Diving

Belize: Day Six

This morning I did not have any adventures planned, yet I got up early anyway. This whole trip I have been getting up before 8 a.m., on my own. I suppose it’s probably largely due to the fact that we have been going to sleep somewhat early (11 p.m. or so). Doc went diving in the morning, along with Brett, Kurt, and Megan. I think that he’s really enjoying it. The divemasters have cancelled the trips to Blue Hole and Glover’s Reef, so all the divers are just staying on the barrier reef this week, which I guess is still probably pretty damn cool. I puttered around this morning taking pictures, and then took the laptop to the lobby so I could upload some of my photos to flickr. Even though I technically have an internet connection while here, I haven’t really been using it as much as I thought I would have. I mean, I know I’ve mentioned getting online for three or four days now, but when you compare it to my normal online schedule (averaging about 70 hours per week, I would say, between work and home), it’s nothing. The connection is slower than molasses in January, but I don’t know that that is necessarily a factor. I have not missed TV at all, I have not once had the urge to make a phone call, and I also haven’t wanted to listen to any music on my iPod. It’s weird how my nearly-total disconnect from the fast-paced hurry hurry world of my normal life, where I constantly attempt to absorb as much audiovisual information as possible, happened so quickly and easily. Maybe that means that when the apocalypse comes, I will survive because I adapt well, and society will value me because I have skills that […]

Read MoreBelize: Day Six

Finally, some follow-through!

If nothing else, at least I followed through with one of my newest goals: that I would NOT complete my open water dives. And I didn’t! Go, me! Doc and K1 and BB, on the other hand, all got their certifications. I didn’t realize that the lake at Aquarena Springs was only 10 feet deep. I don’t know that I would have been quite as freaked out in water that shallow, but I still think I made the right decision. I’m proud of all of you guys for sticking with it and passing all your tests! Several people have said some very nice and supportive things to me, trying to get me to feel better about not going through with it. It helps. Thanks, guys. 🙂 Part of me still feels like a big fat whiny baby, though. The other thing is, if I get to Belize and start kicking my own ass for not getting my certification, I can get certified there. I do like having that option. The Prius is a fine travelling car. Roomy, quiet, fantastic gas mileage. I freakin’ love that hatchback. My 1-year-and-2-week-old digital camera ceased functioning after I’d taken only three photos of the divers. I did not drop it or get it wet or anything of the sort. The lens is stuck open and makes a horrid grinding sound whenever I turn the camera on. It grinds for a second, beeps, and shuts itself off. It wasn’t a cheap camera, and I am thoroughly pissed. One thing about vacation that bothers me is eating out all the time. I get sick of it really fast. I like my own cooking. Aquarena is kind of an interesting place. It’s sort of a ecological learning center now, but it used to host things like Ralph […]

Read MoreFinally, some follow-through!

Add “loser, failure” to yesterday’s list

Today was a pretty rotten day. A Project From Hell at work got me stressed out to the point where I was kind of laughing uncontrollably at the futility of it all — and y’all know me, it takes a lot to get me worked up like that — and none of it would have been difficult if we hadn’t had to work through STUPID CONVIO (there, I said it). I won’t bore you with details, so suffice it to say that they specialize in making the simple complex. Also, for whatever reason, I woke up this morning without much patience to begin with, so this project got me on the edge pretty quickly. By the time I was able to take a quick break late afternoon and meet Doc at the dive shop to pick up our equipment for our upcoming lake dive, I was stretched pretty thin. In the dressing room, attempting to squeeze my (apparently) enormous ass into every rental wetsuit they had in the shop to no avail, I snapped and bawled like a baby. You should know that I am almost six feet tall and while I’m not exactly “fat,” I do have a decent pear shape to my body. It would seem that I am one-of-a-kind in the diving world, as all wetsuits seem made for short women or thin men. The ladies’ sizes were way too small for me, and the only men’s wetsuit that fit over my butt was an XL, and I could have stored a week’s worth of snacks in the top part of it. The dive shop people didn’t seem to understand that I needed one with a small top and a large bottom. They kept suggesting larger and larger men’s sizes (to get the bottom to fit) or […]

Read MoreAdd “loser, failure” to yesterday’s list

blue hole

This amazing and beautiful thing is called “Blue Hole.” It’s a diving spot near Belize, where we are headed in a couple of months. It looks like a meteor crater in the ocean, but actually it’s a limestone sinkhole that is the opening to a system of Ice Age caves. The place we’re going offers a trip out to Blue Hole to dive, but it’s way too advanced for us. Plus, it’s just scary looking!

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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 […]

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say ‘scuba’… it sounds funny!

Today, for the first time in my life, I breathed underwater. It was terrifying. I am taking scuba lessons, along with Doc, K1, and B, in preparation for our vacation in Belize in a few months. Sunny beaches, tropical drinks, lots of hot vacation sex, seafood, rainforests, hiking, snorkeling… and scuba diving. Belize is supposed to be one of the best diving spots in the world (fishies! coral reefs! crystal clear water! something called, dear god, “Blue Hole!”), and the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I’d probably end up regretting it if I go there and don’t know how to dive. Here’s the kicker: I’m scared to death to actually do it. I have always had regular nightmares about being trapped underwater, usually in swimming pools; sometimes when I can’t hold my breath any longer and am about to pass out, I breathe in water and I choke, and sometimes I can actually breathe underwater, which doesn’t make sense and also doesn’t make it any less scary. When I’m not dreaming, I usually do fine in swimming pools and the ocean, so I don’t have a water phobia or anything of that nature. After a lot of consideration, the thought of swimming with the fishes and coral reefs just slightly outweighed my completely unreasonable fear, so I told K1 that if she took lessons, so would I. B was kind enough to do all the research, and so now Doc and I each own a mask, snorkel, fins and wetsuit boots, know the names of all the equipment bits and pieces, and can use an incredibly complicated dive chart table thingy. We watched a 3 hour DVD and answered a whole bunch of quiz questions this past week (K1 and I both experienced heart-pounding apprehension […]

Read Moresay ‘scuba’… it sounds funny!

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