that her compass work was comparable to that of advanced divers I have certified. On surfacing, we did 3 surface skills: compass return to boat, weight belt removal and replacement, and bcd removal and replacement. 

Comments: For a place that can be dead boring, we had nice diving. Besides the usual colorful fish, we found a flounder and chased it around. At the end of the dive we also encountered a sea snake and followed it closely as it undulated on its way. 

Surface interval duration actual: 54 min

Training: Hye Sook's final Open Water checkout dive. Only two skills were required for this dive: mask removal and replacement, and hovering. We spent a bit of time on hovering since we had all day. Hye Sook's buoyancy was fine and improved toward the end of the exercise, when she seemed able to keep herself off the bottom by inhalations. It's a hard one for students to grasp, and on the last dive, difficult to give feedback on underwater. 

Comments: Ras Al Gharab has sandy spots with clusters of dense shallow coral which you glide over. I was looking intently in them and finally espied the creature I'd been looking for my last several times there, a small (18 inches or so) sand shark hiding on the bottom beneath a cluster of coral rock. Made our day, but other than that, not much to see. A productive means of exploring this part of the reef seems to be meander at will with no attempt to keep track of where you are, surface after 45 minutes (you'll have 100 bar; it's only 5 meters), and then take a compass heading on the boat, resume diving, and make your way back to it..