Hold Your Breath

On the great journey of earning my scuba diving certification, there were two trips planned. The first, a weekend in the supposedly frigid waters of Stoney Cove, and the second at Gildenburgh. Everyone told us that if we could survive our first diving experience at Stoney Cove in January, then we could dive anywhere.... I'm not sure if that includes glacier-fed Canadian lakes? Either way, wasn't as cold as I thought it would be (having swam in those glacier-fed lakes as a child in nothing but a little swimsuit) and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I have now learned that scuba diving is neither a graceful, nor an attractive sport, but its quite fun to sink to the bottom and pretend you're a mermaid....until you realize you just sat on a dead crawfish and then the whole fantasy just comes crashing down....

We do two dives a day, as you can only do so many within a certain time period to keep the nitrogen in your blood stream at a manageable level. Each dive required us to demonstrate certain skill sets, such as taking our face mask off underwater, putting it back on, and clearing the water out by essentially breathing as hard as you can out your nose. They also got us to pretend rescue other people and share air sources, should we ever get into emergency situations. We did also get to do some fun stuff, such as swimming through a double decker bus, that had been sunk in the lake to amuse lowly trainees, such as ourselves.

The weekend we spent in Gildenburgh included two days of diving, so a total of 4 dives, which were to be our last needed to complete the training. We were going to the deepest allowed depths for our level (20 m), and demonstrate more skills, but we got to see a lot more. I got to sit on the wing of a jet plane, swim through another double decker bus, play pool underwater, see sunken fish boats and cars, and get absolutely, irrevocably lost in a bloody lake. The last bit came about when I was doing my last dive with another trainee and the instructor. We trainees were required to show that we could plan and execute our own dives, as dive leaders. He was to lead the dive out, and I was to lead us back. We had planned to pick the rope underwater that led us to the deepest point, but once we got underwater, we (and when I say we... it was actually I) picked the wrong rope and ended up swimming in a straight line forever towards a crappy little yacht. We essentially failed that test because the guy leading the dive swam too far forward and lost visibility of me, so in diving terms he "left me for dead." We found this rather amusing, given that there wasn't any real danger at the time, but were still required to redo the dive to show we could actually do it without failing miserably.

The next time around we were so cautious not to bugger it all up that we got described as an "old married couple", bickering as to which rope to choose once again. And once again, I picked wrong, but thankfully the rope just took a longer route to the same destination and we kept very close tabs on one other so as not to leave anyone for dead this time. The instructor, despite laughing at our underwater bickering, passed us with flying colors...saying we were probably TOO cautious. Just can't seem to win, eh? Either way, I'm now officially certified and intend to take that certification to water that is not so frigid...

See? Attractive, eh? ;)