Back to SCUBA

But first:  If you are a skater still reading this blog, I have a pair of Jackson Competitors (older style), size 3D with pink Paramount Blades, signed by Alissa Czisny, for sale.  They are scuffed up, but in skateable condition. Life left in blades, though used.  I'm asking $125 shipped ($25 of that is likely the shipping.)  Please let me know if you know anyone with small feet looking for skates!

So today I went back to the pool to re-take the second day of the SCUBA class.  I passed last time, but not without major panic, so I wanted to try again.  Today went MUCH better. There were two instances of minor panic, but I think I handled it mostly okay, and overall things went MUCH better.

The first thing we did was the snorkel skills. This time, I actually did the whole snorkel swim!  Last time I barely made it 10 meters and did the regular swim instead to pass the skill (you can do 300 m snorkel or 200 m swim).  I was very proud of myself for doing this- but I still do not like snorkeling. I feel like I hyperventilate the whole time, no matter what I do- I cannot get a good deep breath.  The fins also hurt my ankles kicking for so long (and I was doing good from the hip kicks, not bicycle kicks).  But I am SO proud of myself for doing this.   Then we did the tired diver tows, and that was no problem, again. (Though my buddy was harder to tow than Kevin, because he was a much larger man.)

I skipped the float to get my gear together (I'm a master of floating, sadly.  We found out that Kevin, who is absolute non-floatable deadweight, can float if he puts his ankles on top of mine.  That' how buoyant I am.  I need to work to get rid of some of this buoyancy!)  I remembered how all the gear got together and me and my buddy were the first ready and the first to hit the water.

The giant stride into the water was no problem at all.  This pool had a much steeper drop off (like 2 feet) from the edge to the water, so it was a long fall. I'm glad I was able to practice that, since I don't know what the boat will be like.

Then my buddy and I swam around a bit, practice regulator in/out, I did the oral inflate of the BCD- it was going well. I was pretty happy, though honestly, still not REAL comfortable underwater, but doing fine.

When the class got together, since I was buddied up with someone, I just stayed as a normal participant in the class (my original plan was to do the oral inflate of the BCD, then just practice regulator skills- I think this worked better.)  We started with the fin pivot using oral inflate of the BCD, and I had NO PROBLEMS!!! I was so proud of myself.  Then we did the hover and I think I did better than last time (when I kept crashing to the ground).  They didn't have me take off my BCD and put it back on, but that isn't something you do much of- it likely would have taken me forever. The final skill on this time down was to take the weights out of your pockets and put them back in. I wasn't able to do it last time, and then had no trouble at all this time. In fact, I was the first one done.  YAY! Things were looking good.


After this, we surfaced for more instructions and then went back down.  This was where my first freak out happened, on the same skill as last time. No mask swim- I swam just fine, and then I went to put my mask back on. I couldn't get it to clear. After about 8 tries, I now had so much water up my nose I couldn't get breaths anymore. I thumbed up, and needed to get to the surface to breathe.  The effing instructor HELD ME DOWN and wouldn't let me surface.  I think he wanted to encourage me to give it another try, but no, I had tried enough, and I wanted to breathe without water in my throat. I fought him a bit (this is all like 2 seconds) and he let me surface, where I was choking water and gasping for air.  It only took a few seconds to regain breath, he told me the problem was that my nose piece wasn't correctly over my nose, and then stayed with me to let me calm down.  I told him he could go back underwater to keep the class moving, and when I was ready I would just get in the back of the line and go again.  I'm again proud of myself for this- because I was able to calm myself down quickly and go back and do it again with no anxiety.  The second time, I again had no problem with the swim, and then couldn't get the mask to clear. This time, after 2 tries clearing, I calmly checked the position of the nose, and then all around the mask. On one side, the plastic skirt was tucked under itself, so not sealed. I straightened that out, cleared the mask and signaled OK, so I did it, and I know more things to check if it doesn't go smoothly the first time next time.  But I really do feel like I did my best to spend time trying before freaking out the first time, but there is a point where I think it is normal to say "I'm not getting it, I'd like to breathe."  Overall, I was MUCH calmer than last time.

The next skill is where my second freakout occurred- out of air swim on the alternate.  My buddy and I had practiced me switching my regulator in and out, and also taking his alternate. I had noticed his alternate was breathing in a bit of water, but didn't think it was much of a problem.  Well, here, it turned out to be a problem.  I took his alternate, and four or five breaths I still couldn't get one that didn't have water in it; everytime more and more water was getting in my mouth. I was blowing out, I was using the purge valve, I couldn't get it clear.  So I put back my primary in, but by then I had a lot of water in my windpipe and couldn't get a clear breath. I thumbed up, and AGAIN the guy held me down for a second, and I kicked against him and surfaced.  This was much worse than the last surfacing- because I was seriously gasping for air and choking on water.  This is when I realized how easily it is for a panicked diver to down on the surface (no, I was not in danger here)- I was so busy gasping, and trying to tread water to fight against my weights and my tank, it never occurred to me to press the power inflator for buoyancy.  In a real emergency, I might not think to ditch weights. When you are panicked, thought doesn't happen.  The instructor had come up with me, pressed my power inflator for me, I threw my mask off (I did NOT put it calmly on my forehead where I like to rest it but can't due to "panicked diver" BS- that thing flew off so I could breathe!) and got some breaths.  The instructor asked me if I was okay and I said "no, I can't breathe" and then immediately said "oh, wait- I'm talking, I'm okay, give me a second".  So it took a bit longer, but I was able to gain my rational behavior back, and explained to the instructor how much water I was getting in my mouth, even with cautious breaths.  He went down and checked the guys octo and came back and told me I wasn't crazy- it was leaking a bit, you just have to use your tongue as a splash guard and breathe carefully... UH, Kevin is getting a high quality octo, or I'm stealing his primary, because if I'm ever truly out of air, there is no way "breathe carefully" is going to be happening... 

So the instructor did the exercise with the other guy and then had me do it again. Again, I was getting water in, so I switched back to my primary. I just shook my head that I couldn't do it.  So he had me do it with HIS octo, which didn't leak at all, but I really had to bite down on to get it to stay in my mouth when we were swimming, but the skill was no problem.  So to any future buddies- please have very well maintained equipment!!! 

It was around this point that I had to get extra weights because I just could NOT stay down. Turned out my tank was leaking a bit (they decided to not replace the o-ring because I didn't really need much air for the class anyway) and was down to about 800 PSI- and it is amazing how much difference not having the air is. I sunk like crazy and he called me "maybe a bit overweighted" during the check.

Afterwards we came to the surface and did BCD off/on, and weight removal (harder on the surface because of the inflated BCD).

Then we just swam around with our buddies. My buddy was excellent and practiced out of air drills with me again, and I was able to breathe around the water a bit better (though we did it in the shallow end).

I'm going to do the open water checkout in two weeks. Here's hoping it goes well. Today was not perfect, but it was definitely much better than last week, and I think overall I was rational and didn't have freakouts over nothing like last time, and for the most part my regulator in/out was much better. (I do want to look for a smaller mouthpiece before we go to Cozumel- my jaw is killing me; it's like going to the dentist having to hold my mouth open to fit the regulator in.)

The only thing I had a real hard time with that we didn't practice again was the breathing from a free flowing regulator, but I don't think you do that for checkout. I'll just have to make sure to practice it again sometime on a dive, since I'm sure it is a good skill to have.