Advanced Open Water Dive Certification: Action

The last two weekend I have been diving at Mount Lavinia to complete my advanced open water certification. The certification program involved completing five training dives where Arnold, my training buddy, and I undertook in new challenges in diving. The first two dives we both deep dives, where we practiced calculating safety stop times underwater. The two deep dives were both things that made me nervous before hand but deep diving is my new favorite part of diving as being that far under the water is both incredibly beautiful and isolating in a way i have never experienced on land.

In the last three dives we practiced new skills such as under water navigation and search and recovery patterns and learned to tie knots underwater. The final dive was a fish identification course; during the preparation for it we had to read about and discuss the ethical implications of diving in natural environments and our responsibility to protect and monitor the environments in which we dive so as to prevent the further destruction of reef ecology, which is of course a global issue.

Colombo Operated United Nations Executive Comitty and Confrence

Sense last September I have been working with the COMUN ExCo. to plan and initiate the 2015 Colombo Model United Nation conference. It has taken immense perseverance and commitment form every member of the ExCo. as putting together and running a conference of this scale takes long hours and multiple meetings per week. However, the payoff has been well worth it as I think the 2015 conference was a big success.

It was a particular pleasure for me to work with and mentor a group of new delegates over the course of 3 months as we considered and engaged with issue of global importance such as nuclear disarmament and conflict resolution in the middle east.  Teaching and giving feed back to delegates was a new challenge I undertook this year as I have never been in a leadership position among my peers of this scale or importance before, and I believe I bonded with many of those who were in my committee. However, I know that next year I can do better and nurture an even better and more welcoming environment as I now have an increased awareness of my strengths and weaknesses as a leader. 

I am happy to say after a long ten months of working collaboratively with others to pull this event off I am ready to begin again planning next year conference in just a few weeks. 

COMUN PHOTOS By Amruta Behera

(Practice conference #2, Chairing GA4) 

(Addressing delegates during practice debate #2)

(The backstage video for COMUN 2015)

(Chairing during the final day of conference, the combined General Assembly)

Action: Scuba Diving

(Credit: Jurgen Hannak)

Two weekends ago I completed my first two dives in the open ocean since eight grade. It served both as a reassessment of my skills and as an additional action activity. Both dives were wreck dives and tested my skills at maintaining neutral buoyancy, which I have never been very good at. I did manages to do better than I had during eighth grade and did not damage any coral. Despite this I'm still setting out to improve my underwater motion control. This will also help with another goal related to scuba diving which is improving my air usage. At the moment I can just about complete an hour dive with a 200 bar tank. I would like to improve my air intake so that I can spend longer times underwater, a skill which will be important as I embark on completing my advanced open water dive training in March.

(Credit: Jurgen Hannak) 

1st Dive Details:
·         Time in: 10:52 hrs.
·         Depth: 20 m
·         Duration: 57 min
·         Temperature: 29 C
·         Safety stop: 3 min at 5 m

Surface Interval: 1 Hour 5 Minutes 

(Photo Credit Jurgen Hannack)

Dive details:

·         Time in: 12:56

·         Depth: 13 mtrs

·         Duration: 57 min

·         Temperature: 29 C

·         Safety stop: 3 min at 5 m