So, with many many thanks to the people who love me and push me when I don't go after the good opportunities I have, I was able to squeeze into a basic scuba class before leaving San Diego!
As I leave on Tuesday (for somewhere much colder) and the class is a week long, I am very happy to have been pushed when I was.
This one is the NAUI Basic Scuba course. Had I another week, I would be going for the Advanced Course, although, to be honest, after this weekend, I would be doing a week of something completely unrelated like horseback riding and THEN do the Advanced Course. This takes a lot out of you.
Previously, I have thought, "Ah, I should get in better shape because I need to meet the Navy standard," or, "because I'd like to keep up with my athletic boyfriend," or even, "because I am too big." (This last one is a blatant lie, largely fed because I've been focusing on events that I'm not precisely built for, and completely ignoring those that I'm ideally suited to.)
After this week, lifting. Lifting, and endurance. I could justify an entire new running and workout program with the sole focus of being fit for diving - and I'm already considering it.
Diving is marvelous. I have a lot of trouble explaining it, though. There are these jewels of seconds that I find down there. It's more than the weightlessness, although that's cool. It's more than being able to explore an environment that I'm not made to survive in, although I love that. There's just something about being down there.
But GETTING down there is something that I have to want.
Diving itself is not hard. The act of descending, exploring, keeping track of my buddy, my remaining air, current depth, time before I have to return, swimming through the ocean, and ascending - that's all good.
But! Let us remember, the ocean is not a place that humans were designed for! There is necessary survival gear!
Wetsuit, hoods, boo
ties - keep diver warm. Water snatches body heat away about 25 times faster than air does.Weights, buoyancy control vest - human body is naturally buoyant, these allow the diver to reach the bottom or remain floating at the top, depending on the inflation of the BC.
Cylinder, regulators - most iconic part of scuba, carrying one's air along, and the couple of stops to keep 2000 PSI from blasting a diver out of the water every time he/she inhales.
Mask - turns out human eyes are designed to see through air*, and so need air between the pupils and the water in order to see detail through the water.
Snorkel - for any swimming at the surface; diver doesn't need to use up air, but we're designed to have the eyes and breathing orifices on the same side of the body, which doesn't work so well for surface swimming
Fins - Method of propulsion. Also, personal note - having tried both paddle fins and split fins, I HIGHLY recommend split fins. They are wonderful.
*I'm nearsighted, and as a kid, I thought things were blurry underwater because my contacts didn't work underwater.
It's not the most I've ever carried, but it's enough to keep anyone but Special Forces from jumping around.
Then, there is the little business of surf. Now, I grew up in a region with lakes. Many lakes. We don't HAVE surf, save for the Great Lakes, and that's not the same thing. Surf, I have concluded, is like the safety rails on a ship. God put it there to keep things from wandering into the ocean by accident. One can choose to leap the rails of a ship, just as one can choose to try to penetrate the surf after having been manhandled and thrashed upside the head twice.
There may have been an accident. I perhaps may have swallowed a little too much seawater. It's possible that, while traveling out through the surf, I stopped to wait for my buddy to catch up, since he was having more trouble with his fins than I had (towing was not feasible at this point). It would be likely that standing still while still inside the surf zone, one would perhaps be pushed further towards shore, say, into waist- or thigh- deep water. There is a REASON we put fins on in chest-deep water - you can't walk forwards in them, and you can't get your feet back under you when you're getting pounded and they're three feet long. You need to come up to breathe, you can't stand up because you can't get your feet under you, and the next wave keeps coming in and pushing you down again. I may have at some point gotten thrashed and dragged back to knee-deep water. There, I struggled to get my fins off, stood, and calmed down. Before charging in again.
Well, you can't QUIT. That would just be silly.
My buddy came back for me, figured out what happened, and we set out again. The second time, I lost my mask - THEN I was just MAD. Went charging after it, recovered, and we eventually fought through. I do not care for surf.
Then, one begins a long paddle-kick out to where one wishes to drop. This isn't like bicycling or running, or even most of swimming. It's using all the same muscles in a totally different way. It's like using your abs to control your knees. But it's peaceful, if the weather's good. Waves at this point are from the wind, not water columns hitting the bottom, and you go up, and down, and over, but they don't break on your head. And when the two of you (really, the leader - always choose before you go out who of the pair is leading) think you've gone far enough, you descend.
And THIS is when diving gets fun. You see things that you couldn't see anywhere else. You can play with them, if you know what they are and that they won't sting you, (My instructor has a great story about his dad playing with what he thought was a dead shark until he punched it in the head). Our instructors teach us, "Take only pictures, leave only bubbles." Ideally, we control our buoyancy, and don't touch the bottom unless there's something on it that we want to touch.
And you can SEE so much. So much that you would never get to see if you hadn't come down here.
We can also see what's called a thermocline. This is a layer of water probably ten degrees colder than the one we're in right now. It shimmers a little, and feels heavier when we get into it. This is what leeches our energy most, I think.
Wrestling with a wetsuit (ours were still wet today), carrying the weight, fighting through the surf, and then the slow leech of body heat. I had breakfast, 2 Power Bars, 2 Clif Bars (these are my favorite), 2 bananas, and half a pound of peanut M&Ms, and I was STILL exhausted when I came back that night.
(Before you recommend anything to me: as of 12 hours before a dive, we can't have alcohol, anything acidic (bananas are about the only okay fruit), anything fried, anything dairy, or anything that would cause gas to build up inside us. Gas forming in one's body when one is under the weight of 3 atmospheres is no good thing.)
I'm so, so glad I did this. And I am so, so ready for a long nap. I would say, if it's like this, I would take one weekend every month to go diving, and practice swimming like this thrice every week in a pool, but every other weekend I would spend on something less taxing, like marathon training. :)
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