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I started my Advanced Open Water scuba course today.

Its basically five specialty-type dives. I also get to complete another specialty along the way.

Something I didn’t know when we began our decent to 95 feet is that sugar water is heavier than salt water. My instructor, Sascha, brought a bottle of Coca Cola down and several straws (one for each person). Once opened, we each took turns at sipping pop from the bottle.

The bottle itself wasn’t inverted or anything. Justed opened slowly to release the little bit of air without stirring up the pop.

Definitely try this if you get the chance.

You ever notice how almost every blog/journal/personal-news/etc site has a “Sorry I haven’t written anything recently” post?

Here’s one from me.

Basically, I’ve been riding life’s coat-tails for the past month. Working. Sleeping. Working. Traveling to work.

Which is to say that, had something interesting come up, I would have wrote about it.

For those of you that need more detail (and really, who wouldn’t?), here they are:

1. Received my c-cards (kind of like a driver’s license for scuba diving).

   

2. Signed up for my advanced open water course. 5 different kinds of dives and one additional specialty to add to the list.

3. Seriously considering charging forward toward Dive Master. It requires a few additional courses, but I’m up for it.

5. Got a new black and white machine at work (Xerox 4110). Awesome and super fast. Especially when you run Cornwall through it (Cornwall is a type of semigloss cardstock). Too bad it doesn’t know when it has completed a job.

   

6. I’d write about the new coworker and how she’s showing everyone but me up at work. But that would make her feel self-concious and everyone-else jealous. So I won’t.

That’s it for now. Later.

Aside from giant plankton blooms and a 5 hour wait for the ferry, the weekend went excellent.

We started at Whytecliff park on Saturday—finishing most of our required skills tests. Visibility was all of 2 feet (due to the bloom…bloody plankton). Not that that stopped us from having a look around.

On Sunday, we went to Sechelt, on the Sunshine Coast. These swims seemed easier than Saturday’s—maybe due to a more relaxed setting or the Nitrox (enriched air). Visibility was definately better…especially on our second dive where we dipped to just above the 60ft mark.

There were plenty of creatures and plants, but the coolest was being within a few feet of a huge school of fish.

The trip back took a while. The ferry wasn’t running at it’s standard time.

I wasn’t going to let that spoil a perfectly good weekend though…especially since I’m now a certified diver!

From left to right—Me, Bobby (my buddy team), Sasha (the instructor), and Heike (Sasha’s friend and dive-master extraordinaire…even if she was off-duty)

The air we breathe is made mostly of two elements. Roughly an 79/21 Nitrogen/Oxygen split. There are various trace elements, but they are mostly insignificant.

Nitrogen can kill!

Normally, Nitrogen doesn’t build up in our bodies. We expel it quite easily. But, as a diver, this gas builds up over time and if you fail to pay attention, can lead to the bends (Nitrogen Narcosis) and possible death.

Which leads into the use of enriched air. By increasing the amount of Oxygen, you obviously decease the amount of Nitrogen. Reducing Nitrogen, increases your bottom times while deceasing your intake of this gas.

Oxygen can kill!

Normally, Oxygen is easily metabolised into our bodies—it has to be for us to use it. But, as a diver, the increased pressure at depth can cause this gas to have adverse effects on our body—most commonly, shutting down our central nervous system, causing convultions which then lead to us spitting out our regulator (the thing that supplies us with air) and drowning. Breathing pure Oxygen will kill you in 20 feet of water (Oxygen Toxicity).

So the objective is to stike a fine balance between Nitrogen build-up and Oxygen absorption. You are only allowed so much in a day of each.

For this you are taught charts and formuli that, while not being advanced calculus, are intensive none the less.

You are forced to trust them implicitly. They are based on decades of research (military, private and public sectors) and there use has been proven successful with time. Very few accidents occur when using enriched air properly.

Try to keep that thought in mind while I’m floating under 40-50 feet of ocean breathing 36% oxygen this weekend.

Yesterday, I had my fourth contained water dive.

But before that, we had to do a ten minute survival swim. As mentioned earlier, I don’t remember much about floating.

In a fret, I looked up some basics (mainly on teaching children to float) and generally prayed that the float test wouldn’t happen.

It did.

I got in the water, kicked back, breathed deep, and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

I was floating…easily! I could have went 20 minutes as opposed to the regular ten.

This may have been due to my natural bouyancy or my quick re-education on-line, but because I believe people don’t generally get a “muscle memory” exercise entirely correct on the first try, I have to believe that part of it was retained information from years ago.

And so I say thanks to Uncle Dale, for teaching me. I remember being pretty sloppy back then, but I’ve got it figured now.

PS. The rest of the dive was hugely successful too.

I’ve known for a while that I was getting a little heavy around the midsection.

I even stepped on the industrial scale at work to weigh myself and it said GET OFF! Actually, it said “Error”, but I think the meaning is pretty clear.

When I jumped in the pool for lesson 3 of my scuba lessons, imagine my surprise when I couldn’t reduce bouyancy enough to sink to the bottom.

That’s right. Fat Floats!

Probably didn’t help that I was tricked out in my new gear. Really just some fins, a snorkel and mask, but the neoprene from the boots (they’re adjustible strap fins) and my previously purchased vest are adding to my bouyancy.

My instructor took off his belt and tied it to my tank for added weight.

That helped.

He said everyone breathes deep/heavy at first (I tend to out of the water as well). Control comes with experience and is easier in the ocean.

That much was obvious, as he finished the dive without his belt—maintaining his levels with lung pressure alone. He even demonstrated a hover without it.

I will practice more.

That its much easier for me to Scuba than it is to empty my ears.

I seem to suffer from a non-painful, but still irritating, version of swimmer’s ear. It took me hours after class last night to finally purge them (thanks to a hint that pouring a little rubbing alcohol or hydrogen pyroxide in would help to both envelop the water and protect against more serious infection).

I also hurt like hell after having to swim eight lengths of the pool. I’ve never swam lengths. Ever. Come to think of it, I don’t remember taking anything other than a few swimming lessons when I was really young (I’m thinking four or five-ish). I learned to float from my uncle (Uncle Dale) and I don’t do that well either (that’s not a slight against his teaching ability. I just don’t remember alot about that). Most of my other normal swimming is self taught.

On a brighter note, we were in the deep end and had to take our masks completely off—only breathing from the regulator for a minute. And we did an Out of Air simulation—where the instructor, Sasha (who is awesome, by the way. We’re learning a ton), turned off our air supply. We actually got to see the guage on our dive computers drop and feel what it was to take our last breaths from the tank (you feel it before you’re completely empty), at which point he opens the valve, allowing you to breath again.

I actually breathed as much as I could before giving the Out of Air signal—draining what little air remained in the regulator first stage (the valve and tube leading to the regulator, known formaly as the second stage).

Air surrounds us every moment of every day we’re above ground, but even at ten meters deep, it becomes a precious commodity not to be taken lightly.

I feel strangely at peace in the water, in spite of that fact.

Dear Mr. Dive Instructor,

Please ensure that I get a substantial amount of chlorinated water in my mask so that when I do the Mask Clear, small amounts can travel up my nose burning anything and everything.

I really have to much hair in there anyway and not having to trim it all the time would be nice.

Thanks,

-David

Actually, outside of the chlorine thing, I had a lot of fun at my first scuba lesson. It isn’t as difficult as I thought it would be and the people—instructor and classmates alike—are pretty cool.

Now, I have a whole lot of reading to do before the next lesson.