Another update from my wordpress hiatus… I got scuba certified!
I honestly never really thought of scuba diving as a big deal. Kind of like glorified snorkeling. Boy was I wrong!
My coworker’s brother is a commercial diver and instructor, and since she and her friends have a trip planned to the Dominican Republic soon, they invited me to do the cert with them. Of course, I said sure why not.
For the “classroom” part, we did the course online. It was around $165, and I totally underestimated this thing. It takes about 10-12 hours and you actually have to do math! Haha, okay, it’s really not HARD… But it’s not like defensive driving or something where you just click through and can pass using common sense only. However, I did realize that diving is serious business! It really can be dangerous if you don’t understand the physics and equipment.
Next is the actual diving. I don’t think this is typical for a class you would register for, but since it was a small group (4 of us) that were all friends of an instructor, we did all of our dives in one weekend. Once again, totally underestimated this.
We spend Friday night until past midnight in a 15ft pool doing container water dives, and we had to finish up there Saturday morning as well. Not gonna lie, it was exhausting! But really fun. Breathing underwater and swimming with fins (no hands allowed!) is a completely new experience.
Our next 4 dives were open water, and we went to this man made lake in town. Due to the summertime heat (algae!) and recent rain (stir it all up!), the visibility was AWFUL. It was honestly a bit scary. The instructor estimated 5ft visibility, and it’s even worse when your mask fogs up. Regardless, by our last 2 dives Sunday, I was finally comfortable And we even saw some fish!
The plus side is that now pretty much any dive I ever do is going to seem like a breeze, and absolutely beautiful, compared to what I was certified in.
I did pass, and I’m officially an Open Water Diver up to 60ft!!!
Now I just need to plan an adventure accordingly 🙂