SCUBA, Part II

Sorry about the jumbled incoherence of my last post. I'd like to blame it on exhaustion from my day of diving, but the more likely story is that I was doing eight million things at once (plus being tired).

So guess what? I love scuba diving! We did two dives on Thursday and two on Friday (today). I felt a lot more comfortable with the gear yesterday and didn't have any trouble breathing normally and steadily and maintaining control of my nerves so as to not panic. The only minor issue I had was with equalizing my ears. If you've ever flown and had your ears pop during take-off or landing, then you already have an idea of what your ears would feel like if you went 10-18 meters (30-60 feet) below sea level. Pressure in your ears is an easy thing to avoid and/or fix, but if you're thinking of a bunch of other things at the same time (like remembering to breathe!), it's also easy to forget about equalizing your ears. I was very proud of myself yesterday and was really looking forward to today's dives.

(Time for a buddy check before we hit the water.)

  

Today I was slightly nervous about the depth we'd be going to - 60 feet!! - but mostly I was just sad that we only had two more dives to do. My dive instructor gave me an Actifed tablet today to help with the sinus and ear pressure so equalizing my ears was no trouble at all. In fact, the last two dives were pretty much perfect. I felt comfortable, not panicky, was able to look around and take everything in, just perfect. Like I'd been doing it for years, lol. We saw all kinds of fish that I probably won't even remember the names of, but some of them included angelfish, butterfly fish, barracuda, and goby fish. The coolest things we saw, though, were stingrays and the LARGEST grouper I'd ever seen before. It was seriously massive.

(Our dive class - James, Katie, Alex, Brendan, me) 

I'm now an official, certified open water scuba diver! My certification is good worldwide and forever. I'm already thinking of where I'll be able to dive next. Malaysia? Indonesia? Australia? All are definite possibilities. Well, except for Australia which is a must. The whole reason I wanted to get my certification was so I could dive the Great Barrier Reef.