Scuba diving

[Shamiaqua]

So, this weekend I completed my pool portion of Scuba Diving class. Six hours total in the pool this weekend, and I'm tired but happy. Day one, we stayed mostly in the shallow end, practicing some real basic scuba things. We also had to do a unaided 200 yard swim, followed by a 10 minute float. I surprised myself by passing both. I wasn't the fastest swimmer, but I didn't drown! Towards the end of day one, the class moved into the deep end of the pool, except me.

For some reason, I couldn't get my ears to handle the pressure change of a 12' deep pool! I tried, but the instructors said that forcing your ears to "clear" is almost as bad as not clearing them at all. I was asked to leave the pool with a half an hour left of class, while my 11 other classmates were under water. What a bummer! One of the instructors told me to take a sudafed one half hour before class the next day and see if that helped.

Well, I'm happy to say that on day two, I went down better than a cheerleader on prom night! I guess I'm what they like to call a "slow descender". I'll take slow over not able any day! So, after a great day at a whopping 12 feet, I'm looking forward to our shore dives next weekend.

Plus, I think my ass looks killer in a wet suit! :D

[PiercedPsycho]

Awesome! No hubby I take it?

[Shamiaqua]

Awesome! No hubby I take it?

Meh... he's in the class. The class was a X-mas gift from his father, so I really couldn't go by myself.

It was funny as hell too. At one point, we had to practice swimming with our "buddy" to the surface. He's about 250-275, and I had to haul his ass up from the bottom of the pool. When we got to the top, the instructor gave him shit for not even kicking to help me. :mad:

I literally had to get under him and push his ass to the top... lazy bastard.

[PiercedPsycho]

Serves him right, the lazy lummox.

[53V3N]

Plus, I think my ass looks killer in a wet suit! :D

Pics? (Sorry, someone was going to say it so I figured it might as well be me :D).

Congrats Shami! That's awesome.

[steelasp]

SCUBA diving is a blast. I should go more often, but gear rental gets expensive. I'm going to add a BC and regulator to my toys-to-buy list.

I find that when I'm diving I become very conscious of my breathing. I take each breath and let it out deliberately instead of reflexively. I think this makes me go through air faster, because I always seem to run out of air before anyone else. I guess being that far under the water makes me a bit claustrophobic.

I love being down there though. Oh, the things you will see! diving on a reef and having the freedom to stay underwater and explore is an amazing experience. The first time was [insert word I can't think of which means roughly 'a deeply life changing experience or event, almost like being born']. And if you ever get the chance to go on a night dive, don't pass it up. There's a lot more to see at night, and you actually see the colors of the fish and reef better and brighter with a flashlight rather than daylight. I've only ever done open water reef dives, but I think a wreck dive would be really cool too.

I guess one of the reasons I don't dive very often is because around here, the snorkeling is almost as good and sometimes better than the scuba diving. Many of the shallow coastal reefs have just as vast a variety of marine life as the deeper reefs. The gear is less restrictive, and your time on the reef isn't limited by your air supply.(cause you're every woman in the woooor*smack* get back on topic!) Of course, if you want to look at anything in deeper water, you're restricted by how long you can hold your breath.

The most impressive variety of marine life I've ever seen was in a very shallow area between two islands in the B.V.I. Part of it was a grass bed that was exposed at low tide, and about a foot of water at high tide. beyond that, was a grass bed in slightly deeper water. There were a whole bunch of baby black tip sharks there, abut a foot long, and huge schools of fish ranging from 1 to 5 inches in length. As we went farther, the water ranged from 2 to 4 feet, and there were little clusters of coral growth. there, I saw many familiar reef fish, but all juveniles. It occurred to me that this whole tidal zone was like a fish nursery. I was seeing lots of baby critters of all varieties.

I found a sandy channel between two grass beds, and followed it as it curved around and got deeper, and came face to face with a 4 foot shark! Ok, not really face to face, it was probably about 10 feet away, and was rather indifferent of my presence. "That must be mommy!" I thought to myself. It swam back the way I had come from. I followed it, and told the rest of the group about it. We saw the shark several times more, or others around the same size. We went out a little farther, and the reef became the dominant feature. parts of it were quite shallow, and it was difficult to get out past the reef into deeper water. We finally found a spot deep enough to swim through, but it was narrow, and surrounded by fire coral, with waves breaking on the reef around it. I held my breath, pulled my arms in close, waited for the flow of the waves to pull me in the right direction, and kicked like hell. I made it through the gauntlet unscathed!

Beyond this, the reef sloped down for a while, eventually opening into a rocky basin with sand at the bottom. We followed the shore, which was cliff-like around to one side, and as the water got deeper, we began to see hundreds of tarpon. They ranged from 3 to 6 feet long, with huge round eyes and big scales. We proceed to deeper water, about 15 to 20 feet, with some shallower coral heads sticking up. Out here, we saw a sea turtle, just chilling on the bottom of the ocean, an octopus, doing the same, and lots of schools of colorful fish.

We followed the coast, and eventually got to our destination. It's a place called bubbly pond, where at high tide, the waves crash over the rocks into this tidal pool about 8 feet wide and 2 feet deep It churns up the water and it feels nice to sit in, like a cold water jacuzzi. We climbed over the rocks and into bubbly pond, only to realized it was low tide. So we climbed up the cliffs on one side of this narrow inlet to bubbly pond, and jumped off the rocks back into the water. As soon as I hit water and looked around, I was awed and a bit frightened by a 6 foot shark. Another black tip. It turned around and swam away, probably startled by my splash.

We headed back. On the way, I saw another turtle, more tarpon, and a small octopus in shallow water where I could look at him better. I found his garden(pile of discarded empty snail shells outside an octopus's lair) so I knew he was close by. He saw me before I saw him though, and I only noticed him as he was crawling under a rock to hide. I stayed there for a while and stared at the little bit of him I could see. He stared back with one creepy octopus eye. I stayed for a while just because I so rarely them, and now I understand why. Their ability to change the coloration, pattern, and even texture of their skin is remarkable. I hadn't noticed him right in front of me, because he looked just like part of the rock he was siting on.

Somehow it was less trouble to get back over the reef into the tidal zone than it had been to get out, even though the water level had dropped about a foot. It must be because the waves were working more in my favor, the crest of the wave pushing me in the direction I needed to go, rather than the trough. We had to walk back across most of the grassy section where we had seen all the baby sharks.

And that's my snorkleing story! Wait a minute... this thread is about Shamiaqua learning to scuba dive, and I went off on a rediculously long and rambling tangent about a snorkeling trip. Oh well, it's sort of relevant. Congratulations Shamiaqua! scuba diving is a really exciting hobby, and you'll have lots of fun.

[Shamiaqua]

Thanks for the story, I enjoyed it. :D

It's been said that here in the Pacific Northwest, we have a surprisingly large variety of marine life. Although it's cold water diving, it's "some of the best"

I'm looking forward to next weekend, when we get to do our first shore dives. We'll be diving at a location where there's rumors about some six gill sharks (small ones, not man eating sizes...)