the class portion went fine, although i was a little nervous and not looking forward to the fact that we had to take a test and i had barely spent any time with the text. but i passed - only missed 1.
so drysuits fit a little loose and as soon as they get wet they
we didnt' have socks so 1 of my big problems was my feet. 50% of my issue was the boots turned out to be a little small so when the suit contracted in the water it squeezed my already sore toes and caused some major pain and the other 50% of my feet was i couldn't get my legs to move with ankle weights on them! once we removed the weights i was at least able to move around.
we did have a little bouyancy issue. ended up with 10#8 lbs of weight. think i want to try a little less tonight and see if now i have an idea of what i'm doing if i really need all of the weight i started with or not. i did have a problem with my neutral bouyancy skill. i can 'drop' on the exhale, but i don't really 'rise' on inhale very well. same issue in the wetsuit - i hadn't really mastered the skill.
all we did last tuesday was swim around in the shallow end and we did finally get to the deep end for a few minutes. but i did have issues. most of it was the feet. tonight we'll be taking socks, as well as something undergarment wise to wear under hte suit other than just the swimsuit. it'll make the drysuit more comfy cause it won't stick to the skin - the underwear layer acts as a barrier for that. but last tues we didn't have it so we had to deal. i really had a hard time enjoying the experience. at one point i stood up and was just crying. i don't remember starting to cry. i don't remember thinking 'i got to get out of here' it wasn't really a panic, it was just 'i don't like this' and that my feet hurt so bad i didn't want to move my legs anymore. simon was really good. matt was too far away to see how upset i was. he let me have my minute and calm down, and adjusted the weights a little bit and it helped. after swimming around a few more times he asked if i wanted to try the deep end and we started over there. i had gotten over the edge of the dropoff and was turning around to hang onto the wall to descend, and i started rolling over. i tried to right myself but just kept wanting to roll. next i know i'm at the surface. at least i'm laughing this time when simon comes up and asks me what's happening. between giggles i was like 'i don't know, i was going to ask you what i did wrong!' we can only guess that i had a bit of air trapped into 1 arm of my suit and it was enough to throw me off and i haven't learned well enough to 'shake it off and right myself' yet.
overall i wasn't too unhappy with the night. i was proud i managed to get to the bottom of the deep end. however when we wanted to ascend i couldn't get off the bottom and i had this 'uh, i don't know what i'm supposed to do here' moment. i was supposed to add a little air into my suit - get tht neutral buoyancy thing happening that i wasn't quite getting earlier.
anyway, tonight is night #2. we need to get through the skills for drysuits tonight. if we succeed and i feel ok then simon wants us to do our open water dives starting this weekend. if that happens i'll probably suggest the folks go to the museums on saturday on their own. sunday - well, we'll talk about that later.
anyway, i'm a little nervous about 1 of skills. we have to go inverted. get ourselves into a handstand position, simon will get us 'hanging' in teh water, and we're supposed to sweep our arms and get ourselves into a standing position. i think i'm nervous becuase i've never been able to do a flipturn or somersault in the swimming pool ever, as well as the fact i haven't mastered the neutral buoyancy issue yet. but i'm ready to tackle it!
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