Dive! Dive! Dive!
Because Jason and I were going to take Advanced Open Water on Saturday and Sunday and I hadn't used my new scuba gear, or been diving in the ocean, or boat diving at all for that matter, I decided that I would schedule a pre-class dive day for at least Jason and I, and Roland if he wanted to (he did). So I called up the place and booked us on a guided 1/2 day, 2 tank dive. Sweet.
The morning of, we got up and had some delicious bagels and cream cheese. Roland has taken to making flavored cream cheese by buying cream cheese and mixing in the yummies. I personally love the scallion one, especially after it's been mixed together for a day or so, because the flavors all blend together. He also bought some nice bagels from a local bagelry and it was a lovely breakfast. They must have tasted all right to Jason as he had two! Which, as he mentions in his blog, was a good thing because we sort of ended up skipping lunch accidentally. With all the getting ready and getting to the dive shop it got to be too late to do anything about it. Plus I wasn't really hungry again until we were done diving and back and the dock getting ready to drive home so I worked out fine, for me at least. I think Jason was about to try eating his wetsuit by that point though.
Anyway, we drove to the dive site and I was all worried about being there by 12:00 like the dude told me. We got there with a few minutes to spare (through sheer force of worry) and then when we went in he told us that we had about a half an hour to wait on the dock. Creepers, if I had known I wouldn't have worried quite so much. I still would have come at 12:00 like you told me, but I wouldn't have been all "we're going to miss the boat" and all that. Sheesh. Then, after waiting our half hour on the dock (they do have a nice area with picnic tables) we got all of our stuff loaded on the boat, Roland went off to get his rental gear, and I started trying to figure out what I was supposed to be doing. I did a lot of watching the other seemingly more experienced people, but still felt very unsure. Roland came back and we started setting up our stuff and generally getting ready to leave. I asked Jason to come over and check over my gear to make sure I hadn't made any mistakes and he told me I was about to put my octopus on backwards. I looked again and couldn't figure out what he was talking about. So our conversation when something like this:
Susan: No I'm not.
Jason: Yes you are, it's backwards, you don't want that hitting you in the head.
Susan: No I'm not, look the round circle parts line up and the pointy screw part goes in the pointy screw part shaped depression.
Jason: .....Huh....I'll be right back
At which point he went over to his rig and flipped his over. For a minute I thought I was going insane, but it turns out I wasn't.
As we headed out to sea, the first leg of the ride was very nice, smooth, and slow as we were in a no wake zone. Then the dive master dude called us all over for a briefing and went over the features of the boat, and the dive, and all that good stuff. He told us that our first dive was going to be a quick drop, with us going in negatively buoyant (just jump in and sink right away, none of this floating at the surface stuff) and the boat couldn't stick around because of the danger to other divers. So it was super important for everyone to have enough weight and be ready to go. So now I'm getting a little worried, having never done a dive in the ocean I don't know for sure how much weight I need (and neither does Roland or Jason for the matter). I really didn't worry too much about Roland at that point because normally I float with a vengeance and he sinks like a rock. Before going to get weights I chat with the dive master dude and say that we are all pretty new and any help/suggestions he has are more than welcome. I'm trying to tell the guy we might need a little extra help, but as it will become clear later that wasn't enough I should have grabbed the loud speaker and blared to everyone on the boat that we didn't know what we were doing and needed some extra assistance. We walked back and got weights from a different dive master dude. Roland tells the guy what he used to wear in fresh water with a 7mm wetsuit and they guy decides he needs about 5 pounds less than that. What? So going into salt water (more floaty) you are taking weight away from Roland? Plus I mentioned we were new right? New diver=more weight. But he's the expert right, so Roland takes his weights and a belt back to our tanks and I tell the guy I used to wear 16 pound in fresh water with a 7mm suit. Just seconds after taking Dave down in weight he gives me 16 pounds of weight, exactly what I had used in fresh. Ok, you're the expert dude. So we finish setting up while the boat exits the no wake zone and picks up speed. The guys says once Cap'n Stu gives a shout out we will have about 10 minutes 'til we need to be ready to jump in the water. I'm getting a little nervous now, this is my first boat and ocean dive and it's going to be all military style? Seriously, in the briefing the guy said once we got there someone was going to be yelling "Dive, Dive, Dive" and we all had to get in and down ASAP. This isn't turning out too well.
So Cap'n Stu gives the 10 minute warning and we start seriously kitting up and trying to be ready on time. Maybe it was 10 minutes, maybe because of all the stuff going on it felt shorter, but what felt like 3 minutes later good old Cap'n Stu is telling us we were at our destination. Crap, Crap, Crap. I'm barely ready and Roland is still struggling with his rental wetsuit (even if he doesn't buy anything else I think I'm going to insist him getting his own wetsuit). It was very stressful. Finally, we all make it in our stuff and off the boat. I do a lame little giant stride and start to descend, while rotating around so I can watch Roland and Jason. Jason gets down about 10 feet (I'm going a little slower to accommodate my ears and whatnot) and there is Roland floating away on the surface. Still floating, still floating, not sinking, he is still up there. Crap, what is wrong. I bob back up to the surface and ask. He can't sink. He has taken all the air out of his BC (actually he didn't have any in there to begin with) and still can't get his head under. Making us feel a little better is another dude who is also underweighted. The boat (even though I think it wasn't supposed to) came back around for another pass and Roland was able to swim back for some more weights. I didn't know it at the time, but the guy on the boat just pulled open his wetsuit front and dumped weight down into it, so Roland spent the entire dive with a 4 pound hard weight clunking around in his wetsuit. Yikes!
After that we were able to get down for a while and look at some coral and some fishes, but it wasn't really relaxing and I didn't really have a lot of attention to spare for the beautiful ocean. Roland used up a lot of air getting his weights squared away and with that extra surface swim was hoovering pretty bad. He ended up running out of air first (duh) and we thumbed the dive after about 17 minutes. Overall a very stressful and very unsatisfying dive. We climbed back in the boat, no mean feat in itself (I think I'm going to have to start lifting weights in my arms for that. You pretty much end up pulling yourself up by your arms-define 'yourself' as you in a wetsuit with a metal tank strapped to your back and all of it is dripping wet. I'm clearly a bit of a pansy there), and pretty much collapsed on the benches. The dude told us we had about 10 minutes to switch out our tanks and get ready for the next dive. I start switching out my tank and look over at Roland. He looks at me and suggests that he sits the second dive out. I feel really bad because this was supposed to be fun and clearly it is anything but. I tell him he should do what ever he feels like, that first dive was a bitch. So he decides to stay on the boat and Jason and I buddy up for the second dive. We are moving to a slightly different portion of the reef for this one.
Again after what feels like 3 minutes we're there and while I'm a little more ready than last time I'm still pretty frazzled. So the dive master says something like, don't worry about it, the boat can stick around for this one so we don't have to worry about going so fast or doing a negatively buoyant entrance. WHAT? and I say WHAT? again! You mean you could have taken us somewhere like this and we would have been able to fix the whole weight debacle with little to no stress. For crying out loud what are you trying to do to us?
Well, Roland stayed on the boat and had a lie-down and Jason and I heaved ourselves back into the ocean. This dive was about as different from the first one and could be. It was slow and relaxing with tons of fish and cool coral. Jason and I had a great time, and I know Roland would have too. Fie on the people who have forgotten what it is like to be a newbie. Fie on you. I just hope that Roland will be willing to go back sometime even though his first boat/ocean diving experience, well...sucked.
The morning of, we got up and had some delicious bagels and cream cheese. Roland has taken to making flavored cream cheese by buying cream cheese and mixing in the yummies. I personally love the scallion one, especially after it's been mixed together for a day or so, because the flavors all blend together. He also bought some nice bagels from a local bagelry and it was a lovely breakfast. They must have tasted all right to Jason as he had two! Which, as he mentions in his blog, was a good thing because we sort of ended up skipping lunch accidentally. With all the getting ready and getting to the dive shop it got to be too late to do anything about it. Plus I wasn't really hungry again until we were done diving and back and the dock getting ready to drive home so I worked out fine, for me at least. I think Jason was about to try eating his wetsuit by that point though.
Anyway, we drove to the dive site and I was all worried about being there by 12:00 like the dude told me. We got there with a few minutes to spare (through sheer force of worry) and then when we went in he told us that we had about a half an hour to wait on the dock. Creepers, if I had known I wouldn't have worried quite so much. I still would have come at 12:00 like you told me, but I wouldn't have been all "we're going to miss the boat" and all that. Sheesh. Then, after waiting our half hour on the dock (they do have a nice area with picnic tables) we got all of our stuff loaded on the boat, Roland went off to get his rental gear, and I started trying to figure out what I was supposed to be doing. I did a lot of watching the other seemingly more experienced people, but still felt very unsure. Roland came back and we started setting up our stuff and generally getting ready to leave. I asked Jason to come over and check over my gear to make sure I hadn't made any mistakes and he told me I was about to put my octopus on backwards. I looked again and couldn't figure out what he was talking about. So our conversation when something like this:
Susan: No I'm not.
Jason: Yes you are, it's backwards, you don't want that hitting you in the head.
Susan: No I'm not, look the round circle parts line up and the pointy screw part goes in the pointy screw part shaped depression.
Jason: .....Huh....I'll be right back
At which point he went over to his rig and flipped his over. For a minute I thought I was going insane, but it turns out I wasn't.
As we headed out to sea, the first leg of the ride was very nice, smooth, and slow as we were in a no wake zone. Then the dive master dude called us all over for a briefing and went over the features of the boat, and the dive, and all that good stuff. He told us that our first dive was going to be a quick drop, with us going in negatively buoyant (just jump in and sink right away, none of this floating at the surface stuff) and the boat couldn't stick around because of the danger to other divers. So it was super important for everyone to have enough weight and be ready to go. So now I'm getting a little worried, having never done a dive in the ocean I don't know for sure how much weight I need (and neither does Roland or Jason for the matter). I really didn't worry too much about Roland at that point because normally I float with a vengeance and he sinks like a rock. Before going to get weights I chat with the dive master dude and say that we are all pretty new and any help/suggestions he has are more than welcome. I'm trying to tell the guy we might need a little extra help, but as it will become clear later that wasn't enough I should have grabbed the loud speaker and blared to everyone on the boat that we didn't know what we were doing and needed some extra assistance. We walked back and got weights from a different dive master dude. Roland tells the guy what he used to wear in fresh water with a 7mm wetsuit and they guy decides he needs about 5 pounds less than that. What? So going into salt water (more floaty) you are taking weight away from Roland? Plus I mentioned we were new right? New diver=more weight. But he's the expert right, so Roland takes his weights and a belt back to our tanks and I tell the guy I used to wear 16 pound in fresh water with a 7mm suit. Just seconds after taking Dave down in weight he gives me 16 pounds of weight, exactly what I had used in fresh. Ok, you're the expert dude. So we finish setting up while the boat exits the no wake zone and picks up speed. The guys says once Cap'n Stu gives a shout out we will have about 10 minutes 'til we need to be ready to jump in the water. I'm getting a little nervous now, this is my first boat and ocean dive and it's going to be all military style? Seriously, in the briefing the guy said once we got there someone was going to be yelling "Dive, Dive, Dive" and we all had to get in and down ASAP. This isn't turning out too well.
So Cap'n Stu gives the 10 minute warning and we start seriously kitting up and trying to be ready on time. Maybe it was 10 minutes, maybe because of all the stuff going on it felt shorter, but what felt like 3 minutes later good old Cap'n Stu is telling us we were at our destination. Crap, Crap, Crap. I'm barely ready and Roland is still struggling with his rental wetsuit (even if he doesn't buy anything else I think I'm going to insist him getting his own wetsuit). It was very stressful. Finally, we all make it in our stuff and off the boat. I do a lame little giant stride and start to descend, while rotating around so I can watch Roland and Jason. Jason gets down about 10 feet (I'm going a little slower to accommodate my ears and whatnot) and there is Roland floating away on the surface. Still floating, still floating, not sinking, he is still up there. Crap, what is wrong. I bob back up to the surface and ask. He can't sink. He has taken all the air out of his BC (actually he didn't have any in there to begin with) and still can't get his head under. Making us feel a little better is another dude who is also underweighted. The boat (even though I think it wasn't supposed to) came back around for another pass and Roland was able to swim back for some more weights. I didn't know it at the time, but the guy on the boat just pulled open his wetsuit front and dumped weight down into it, so Roland spent the entire dive with a 4 pound hard weight clunking around in his wetsuit. Yikes!
After that we were able to get down for a while and look at some coral and some fishes, but it wasn't really relaxing and I didn't really have a lot of attention to spare for the beautiful ocean. Roland used up a lot of air getting his weights squared away and with that extra surface swim was hoovering pretty bad. He ended up running out of air first (duh) and we thumbed the dive after about 17 minutes. Overall a very stressful and very unsatisfying dive. We climbed back in the boat, no mean feat in itself (I think I'm going to have to start lifting weights in my arms for that. You pretty much end up pulling yourself up by your arms-define 'yourself' as you in a wetsuit with a metal tank strapped to your back and all of it is dripping wet. I'm clearly a bit of a pansy there), and pretty much collapsed on the benches. The dude told us we had about 10 minutes to switch out our tanks and get ready for the next dive. I start switching out my tank and look over at Roland. He looks at me and suggests that he sits the second dive out. I feel really bad because this was supposed to be fun and clearly it is anything but. I tell him he should do what ever he feels like, that first dive was a bitch. So he decides to stay on the boat and Jason and I buddy up for the second dive. We are moving to a slightly different portion of the reef for this one.
Again after what feels like 3 minutes we're there and while I'm a little more ready than last time I'm still pretty frazzled. So the dive master says something like, don't worry about it, the boat can stick around for this one so we don't have to worry about going so fast or doing a negatively buoyant entrance. WHAT? and I say WHAT? again! You mean you could have taken us somewhere like this and we would have been able to fix the whole weight debacle with little to no stress. For crying out loud what are you trying to do to us?
Well, Roland stayed on the boat and had a lie-down and Jason and I heaved ourselves back into the ocean. This dive was about as different from the first one and could be. It was slow and relaxing with tons of fish and cool coral. Jason and I had a great time, and I know Roland would have too. Fie on the people who have forgotten what it is like to be a newbie. Fie on you. I just hope that Roland will be willing to go back sometime even though his first boat/ocean diving experience, well...sucked.
posted by Susan at 9:27 AM
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