Mark's Dive Log

Last week my wife was talking to her cousin and somehow the topic of scuba diving came up. It turns out that Christina (my wife's cousin) has always wanted to learn how to scuba dive. Well, a few days later we were all sitting around the pool watching the kids swim and I brought it up.

Now, I've been trying to get my wife to get certified for years, but I haven't tried very hard because she really doesn't like the water and is somewhat terrified of it. Not exactly the prerequisite for a scuba diver. So as kind of a jab, I asked Christina what her husband and my wife would be doing with the kids back in the hotel room while we're off diving. It was just meant to be a joke, but I guess it must have bothered my wife because a little while later she said something to the effect of "I'll do it if you to it".

So now my wife wants to learn, but she's still deathly afraid of the water. I told her that she didn't need to do it for me, that I didn't want her to do it unless she really wants to, but she's made up her mind. So now I need to look into Open Water classes and a second set of equipment.

Saturday I decided to take my wife to the scuba shop to get a mask and fins so I could put her in the pool with the equipment to make sure she can handle it before we drop the cash on the certification course. I figured that she'll need those for our trip to Hawaii next year anyway, so it's not a total waste of money if she changes her mind. Of course, for just snorkeling I could have spent about a third of what I spent on Mares mask, fins, and boots, but worst case is I can sell them to her cousin if she decides that breathing under water should be left to the fishes.

So after lunch I hauled all the gear out to the pool for a little intro to scuba. I tested everything first, since the tank just got back from hydro and the regulator just got back from a rebuild. Once I verified that the equipment was in working order, Tracie got in the pool with her mask and fins and I help her into the BC. I figured floating the BC would be easier than trying to put it on her out of the water and then trying jump in with fins and mask and regulators flying. Especially since I have a big steel 95 that weighs close to 40 pounds empty! I also had 12 pounds of extra weight because when we went to the bottom of the pool, I wanted to make sure it would hold both of us down.

After getting the BC on and getting her balance she said she was ready to give it a try. I started off by having her just breathe through the regulator with her head out of the water and then stick her face in the water and breath through the regulator.

As a note to anyone teaching someone who is terrified of the water to use a regulator, this would have been much easier had we started out with just a mask and a regulator from a floating BC.

It took about ten minutes before she could get her face into the water and actually breathe. She finally figured it out and we moved on to swimming along the surface. We did that for about 15 minutes and then I brought her back up to the shallow end to try actually going underwater. This worked out about as well as could be expected, but she wasn't ready to try the deep end, so she spent a few more minutes swimming around on the surface.

Now she's really excited about scuba diving and can't wait to do more. Except for the whole living things in the water part.

That night she called her cousin to gloat that she got to go in the pool with the scuba gear and on Sunday Christina came over to give it a try. Having grown up swimming (unlike Tracie whose dad was paranoid that she would drown and instilled that fear in her), Christina took to it much quicker. I was able to take her down to the bottom of the deep end so she could experience actually being underwater. Tracie used up the rest of the air in my tank yesterday. She finally went down to the bottom of the deep end and is become pretty comfortable being underwater. Not bad for someone who grew up afraid of the water. Now if I could just figure out how to teach her to swim without a mask or holding her nose.

So they're both just chomping at the bit to get their certification. Meanwhile, I'm still trying to get some diving in this summer. By the time Tracie and Christina are certified, the season is going to be over. I want to go at least a couple of times in August and a couple of times in September. Next year my goal is to get at least six dives in every month from June through September. Plus a few more in Florida during the spring, if all works out.

Tracie and Christina did their Open Water certification dives this weekend. Jeff, their instructor, did a great job with them, especially Tracie. Having a fear of water, especially water that you can't see in very well, makes it tough to scuba dive. Well, I'm proud of her. She made it through the whole weekend with only marginally more trouble than a water lover.

I only dove with them on their last dive. I hung out with other groups for the other dives. Since I'm thinking about doing the Divemaster course next year, I figured it would be a good opportunity to watch what instructors and divemasters. I even managed to be useful on one dive. They had an odd number of students so they needed an extra for the navigation dive.

On the last dive I dove with Tracie and Christina and took a bunch of pictures of them so they can look back and remember the occasion. When it was all over, Christina and I went down for her first non-training dive. Tracie was too tired, so she waited on surface. I took her on a short tour of the quarry. We started out with partial tanks, so we didn't get a full dive, only about 25 minutes, but it was enough. We were both pretty beat from a weekend full of diving. We just went until we reached 500 PSI, then surfaced and swam back.

I wish Tracie had gone too, but I'll see if I can get them to come out on my Search and Recovery dive weekend so she can get some non-training dives in before the end of the season.