December 30, 2008 In two days, Kevin and I will continue a tradition that started out three New Year's Day's ago. Going up to Fantasy Lake scuba park to do the first dive of the year. The first year I had been with Michael. I had just received my open water certification but wasn't certified to dive with a dry suit. A lot of divers just put one on and go for it but there are a lot of things that can go wrong diving in a dry suit. What happens if the inflation hose to your suit gets stuck and you blow up like the Michelin man? You're going to go streaking to the surface like a flare. That is bad. What happens if the air that is trapped in your suit, in an effort to keep yourself warm, ends up all in your feet? You can fly to the surface FEET first. If you go too deep and the valve on your suit isn't working, the water compresses you and your suit compresses you and you can become a very uncomfortable vacuum sealed diver that's freezing your ass off. Not to mention how the dry suit will change your buoyancy and how much weight you dive with and where it should be distributed throughout your gear and rig. So, that first year, I never did the dive. I love diving. After working at Capital Scuba every weekend for almost a year, I ended up getting a lot of certifications. That's what Dave would do, I'd work, he'd teach me a new technique. Some of them seem sort of stupid, like having a Boat Diver cert. I went out on a boat this past summer and didn't have that one but mostly that's common sense stuff that you can read about: secure your gear, if the oceans get rough you don't want everyone's tanks rolling around the deck. LISTEN to your Captain and Divemaster. They've usually been out to this place thousands of times. They will tell you how to return to the boat in case of an emergency. They will also tell you that if you surface and start waving your arms just because you're too far from the boat and don't feel like swimming back, you own them a six pack of either beer or soda, their choice. But I do have some certs that are important. My Rescue Diver certification, my VIP (visual inspection procedure) cert for making sure tanks are up to date and within DOT specs. Whatever you do during the taking apart, checking the o-rings, making sure there aren't any bad spots inside or on the outside of a tank, that's a big one. If you don't use the right cleaning tools, you can end up handing back a canister that is tainted. What happens if the diver gets hurt using your VIP'd tank? They depend on that tank to keep them ALIVE under water. It's not something to take lightly. Enough of that. :) Last year, Kevin and I went out and I did my real first new year's day dive with him. This will be our second. Diving doesn't make me claustrophobic and I've been diving in the quarry so much that it's actually sort of boring, seeing the same fish and same stuff over and over. But that's not why I do it. I do it because once your underwater, after you've got ALL your everloving gear on and trod down to the water, you're going to just jump in and DIVE. You can work on your buoyancy (HIGHLY important), you can work on your fin techniques (still mastering the frog kick and I still can't move backwards using just my fins ...argh!) but the feeling you get when you've got your balance and everything is in sync, there is no other feeling like gliding through the water with very little effort. It makes me focus on what I'm doing. Instead of worrying about every thing that isn't going right (money, problems with kids, problems with relationships, work, etc.), I can focus solely on the techniques I've learned in the past two years and it's very calming. No sounds except the comforting inhalations on the regulator and the exhalations and the bubbles. As clumsy and graceless as I can be on land (see tipping over backwards in my own stupid chair, falling UP the stairs), everyone has grace underwater. I do something that not very many people do. Scuba diving is a unique hobby and we circulate in a small community. I've never met another group that's quite as willing to lend gear or to try something new out that you don't have. The more experienced divers gladly give out advice and help. Even though I dive in a place I've been diving for a long time now, I still go through my gear and do a check before jumping in. I still plan a dive, I still think through scenarios. I love it.
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Recent Play List Nothing. Books Recently finished: It Only Takes A Moment - Mary Jane Clark Fiction, Drama, Thriller. No great twists or surprises here. Well written, great dialogue but a bit on the well worn path of many of its kind. Something For the Pain - Paul Austin A memoir about a man who decides to become an ER Doctor at the age of 27. He lives right here in the Raleigh/Chapel Hill area. Pretty good read.
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