Once I had bought my kit it was just a matter of going diving. No experience, no buddy and absolutely no idea where to start. The only LDS I knew of had stopped training for the winter and so had everyone else. After searching the Internet and making a few calls I found liquidbludiving.com. Mike was really helpful and didn't seem put off by having no other students mad enough to want to do their Advanced Open Water course in freezing November. With inland water getting colder by the day and seas getting rougher it was quite a task to take on but Mike Kruger was happy to oblige. A week later after an initial pool session I did 3 dives at Wrasbury lake. Jeeeeeeez, there I was in my new dry-suit in water of 10 degrees with a very green vis of only 1-2 meters. Still it all seemed to go to plan and despite bumping into a bus I even managed the compass navigation. It was fantastic to see a huge perch and a shoal of smaller ones and a glimpse of a carp shooting off when disturbed. Just awesome. We did another 2 dives that day. A couple of days later we were heading up the A1 for Gildenburgh lake near Peterborough. There was snow everywhere, when we arrived at the lake we were the only divers there (surprised?) we signed in and got kitted up, this was quite surreal, it was quiet and from the bank it was clear water. Once in I had a problem equalising but we were soon finning around in about 6 meter visibility which is pretty good. Up and around the sunken jet, passed a car and just a couple of relaxing deep (ish) dives, I even saw a pike just still in the water, eyeing up a small shoal of roach. Not only had we dived in water that was warmer than surface temperature but we had a great time and I had become a PADI Advance Open Water diver. In truth of course, still a complete beginner. Once again I had been totally spoilt and had one to one instruction from someone that really cared about what he was doing and went the whole nine yards to provide a good service. The greatest respect due to Mike Kruger of Liquid Blu Diving.
