Scuba Diving

Although, Beth did a great job writing about it here and here, I thought I'd write a bit about our scuba adventure.

The first thing to know: it was fun.  The second thing to know: it wasn't easy.  The easiest part of the whole thing was probably being underwater; everything else was difficult.

The hard part starts with getting out to the dive site.  The Great Barrier Reef isn't exactly just off the shore.  I think we were a bit spoiled by snorkeling in Hanauma Bay in Hawaii:


To get to our dive site, we had to take a hour and a half boat ride in pretty choppy waters.  This pretty much guarenteed seasickness by most on the boat.  Earlier in the week, we went on a similar trip, this time to snorkel, not to dive.  Nearly everyone on the boat hurled at some point.  Some got so sick that they didn't even go out in the water to dive or snorkel!  I held off puking on the ride out to the reef.  However, after enjoying my first snorkeling session, I came back to the ladder on the boat, removing my snorkel before I was safely out of the water (such a rookie mistake); the choppy water delivered me a mouthful of sea water.  Added to my already queay stomach, this was too much.  I ralfed like 5 times right there on the back of the boat...lovely.

So, by the time it came to our scuba dives, we both had a bit better of a sea stomach...but not by much.  The other difficult part was being in the water (at the surface) with the scuba gear on.  
As mentioned, the water was pretty choppy, so we were bobbing around quite a bit (adding to the nausea); trying to listen to our instructor's shouts as to which way to swim to, when to begin our descent, trying to make sure I stayed with my buddy, Beth, who looks eerily similar to everyone else in full gear!

The last difficult part (for me) was the actual descent.  On the first day of our dive adventure, I didn't really have any problems descending.  However, on the second day, I had problems staying underwater.  Confused?  Allow me to explain.  A critical component of scuba diving is maintaining proper buyouancy.  You wear weights around your weights to compensate for the fact that your body does not naturally sink in water (especially if you have a little extra fat on your body, as I do!)  Plus, you have strapped on your back, a big hurkin' tank filled with air.  I don't think you have to play David Letterman's "Will it Float?" in order to figure out that that will keep you at the surface unless you add some weight!

So, on the second day, I had as many weights on me as the previous day.  We begin our descent down the descent line that is tied to the boat down to the bottom of the dive site.  This is difficult to hold onto as the rocking boat keeps tugging it up and down.  When we near the bottom, our instructor has us let go and swim the rest of the way down.  For some reason I start floating up to the top!  I try swimming downward, but it's no use and I just keep floating up to the surface!  This is generally not a good thing, as you are supposed to ascend at a slow rate, due to the nitrogen you've absorbed into your body through breathing the compressed air.  The next day I increased the weight on my belt and that helped a bit, but I still had some problems controlling my buyouancy, though.

The other difficult part about getting scuba certifed, is that you have to perform a number of skills underwater (we were 18 metres under).  You have to let your regulator (the thing that allows you to breath) out of your mouth, drop to your side, and then find it again and place it back in your mouth.  All without accidently breathing in any water. 

You have to remove your mask for 30 seconds and replace it, and clear the water out from your mask.  You do this by blowing air through your nose while tilting your head up, allowing the water to be blown out of the bottom of your mask.

Also occasionaly difficult is the fact that descending underwater puts great pressure on your ears.  You know how your ears plug up while ascending and descending in a plane?  The effect is much, much greater underwater.  You begin to feel pressure in just a few feet underwater.  You have to "equalize" your ears to reduce the pressure.  This is done by plugging your nose and trying to blow through your nose, forcing air through your ears.  You have to do this every couple of feet as you descend and as you ascend.

So, it's lots of work...but, was it worth it?  Absolutely!  It is lots of fun being underwater and floating around, seeing the fishes and the coral.  I highly recommend it!  I just wish that I could dive off a dock somewhere and not have to take the vomit comet out to sea next time!

How Cute is She?

Let me count the ways....


Happy Birthday Bethe! :)