Greetings to all of you loyal blog followers!
As another week has begun, it seems to be as good a time as any to catch up with all of you on the blog. In preparation for our trip to Egypt and Jordan in June (actually, in only a few weeks!!), I took a fast-track course a few weeks ago in order to become certified as a NAUI SCUBA diver. The course is offered at Wilderness Experiences Unlimited and is taught by our friend Scott Cook, who is the owner of the store and also a dive master and extremely experienced SCUBA diver. This intensive course consisted of 20 hours of combined classroom and pool work, which I completed during a weekend in April, as well as two days of open water dives intended to test our competence and allow us to put our many learned skills to good use.
Friday was our first open water test. The two-hour test was scheduled to take place at Haviland Pond in Ludlow, Massachusetts which is only about 30 minutes from Brett’s house in West Suffield. While a small lake is obviously not the most exciting of dives, it is easy to see why it is a good place for a first check-out dive, considering the fact that it is a manageable size, it isn’t very deep, and therefore it is more controlled location than the ocean. My fellow classmates and I, as well as a few students from Scott’s other classes, were scheduled to meet at Haviland at 4pm. However, due to some various intervening factors and mismanaged time on my part, I was shamefully late for our meet time, and when I arrived at the pond disheveled many of the students were already in the lake. It was pouring rain and visibility in the lake was atrocious – to the point were Scott actually stated that it was the worst conditions in which he had ever been scuba diving, and he has been on over 2,500 dives. After managing somewhat awkwardly to get fully suited-up, I shimmied (the best verb I can come up with to describe movement whilst wearing flippers) my way into the water to join my classmates.
Once in the water, the conditions were even worse than I or anyone else imagined – it was impossible to see anything in the water, including one’s own body. As the rain poured, we went over some basic skill tests individually: mask removal and clearing, air-sharing, and emergency ascents. We also performed tows to shore as well as removing and putting on our equipment while in the water. These drills seemed to go fairly easily, and despite the conditions it was good just to be in the water; in fact it was a pleasant temperature and quite relaxing. We were done with our skill tests by about 6pm, and after removing all of our gear and packing it up, most of us had left the lake by 6:30pm. After returning to Brett’s house to shower and hang my equipment to dry, I had a wonderful meal at Pintus Indian Restaurant with Ann and family friend Lois, who, like Ann, is a member of the Labrador Retriever Club of the Pioneer Valley. Afterward returning back to Brett’s house, it wasn’t long before I was in bed in preparation for the diving the following day.
We met at Haviland Pond at 10am Saturday morning, and it certainly looked different with the sun shinning and calm water. Originally, the second dive was supposed to take place in Gloucester, Massachusetts so that we could experience an ocean dive, but the conditions were really horrific and therefore we returned to the pond; I couldn’t complain, considering the fact that the lake was 15+ degrees warmer and we would have had to make the drive to Gloucester at 4am in order to have a full dive day. While diving from 10-2pm, we practiced navigation, both on our own using our calculators, and with Scott. Like Friday, I had some trouble equalizing on Saturday (releasing the pressure from my ears) and therefore had to take some extra time when descending to ensure that I did not damage my ears. This is something that has proven difficult for me, and therefore I have to be very aware of it always when diving.
We concluded the day with a group dive, where Scott stayed in the middle while four of the students, myself included, served as the “wings” and “wing tips” as we swam around in formation. This was somewhat gross, because with our new-found visibility we were able to see the bottom of the pond and what littered it: hockey pucks, beer cans, Dunkin’ Donuts cups, fish lures, a mesh tank top, even a mask and snorkel. However, we swam well as a team, and we had fun throwing various objects at each other in the water. We dove a loop around the center island of the pond, which lasted about 30 minutes. When we surfaced and headed for the shore, Scott told us that we had passed our tests and were officially certified as divers – woo hoo!!! Now I can official dive in the Red Sea, where 10% of the marine life is found no where else on Earth. It will be a great reward for the work, in the classroom, the pool, and Haviland Pond.
I’d like to take this time to send a big thanks to Scott, who helped me to feel extremely comfortable with SCUBA. When I first decided to become certified, I was unsure as to whether my mild claustrophobia and mild fear of open water (and sharks!) would prevent me from completing the requirements. However, his knowledge, experience and obvious ease in the water helped me to forget my fears and simply enjoy the underwater world. If you are interested in getting SCUBA certified, be sure to check out the Wilderness Experiences Unlimited link to the right of the post! I promise, you won’t regret it.
<3 J
