more about scuba

Yesterday we completed our coursework, took our final exam (Doc and I passed with a 98 and 94), and finished up our 5 confined water dives.

I’m still not sure how I feel about scuba, overall. Right now I’m giving it two thumbs sideways.

We started off the morning by meeting K1 and B for breakfast at the pancake house, and I’m glad I made myself eat something at 7:45 a.m. because our instructor declined to give us a lunch break (I know, what the hell?!). We didn’t get anything else to eat until 5 p.m., after being in the pool for 6-1/2 hours with no food or water. We were so hungry that we stopped at the first place within eyeshot: a Long John Silver’s. Oh, the irony of eating fish after learning to dive. OK, maybe that’s not actually irony, but it’s something. Note to self: LJS on a completely empty stomach will make you sick later. Don’t do it.

I am much more comfortable with breathing underwater now, though I’m still not 100% convinced that I will always suck in air when I take a breath. A couple of the skill tests involved our instructor turning off our air tanks while at the bottom of the pool. He looked directly at me the whole time he was explaining what would happen, which I think is called the “Look Directly At The Most Panicked Person And Speak In Soothing Tones” technique.

The constant going down/coming back up is hard on my ears. I think I’m clearing them OK, but I also think that the tail end of the head/chest cold that I had was making it more difficult than it should have been. Anyway, they kind of ache today. My jaw hurts from holding in the regulator, which wants to float up towards the surface, and the chlorine and salt makes my eyes feel raw, especially because I wear my contact lenses while under. The tank air dries out and hurts my throat after a while — it’s very cold and has no moisture at all.

Also, I become very clumsy underwater. During one exercise, we had to completely remove our BCD (buoyancy control device; it’s the inflatable weighted jacket divers wear that also holds all your hoses and accessories close to your body) while at the bottom of the pool, and then put it back on. I had a real hard time with that one. The instructor showed us, and he remained kneeling perfectly on the bottom of the pool the whole time. When I tried it, I floated up to near the top while struggling to get it off (oh shit! I’m near the top! What if my lungs explode? What do I do now?? Okay, exhale…. but now I have to inhale and I’m rising again! And my jacket is sinking! Okay, I’ll let go of it so I can try to get myself back down to the bottom… but the regulator is still in my mouth so now the jacket is dangling from my mouth… shit, I’m going to fail this skill for sure…). Finally I got myself somewhere near the bottom of the pool again and managed to get back into the jacket, but it took me forever to find the buckle that goes around my waist. I kept grabbing at straps, none of which were the right ones. And I’m sure that I was floating all over the place the entire time. Strangely, he didn’t make me do it over again.

I forgot to mention, the first thing that we did on Saturday when we got into the pool was a surprise swim test. We had to swim 200 yards without stopping (I’m not sure how many of us actually were able to do that without fudging the “no stopping” rule) and then to stay for 10 minutes in the deep end (float or tread water) without touching the sides of the pool. I’m amazed I managed to complete the test, especially since I don’t float very well (my legs sink, I cannot keep them up at the surface without trying hard).

The hardest thing to master seems to be how to control your position in the water (up or down) using your breathing. You let air out of your BCD jacket in order to begin the descent, but you don’t put air in to go back up; you swim up using your fins for power, and let more air out of your jacket as you go up if needed so that it doesn’t expand and send you rocketing for the surface. You control your movement up or down with your swim fins and by how deep a breath you take. They actually have a whole “continuing ed” class on buoyancy control.

Something that I can’t figure out is what the point of diving is if you are blind. Seriously, our instructor teaches divers with all kinds of physical handicaps, including blindness. If you can’t see anything underwater, why do it? For the challenge, maybe?

Our next step is to go down to Aquarena Springs in December and do our open-water dives, which consist of four dives over a two-day period. I really didn’t have any fun this past weekend, so I hope that the open-water ones at least have something interesting to look at down there. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Last night as I was trying to get to sleep, my brain started down the dangerous road of “what ifs”: Hey, stupid, you know that just because you’re somewhat comfortable at 14 feet deep does not mean that you won’t panic when you’re 60 feet down. Do you KNOW how far down that is? It’s going to be dark! What if you panic and bolt for the surface? Your lungs will collapse and you will die! Think about how much water is pressing down on top of you when you’re that far down! What if something bites you? What if Doc is out of reach and you’re scared? What if you can’t control your buoyancy, or if you forget to check your gauges and go too deep or don’t have enough air??

It’s hard to shut off a brain that wants to dwell on all the horrible things that absolutely won’t, but just might, happen.