Follow the Yellow Tanked Diver

This weekend Alex and I set off to complete our SCUBA certification with 4 open water dives, having completed all of our academic and pool requirements. We were set to do our dives at a local rock quarry but our instructor for our pool portion (D) wasn’t available, so we had a new person, S. When we arrived early Saturday morning, I was obviously anxious, having a new instructor I wasn’t used to, getting ready to go out in a new place that wasn’t nice and clear (and relatively shallow) like the pool.  D had told S all about us, including how I didn’t like clearing my mask and that I needed help with my buoyancy, so that’s what we worked on in our first dive.

We did a shore entry, slowly and carefully picking our way down a slope of gravel in full gear and heavy SCUBA tanks on our backs. Strapping our fins on in the water and pulling on the hoods and gloves, we swam out to a marked buoy and descended down to a city bus submerged below. On the roof of the bus we practiced clearing our masks and did regulator sweeps just so S could be make sure we were comfortable. We swam through the bus, which was a little weird and then set about just swimming around. I had difficulty (as I seemingly always do) with keeping off the bottom; I was especially trying to not hit the bottom of the lake because visibility was already lacking (in our first dive we could see about 20 feet in some places because we could see one end of the bus to the other) and anytime I brushed against the bottom or my fins kicked against it, I threw up a cloud of muck. In trying to adjust my buoyancy, at one point I put too much air in and at a more shallow depth, shot to the surface. Very frustrated, I tried to descend again and in descending didn’t equalize very well and my ear began throbbing to the point where I sincerely thought it would burst. I went back up again and couldn’t get it to pop. S came to the surface to see what was wrong and I thought I’d have to give up the dive. But the ear popped and I descended again.

The crazy thing about diving that I just can’t get my head around is that to descend, you “dump” air, decreasing the air in your BC by a power deflator. You know how you come up? Doing the same thing. So when you begin to feel yourself rising to the surface, you can try to dump air to go back down but at a certain point you go past the point of no return and now you are just shooting yourself even faster to the surface. Of course, it doesn’t help when you begin to panic (as I do), begin breathing faster and struggling/kicking fins.

I was disappointed with this first dive but S reassured me that I was dealing with the same problems most first time divers experience. I was convinced that the hood had trapped water in my ear, making it more difficult to equalize and as the water temperature was pretty warm (66 degrees, air temp was around 85), S said it should be fine. On the second dive we entered from the dock using the giant stride, descended, and took off to find a submerged plane Alex was interested in seeing. I was having more luck with my buoyancy, realizing that if I keep kicking my fins, I could swim along, just above the bottom. As we continued on, the water began to get colder and I had to keep equalizing. The water, which had been a cloudy, pale green in the first dive was now a clear, dark green. These are all clues that we were going much deeper than before.

Without my hood, my ears and my head were quickly ice cold. It was so cold, it hurt. I was following S, who had a yellow tank, and I tried to put the cold out of my mind and just concentrate on the yellow tank before me. I couldn’t see the bottom below me and I couldn’t see the surface above me; I felt as if we were swimming into an abyss or into space. Without context of surroundings or physical markers, it felt as if we were flying. I was miserable and thought about quitting but I felt that I kind of had ruined the first dive so I powered through. S kept checking to see if we were OK, and I kept telling her I was. After awhile I had just numbed to the cold and the pain and all of my being was focused on the yellow tank before me.

Eventually the water became warmer, the water became the cloudy pale green as before, and as we climbed to a more shallow depth, I again shot to the surface. This was later discovered to be in large part due to the fact that my tank, which had been heavy laden with air was now almost empty and very light.  I descended to rejoin S and Alex but it was time to come back up anyway. When we got to the surface, I looked around and asked “Where are we?”

We had gotten lost and had not meant to go to the deep area we had visited, which was 60 feet down (These open water dives usually don’t go deeper than 45 feet). I had told Alex repeatedly that I had never planned on going any deeper than 45 feet so I was all excited that I had done something so far out my comfort zone. We were now on the other side of the lake and as we were almost out of air, had to swim at the surface to the exit point. After the monster swim we had just done under water, suffice to say that I was exhausted by the time we were finished.

When we reviewed the dive later, S exclaimed over how cold she had been and knew we had to be cold too, marveling at how we kept just saying that we were OK. Alex had water in his ears (he still does) and my ears just ached from continuous popping/pressure.

The next day’s dives went similarly with a not terribly successful 1st dive and then a better, more comfortable 2nd dive. These dives were supposed to be navigation dives and Alex took the compass first, planning out our dive. He did a great job, taking us first to the bus and then to a platform with hoops to swim through to practice controlling my buoyancy (again). I had to grab one of the hoops to stop myself from shooting to the top again.

Later, Alex got a little turned around and while he and S were discussing the next place to go, I realized I again was headed toward the surface but managed to dump air and descend to correct it. Yay! (I know this sounds painfully boring and unimpressive but this was a major accomplishment).

It was my turn to lead us in the second dive and as we had STILL not yet seen the plane (we were supposed to see the plane the previous 3 dives), that was my main objective. I got a little lost headed to our first mark, the bus, but I was close and S pointed me over a bit. I set my next heading toward the plane and I started swimming. Being in front, not just following a yellow tank in front of me but instead just seeing nothingness in front of me but pale green water was kinda scary. But very exciting too!

I just kept swimming but Alex beside me grabbed my arm and pointed down. Below us was the plane. I had found it. We checked it out, went to a few other places and probably saw the most we had seen in any of the previous dives (really “exciting” things like a motorcycle, a “graveyard,” a boat, and a pink dentist chair) and then followed the ropes back to the bus where S presented us with our S-Cards, which was a very cool, ceremonious way to “officially” become certified.

This had happened on the previous dives but it was funny to be swimming and have a brim or a bass happen by. When we would stop for a while, they would come up to you and check you out, looking at the shiny parts of our equipment. As the lake is fed by a natural spring, the water didn’t smell icky or fishy and I was surprised by how clear the water really was.

So we’re certified. We plan to go diving while in Hawaii which is next week, so we got it in just in time! And have I conquered my fear of water? Maybe not totally but it’s definitely a step in the right direction.

Sorry for the long post but sometimes these are for me more than for you. It helps to just document everything I was thinking and all that happened; it’s amazing what details you forget over time.

So who out there is SCUBA certified? Let’s plan a dive vacation!

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