Well it’s done!

Today I completed my SCUBA certification dives and got my card!

It was a great dive today at France Park. The water was nice and warm and we had 30-35 ft. of visibility. I even got to see one of the 5 ft long paddle fish!

These fish have dorsal fins and tails exactly like sharks, but their nose is really long and flat. I tell you what if it weren’t for the nose it would have been VERY unnerving to see that silhouette in the water!

Here’s a pic of a paddle fish.

We only had one dive today.
We had three yesterday. And yesterday was rough.
I didn’t do real well yesterday.

I got all my skills completed, but I didn’t do any of them with any real degree of grace or comfort. The water was colder, it was our first time with the 4 piece 7mm suit, and my weights weren’t quite right. So I was uncomfortable anyway.

Then I had the panic attack.
That was no fun.

I was 20 ft. down, and it was my turn to do the “flood and clear your mask” skill.
Not a very tough skill, mind you.
But when I broke the seal of the mask to flood it I started to choke and cough… and of course I can’t see now. I couldn’t clear the mask because I couldn’t get a solid breath … what with all the coughing, choking, and the onset of hyper ventilating.
And for some reason I just flipped out.

Completely panicked. I couldn’t breath, I was dying… yes dying for sure. I was gonna be a scuba student statistic.

I considered completely inflating my BCD and sky rocketing to the surface.

Apparently through all the choking and coughing I had cleared enough of my mask that the instructor was going to turn his attention to the next guy.

That freaked me out even more.

I’m not sure what I thought he could do for me.. but If I was about to take my last watery breath I wanted him to see it.

Then a faint voice of reason fought its way into my head.

“No one is going to make this better for you but you.”

“As much as things may suck right now… you are breathing.”

“You ARE breathing”

“Forget the mask you can clear it later… just close your eyes and breath until the choking passes”

“Then clear the mask and take a few minutes to just rest here and breath.”

… well it worked… I pulled it off and ended up ok.

But it was an experience I don’t ever want to relive. Being panicked underwater isn’t fun.

Today was much better.

I had to take the mask completely off and then put it on and clear it.

I did it just fine.

Well… it took a couple of times to clear it but it was ok. No panicking.

The warm dive today was full of life and things to see.

I really enjoyed it.

And if you can enjoy a quarry dive you can dive anywhere.