Desi and I also spent a not so busy day diving near Menjangan Island (Deer Island). It is a national park and the waters are protected from the usual currents around Indonesia. The reefs are in quite good shape and I did see some lovely clownfish, scorpionfish, a small lionfish as well as several interesting nudibrachs.
The final disaster (to date on this trip) for Desi was the onset of a crippling headache at the end of the first dive. She could barely raise her head after exitin the water and was profoundly lightheaded too. The divemaster had to help her off with her equipment as she sat paralyzed by this blinding headache. Perhaps it was the heat or maybe lack of proper hydration or maybe a combination of the two. This headache did not let up until about an hour and a half. She reported feeling 98% better. However, about 7 minutes into our second dive, she had to abort the dive as her headache returned. She surfaced quickly as the divemaster and I completed the remainder for this second 55 minute dive. I beginning to worry that she had a case of decompression illness and recalled that the nearest decompression chamber was in Singapore (2.5hours away by air).
Thankfully, she recovered and all seemed well on the ride home. After dinner, she had a precipitous relapse of lightheadness and nausea. She went to bed immediately. I hope this is not a harbinger of her future experiences in diving as the next stop in her vacation was a seven day liveaboard trip in Palau. One further insight into what may have been the cause came from Wayan, the divemaster. He commented that she had issues with buoyancy. Her depth would fluctuate rapidly during the dive and hence, the wild changes in baro pressure may have contributed to her headache. Sadly, not the first time I have heard this comment about her diving.
