Mark's Dive Log

This is my new scuba diving 'blog. I suppose I'll use it to babble on about scuba diving and scuba related topics. I don't really need this 'blog, it just seemed I should create it to provide consistency with my flying page.

So, this 'blog probably is even less interesting to others than my "Pilot Log" 'blog, but it's for me, not for you anyway, so I don't care. But thanks for reading any way.

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I think Michael's ready for snorkeling in Hawaii next year. He can't wait until he's old enough to get certified for scuba.

I haven't written anything in a long time (over a year), so this is just a summary of the intervening time.

2008 was a busy and exciting dive year. At the time of my last entry I had just picked up my Master Scuba Diver certification. Since then I've earned several new specialties and certifications.

2008 started off with a trip to Bonaire in January. The whole family went with others from the shop for a week of diving. Michael, being 7, spent the mornings in Sea Camp while Tracie and I did the morning boat dives. We also did several of the afternoon, evening, and night dives. The last day of the trip was spent driving around the island on ATVs and dune buggies. I used the trip as an opportunity to pick up the PADI Boat Diver and Peak Performance Buoyancy specialties.

A month later a group of us went up to Twin Quarries near Columbus, Ohio for the PADI Ice Diver Specialty. I bought dry gloves for the experience as well as an argon bottle for my dry suit. I never did get the gloves working correctly and wasn't able to get my argon tank filled before the trip. I don't think it would have made it that much warmer anyway.

Also in March I started working towards Divemaster. Let's just say that this was a lot more work than I expected. It was a very good course and I learned a lot. I think it was the most fun dive course I've taken.

May marked the beginning of the dive season. I met up with Mike Gifford to do some acclimation dives in our doubles. I also started working on my Divemaster open water dives (assisting instructors with dive classes).

June was the big month. Mike Gifford and I headed to Florida with Steve and Kelly Oborn and Mike Havlin for our DSAT Tec Deep Diver certification. This was a seriously intense week. I can't think of anything I've ever done that was this intense. Even bootcamp was easier than this. After two days I was asking myself what I was doing there. But by Thursday I was starting to feel pretty comfortable and by Friday Mike and I both felt confident planning and leading the last dive. Our instructors apparently felt pretty comfortable with our abilities too because they didn't change anything in the dive plan. Once we completed the last dive, there was a conflicting feeling of relief that we were done and wanting to do yet another dive. It was a most excellent course.

July gave Mike and I an opportunity to try out our brand new Tec certification diving the USS Oriskany. We flew to Gulf Shores, Alabama to meet up with Steve and Kelly (and a few others from the shop). We made two dives on the Oriskany, although we aborted the second dive after we got blown off the descent line. We both want to make that trip again.

August was a family vacation to Hawaii. Tracie and I did a boat dive off of Honolulu and I dove off of Kona on the Big Island. The Kona dive was spectacular. I had planned on diving the Molokini crater, but the arrangements were more complicated than I wanted to deal with (renting a car from the cruise ship before 9:00am wasn't possible). So I'll put it on my list for next time.

In September I finished my Divemaster open water assistance dives by assisting with a Deep Diver Specialty class and doing a quarry tour with some divers who hadn't been in the water since their certification class the year before. It was a nice dive and they all seemed to have fun, so I guess I did OK.

October and November I was busy working on refinishing my basement, so no diving. In December, however, I went with Steve and Kelly Oborn on their annual winter Florida trip. They were certifying several Open Water and Advanced Open Water divers as well as doing a Cavern Specialty course (more about that in a later post). The trip ended on New Year's Eve swimming with manatees in the morning and a drift dive in the Rainbow River in the afternoon. Steve had me teach tank matching to the Cavern class and Kelly had me play Divemaster for her on several training dives. She also asked me and Joe Tumeo to lead the drift dive. All in all a fun trip with several opportunities for teaching/assisting. I also used the trip to do my mapping project for the Divemaster course, so I'm finally finished with that.

So that was 2008 in a nutshell. I'm looking forward to 2009. My goals are much simpler: Wreck Diver Specialty and DSAT Tec Trimix Diver. Steve asked me to help out with his next TecRec course as well. I'm really looking forward to that. Assuming the shop accepts my Divemaster application, I'll be doing some Divemaster work as well. Since my goal is to move on to Instructor in the next couple of years, I want to make the most of this to learn as much as I can before starting the IDC (Instructor Development Course).

Dive safe and don't hold your breath!