Scuba Diving

Last week was a verrrrry long week for Dan and me. We spent the whole week in a different part of the country, getting scuba certified. This was a part of the prize package I won on Wheel of Fortune because we will be scuba diving in the Bahamas.  All I can really say is that I hope scuba diving in the Bahamas is a lot more fun than diving in a lake in the middle of Holland. 


I wrote an email to my best friend after the first day of diving and I think it sums up pretty well my thoughts on the whole thing so I'm just going to copy and paste it here...and then maybe add a few more comments about the end of the experience.

1st dive-miserable

floundering around like a beached whale

floating

sinking

falling forward

falling backward

can't stay still on the lake floor

ended dive a tad early due to my incompetence

crying in my mask

hoping everyone thinks it's water

vowing to not come back the next day

 

asked to do a 2nd dive

wanting to cry again

willing to give it another shot

focused on my breathing

started to flounder upon initial descent

saved from rolling down a giant sea hill by the instructor

finally got my bearings

was able to kneel on the sea floor and not move

still not moving

not floating

this is good

doing underwater exercises

for example

taking our regulator(breathing thing) out of our mouth and throwing it behind us.

have to find the tube

get regulator back in mouth and breathe again

went pretty well

was able to take a swim because my buyouncy was finally more controlled

saw a crawfish

they call them small lobsters

saw one fish

seriously, one fish in one hour

felt better about it

not quitting yet

sore

did get to fall out of the boat backwards

almost peed my pants when i got back to shore because i had to pee so bad

glad there is only 3 more days left

hope the scenery in the bahamas is worth it

pretty sure i could be content just snorkeling on the surface

The experience got better as the week went on but seriously, it is so much effort to just even get ready to get in the water! I think our deepest dive was about 40 feet and we were typically under for about 40-50 minutes. We passed our certification written and training test so we are officially scuba certified!! We also got our picture taken to be in the Naui Scuba magazine for being "prize winners" (that's what they kept calling us all week long). Overall, it was a tiring experience and I'm still hoping that it will be worth it when we are some place tropical. 

Someone, Anyone, please tell me it will be worth it.