This time when Jack came to pick us up we didn't stand there stupidly. The first part of the morning we got lectured by the guy from the ProDive shop about all the different dive spots and types of diving in the world. He asked each of us where we were from, and then told us about cool diving spots in those places, but when he got to me and Ben he bluntly admitted there is really no diving to be done in Boston. That's probably true, as I couldn't exactly picture myself diving in the murky harbor. So it was initially discouraging knowing I've spent all this time and money getting certified when I will never be able to use the license, but then I realized this is just another excuse for me to go to some cool places on vacation.
One of the clever things they did the second day was let us try on fancy equipment. We wore fancy booties and split fins that are much more comfortable and efficient than the standard rental equipment, and masks that fit better. The mask seems to be very important, and many experienced divers carry a good one with them whenever they travel because it really doesn't take up much space. Jack gave me large one, but it was still not big enough to fit my enormous nasal extremity, so I ended up with a pretty squished nose. The trick was, we would not get any of this equipment on the boat, so they took us to the shop to try to convince us to buy all their gear in special "packages." I felt this was a bit slimy, as they just expected us to take their word that they were giving us good prices, when I know fully that everything in Australia is overpriced to begin with, so I decided just to stick with the rental equipment. I must admit, the rental fins get pretty painful after many dives, and the mask squished my nose considerably, so if I do this a lot more I will consider nicer stuff.
With just the fancy fins and masks on we got some lessons on skin diving, which is basically snorkeling where you can actually dive down for as long as you can hold your breath. That was fun, but you have to descend quickly which hurt my ears because I didn't have enough time to equalize. The split fins are really nice; you exert much less energy, which is important when you need to conserve air.
After skin diving we put our gear back on for the last few exercises, which included another dive to the bottom where we played around with arm wrestling (very hard underwater), doing flips, and blowing bubble rings. We also practiced slowly exhaling, a skill we'd need to use for CESAs (controlled emergency surface ascents, for when you run out of air and your buddy is not close by). That was the last of the "confined water" (a.k.a. pool) skills, so we dried off and headed back into the classroom.
In the last video module we learned how plan dives using a chart that tells you how much nitrogen you have in your system after repetitive dives in order to avoid nitrogen sickness. Then we had the exam--50 questions with up to an hour. You can get up to twelve wrong and still pass, and many of the questions were repeats from the quizzes, so it was pretty much a breeze. Somehow I still managed to get three wrong--probably because I didn't check my answers--which Ben proceeded to rub in my face. We were able to leave early.
On the way back to our hostel Ben and I stocked up on tuna to eat with our matzo in case there was nothing for us on the boat. We're taking a very early night because the liveaboard departs very early tomorrow morning, and we don't want to be tired for our first ever ocean dive... stay tuned.
No comments:
Post a Comment