Week 8

And just like that… my last week at Indo Ocean Project arrived. 

Day 62: The Hell Dive

I’d been counting down to one particular dive since the beginning: the infamous Hell Dive.

The Hell Dive is basically a controlled underwater chaos fest. Instead of a normal dive, your buddies “mess with you” so you’re forced to solve problems like a proper Divemaster. I was both excited and a little terrified, because you never know how far people will take it.

Within minutes, I was already sprinting around underwater trying to keep up. I burned through all my air in just 35 minutes, which says a lot about how crazy it was. My fins were stolen and passed around like trophies. My tank strap was unclipped, so I had to take off my BCD mid-water to fix it… but of course that’s when they stole my mask and tied it in a knot with my SMB. Picture me, basically blind, fumbling around while trying to untangle everything.

But the grand finale was during the safety stop. Everyone deployed their SMBs at once and then, just to really test me, handed me all their reels. Suddenly I was shooting to the surface with four SMBs wrapped around me like spaghetti. The lines got so tangled that we spent 15 minutes on the surface just trying to undo the mess. It was exhausting, stressful, and absolutely hilarious. Honestly, one of the most fun dives I’ve ever had.

Days 63–64: Strong Currents & Shark Encounters

After surviving Hell Dive, I had two leads lined up. Both were absolute current monsters. The first was supposed to be a BRUV dive (Baited Remote Underwater Video), but the current was so strong we had to call it off. The second dive wasn’t much better, we surfaced after only 30 minutes. At least the ocean gave us some love in return: a close encounter with a grey reef shark and a whitetip reef shark. Short but sweet.

The following day was a shore dive and also my last dive with Shamira, one of my best buddies here. We decided to make it as fun as possible: underwater somersaults, silly tricks, and taking way too many photos. It wasn’t about training or ticking boxes anymore, just pure joy, laughter, and soaking up the moment. The perfect way to say goodbye.