SCUBA certified!

Last week, I took part in an intensive training course to get PADI SCUBA certified. I forgot what PADI stands for, but it means I can scuba dive anywhere to a maximum depth of 18 meters (~54 feet). I would never have thought of doing this, but it's been quite the adventure. Kevin, a co-worker, organized this whole thing and four of us (me, Jalil, Kevin, and Lori) signed on. Initially, we were all thinking it'd be fun and "neat" (yes, that was the word that was going through my head before the course) to get certified. Little did we know, we were in for a huge session of diligence, discipline, and ultimate accomplishment.

The first day was spent in the classroom - our classes were for 4 hours after work each day (Mon-Thurs) from 6 - 10:30 p.m. (half hour break). The next three days were spent in the YMCA pool, which was quite wretched, as the pool had been used for the entire day, leaving us with all the silt and muck that accumulated. In spite of all this, the act of breathing under water with a regulator and aluminum tank of air for the first time was a little weird but thrilling. But it wasn't all fun and games the first night in the pool. We had to swim 200 meters non-stop and tread water for 10 minutes after all that to pass the swimming test (we found out why later on when we were in the ocean swimming with our full gear out to the dive buoy). By Friday, we were all beat, and thankful that we had a chance to rest for a night before our first real dives in the ocean.

Saturday and Sunday, we went to Whiteria Park (FIH-TER-EE-A) in Porirua (about half an hour drive north) to do our dives, and they turned out to be beautiful sunny days. It really felt like summer and the sun was nice and warm. The water, on the other hand, was cold and murky! The visibility was better on Saturday, as we saw a bunch of kelp, some fish and loads of sea slugs just relaxing on the sea floor. We went through all of our tasks and the only bad part was waiting under water for all the other students to finish their tasks - it got pretty cold down there when we weren't doing anything but sitting and waiting. My leg cramped up once when we were doing a surface skill (taking off our buoyancy control device (BCD) vest and putting it back on). It was a bit crazy because the dive instructor told us all to perform this task at the same time (probably to save on time), so my dive buddy (Kevin) couldn't swim over to perform the "buddy cramp removal" technique on my leg (which we had ironically just learned) - as his BCD was off as well! But the instructor came to save the day and slowly talked me through putting the vest on while my cramp slowly subsided. Anyways it worked out in the end, and after four dives, we all successfully completed our tasks, got used to swimming around with our gear on, and got our PADI certificates (our cards will arrive in the mail in 3-4 weeks)! *PAT ON THE BACK*

Here are some pics from our training and our ocean dives on Lori's photo gallery. Good times.