6/10/08 scuba

2 more weeks of swimming pool and then we get to don drysuits!
tomorrow is week 3 and we have a substitute teacher.

so, did i have fun last week?
no.
did i have more fun last week than the first week?
yes.

last week was much better. we had gone in over the weekend to look at smaller cylinders and try to tighten down the BC as small as it'd get. it was still a little large, but it was much better. we also put a little more weight on me. i think i had 30 pounds of lead in my pockets!

so i was able to sit down on the bottom of the 4' depth and do the drills. yay! i still wanted to 'lean' some, but i realized if i put my knees slightly apart, and spread my feet out and 'plant them' on the floor of the pool i made myself into a tripod and was able to deal with stuff! yay!
i also just swam around the pool quite a bit. we had private instruction basically - isaac worked with matt and simon stayed with me.

we went thru all the drills again - clearing the regulator all 3 ways, swapping out the regulator and cleaing our secondary air all 3 ways. we even got to the 'i'm out of air!' drill which we walked thru on the surface and then again at 4' under.

i was actually very proud of myself. we did all 3 mask clearing, too. we had done the 1st 2 on the 1st week but my floating issues took too much time to get to the 3rd one. it's the one where you have to take off the mask, put it back on, then blow out the water. yes, for those of us who've never been able to open our eyes undersater this was pretty difficult. i had to talk to myself before doing it telling me it's ok. you can do it! but i did have a bit of panic when instead of breathing in thru the regulator i inhaled thru my nose! OUCH! i popped up to the surface pretty darn fast, i tell you. simon was laughing..."swallow some water????" the 2nd time i tried he held onto my BC so i couldn't just pop up. i did better but still managed to drink a lot of water and had to pop up top. all this did give me the opportunity to practice inflating my BC when i reach the surface, so it wasn't all bad. 3rd - 5th attempts i did successfully. that's why i was so proud of myself. still had a little water to drink but was just a sip in comparision to the 1st 2 tries.

in the advanced class i think they come up behind you and knock off your mask when you don't expect it. i'm SO not looking forward to that. yes, i get it - if you're at depth and the mask comes off you have to find it, put it on and clear it. well, i know i can do everything but find it. so. how does one make sure one doesn't lose a mask? attach it so it can't get away! i'm going to figure out how to tether it to my BC before we get into open water. hahahaha.

it's not cheating, it's misinterpreting the rules! (for all you south park junkies out there).

matt managed to get down to 12' by descending a rope line. he did good, i was proud of him. i had problems. simon had done this with matt and isaac was with me on the other side of the pool. not sure why now, anyway, we started to swim over to the deep end and i had to stop and adjust my mask or something that had me standing up in the pool. [i think i'll be better at not going to surface when we're deeper than what i can stand in.] i admitted to him that all of a sudden i had a wave of nervous anxiety wash over me all of a sudden with the thought of going over the edge of the floor. he assured me he'd be by my side all the way. i got to the rope no problem, and held on. deflated my BC a little bit, but as i started to descend my ears really felt the pressure. i stopped, tried to clear, which didn't work, but it didn't take long for the pressure to equalize anyway and went a little further where i had to stop again. and by a little further i mean 6-12 inches maybe. i can't imagine my head was more than 5 feet below surface. but i didn't look up so i've really no idea. i just no i still had over 1/2 the way to the floor to go. the ears were really feeling it and i was just not able to clear them! had we not talked about it in the classroom earlier i might've been fine. but i tried several ways several times and was just not successful. so i didn't get down to the bottom of the deep end. right now i think my ears and sinuses are what's going to be my guide to how deep i can go. tomorrow i want to try again, adn again. and if i cna't get to the bottom of the pool i'm not sure what we'll do.

anyway, i swam around the 'shallow' part of hte pool some more, cleared the mask again yadda yadda. when i 1st cleared the mask (mask clearing #3) simon gave me a standing O, and we did the little 'happy dance'. it was a joyous moment.

i still can't lift my BC when it's weighted down and has the sylinder attached. i was sitting on the pool deck and shifted it on. there was no way i was able to stand up with it on and not do damage. geez.

so yes, i had more fun than week 1 where we spent most our time floating and doing the 'dead fish roll', but i don't know if i'm "having fun yet".