Who: Me, and 7 other people...6 from my class
What: Basic Scuba Diving Certification
When: July 11, 12 2009
Where: Lake Wazee, Black River Falls
Why: I have NO idea. Ok, not true. On our Honeymoon...I went snorkeling. Duane went diving. I enjoyed snorkeling so much that I got jealous of him being able to swim through the reefs I was floating above. So, I decided to get certified.
Dive 1
Lake Wazee has wooden, underwater decks (dive platforms) to use for diver training. These are marked in the water by floating buoys attached to them above the water. The purpose is so that Divers can go to the bottom and stand on the platform instead of stirring up silt while doing their training. It helps maintain visibility...and gives you something to hold onto as you work to control your buoyancy. The first dive was to one of these platforms, approx. 20-25 feet down.
The only serious issue was that my "buddy" was a gal named Jen who was attempting her openwater certification for the 3rd time. She was the one who hadn't been in our class at the pool because she had done that previously. We snorkeled out to the marker...and she panicked. She couldn't breathe through her snorkel and couldn't equalize her ears when she tried descending. In the end, she turned around and went back to shore. She never really off the surface which called a quick end to her 3rd attempt on the first dive. That left me "buddy-less"...which meant the dive instructors got to pair up with me. Lucky them! We descended down a line, worked on equalizing our ears, and worked on some basic skills (you can see the log of them if you're really interested in knowing which skills). For my part, the dive was eventless. The skills that we did were no problem. I was an expert at clearing my mask because I can't help but to smile or laugh at quirky fish, so I was constantly breaking the seal on my mask and having to clear it often. Good thing that's easy to do! Oh what fun...
Dive 2
After lunch we started this dive on our dive platform again to do some more skills but this time we didn't stay there. After our skills we took a "tour" of the area. Although we didn't go far because we were still really working on buoyancy control, we did get to do some actual diving (vs. dropping and staying in the same spot like we'd done previously). This was awesome. Our instructor found it particularly delightful to play around the thermocline at 26 feet. First a little above it, then a little below it...then swim right on it so you can feel the warm and the cold water at the same time. Much fun! All too soon, this dive was over.
Dive 3
Occurred after shedding all our gear except our snorkeling equipment. This dive lasted 5 minutes, and you did not need the scuba tanks for it. It was a simple "swim to me, skin dive, object recovery" thing. I picked up a rock. Oooooo...
End Day One, Start Day Two
Dive 4
The second day of diving was to start with our "deep dive". We were heading below the 2nd thermocline to about 60 feet. The water would be about 34 degrees. We weren't going to camp there for too long, but we were going to do it. The five of us started out (2 instructors, 3 students) and it wasn't too long before I had fin trouble. The clip popped open. Yup, lost a fin underwater. Fixed it. No sweat. Easy at 15 feet.
At the cliff edge we saw Casper the ghost and some underwater garden gnomes that were smiling at us while we began our decent. Yup...I'm just starting to make the decent (down a curved slope so still swimming while descending) when I lost my fin again. This time I wasn't quite as calm. See...I was trying to equalize ears, control the air in my BC, follow my instructor, deal with a chilly thermocline, and put a fin back on (while descending) all at the same time. I did it. Could do it again...but it took me a minute to gain proper control of my slightly panicked breathing. (My breath panicked unwittingly, I didn't...I knew which way was up!) Either way, I sucked A LOT of air fast.
I wasn't the only one having problems though. By the time we got down there, it was just me and one instructor. We didn't swim any farther, just hung out at the bottom waiting for the others to catch us. After about 5 minutes in the 34 degree water, I noticed that I would need to start ascent soon because of all the extra air I had sucked. So...I signaled my instructor and we began back tracking. We did find the others, the gal had lost her weight belt and she had been unable to descend. They went to the surface and corrected the problem. They still needed to do their decent so I got back to shore and had some extra time to bake in the sun during lunch. I also worked on the fin problem (had something caught in the buckle so it was grasping tightly).
Dive 5
This dive was back to our trusty platform to do the last of our skills. It only took a few minutes to complete what we had left. Then...we went on a big tour. We were allowed to go with our buddy...so it was our second instructor that went with me. This was actually a big bonus because Todd knew the area and knew what would be fun to see. We played around the first thermocline again (which felt like nothing after the deep dive earlier!) and went around a corner into some vegetation. There were fish everywhere, including some really grumpy looking trout that just stared us down only a few feet from our masks (here comes the giddy flooding problem again!. After swimming around the this area for a while we headed back in but instead of going to the surface and snorkeling in, we decided to weave around the fish cribs for a while. There were some really ugly one there, certainly not the colors of the Caribbean fish, but MAN was it fun. All the dives had been great, but this one was the best...
I'm still waiting for my dive card in the mail (which is why this post was so long in coming) but I do have the log book and the certificate. I still think I'll be nervous when diving, but only because it's still new. If I remember to take it slow, then there shouldn't be an issue and I'll get more and more comfortable. If you've ever thought about doing it, I HIGHLY recommend it. It's so unique and incredible.
