Advanced Open Water Certification was this weekend. It is long, so be warned.
Knowledge Reviews: The first couple of hours we spent topside, meeting and greeting each other and setting up our gear. Four classmates besides Sister; one heterosexual couple and two other guys. Sister and I had been worried that we would be the most inexperienced divers in the class. We needn’t have worried; the couple had only ever dived before for their standard open water certification [meaning, they'd each gone on three dives], and the two other guys had combined experience to match either Sister or myself. I try not to let this get to my head. The instructor is Paul M., a roaringly funny Brit who used phrases such as “crack into,” “bang away at,” and “bag of bastards,” much to my absolute glee.
Peak Performance Buoyancy/ Navigation: 40′ maximum depth, 1:07 bottom time. This was pretty
straightfoward; I decided to try something new, and took 4lbs lead down with me instead of 6lbs. This turned out to be a poor decision; by the triangular navigation portion of the dive, I could not stay submerged and had to take on extra weight from Paul. Buoyancy was really exciting; I’ve pretty much got hovering down, though I do have some problems still whilst going up/down the slope. If I just descend to a platform or using a line or something like that, I can stop before silting out, but following the slope tends to send me silting out. We worked on helicopter turns and finning backwards [still haven't got the hang of it quite yet], and that was pretty much that. The first navigation portion was simple; make a box. Then there was the triangle [after I got more lead, of course]. I thought that I had buggered that one up awfully; and let Sister know. We ascended to the surface to re-orient and get back to the entry point, only to come up about 20 feet from the entry point. Score!
Night: 40′ maximum depth, 0:43 bottom time. It was night. I was slightly mortified. We stuck together, which was my main goal. I got kicked in the face a lot by one of my classmates; I think the couple took turns slowing down right in front of my and almost finning my mask off or kicking up a huge cloud of silt [or both]. Sister had problems clearing her ears, and I had a mild panic situation as I tried to communicate to both Paul D. and Pattie [another divemaster that went with us] that Sister and I needed to ascend. Eventually we got the message through, and I would’ve been fine ascending with just Sister and I, but Pattie came with us. That means that I missed part of the dive that I really would’ve liked to participate in; at the end of the dive, the class made a ring facing out [so they could not see each other's tank lights], turned off their lights, and sat in the dark underwater. Then they ascended without turning their lights back on. The few times that I looked up whilst covering my light, it was amazing. The water looked more blue than usual, though it was still obviously quite green- it was amazing. I’d like to night dive again, especially with a smaller group of people- I’m looking forward to some night dives with Dad and Sister in the Flower Gardens.
Deep: 80′ maximum depth, 0:22 bottom time. It went relatively well for a while. Sister stayed home, since she was having equalization issues on the surface and knew that they wouldn’t improve at depth [also, she incidentally ended up quite sick, so it was probably best that she didn't come]. Dad went with me. We descended, and stuck together all the way down. We got down to about 75′, and Paul passed around a tennis ball and a piece of a Noodle [the pool float] so that we could observe compression at depth. It was re
markable. Then we continued down, and all of a sudden, I narked. It hit like a brick wall; I got really disoriented, dizzy, and began slowly panicking. I held my right hand over my regulator [to make sure I kept it in], took the deepest breaths as slowly as I could [they still ended up shallow and fast, but not as bad as they could've been], and tried to communicate my situation to Dad. I had to keep reminding myself that bubbles float upwards as he obtained Pattie’s and Paul’s attentions for me. Paul sent Pattie to hang with Dad and I, and I tried to communicate my dizziness and disorientation by circling my free hand around my head. Eventually I wrote “V V DIZZY” on Pattie’s slate, and she finally got it. We ascended a few feet, and the nitrogen narcosis subsided as soon as I got to 75 feet; I wanted to re-descend, but Pattie shot that down. So Dad, Pattie, and I hung out on a platform with the fishies, and I went through a miniature fish-ID speciality; perch, cichlids, trout, catfish, gar. We surfaced, and eventually the rest of the class surfaced as well.
Search and Recovery: [2 dives] 18′ maximum depth, 0:27 bottom time between the two. We practiced our formations and communications on land; even though I tied a mean clover hitch and an excellent bowline, one of the other students insisted that he be the Boy Scout of the group. The first item we sought was a 35lb canister; we operated as a team rather well, found it quickly, and then the lifters botched it. With recoveries of heavy objects, the divers are supposed to get it just barely positively buoyant, and then maneuver it to a safe area, and then finish the lifting. Instead, our lifter overfilled the lift bag, and the canister shot to the surface [dangerous for the dive team beneath, if the item should slip free]. Then they had to maneuver it around railings quite awkwardly at the surface. A smaller group would’ve probably been ideal. The second item we found was a fin that Sean [another divemaster] hurled off the cliff; we had to search for it twice, since the first time we hadn’t even gotten into our line before someone stumbled upon it. With five people, we intended to do a “U-search”, but it really ended up with us swimming in a very wide line.
The group was interesting. The other woman in the group took a sort of shine to Sister and I, and had no problems talking to us. The men in the group were simultaneously condescending and threatened at the same time. After I narked at eighty, one of the guys asked if I would “be alright” during the SAR dive. I didn’t know whether to be offended or not; I’m trying to give him the benefit of the doubt and think that he paid absolutely no attention during the Knowledge Reviews, but it is hard. They were also reluctant to let me help carry the canister once we were out of water [we had about 35 vertical feet of stairs to climb]. Paul was nice to both Sister and I, though; he didn’t make fun of us for ending our portions of the dives early, he did not make fun of us for our age, he didn’t do any of that. He indulged us with stories, he made jokes and laughed at our jokes, and was all-around a great guy to hang out with. Win!
After the last day of diving, Dad and I packed up and went home. I met up with Meredith, Becca, and Mikey O. and Z M. at the Zilker Theatre Production’s rendition of Beauty and the Beast. It was pretty much a great way to end the night; Claire M. and Matt H. were hilarious in the show, though I’m sure that I ruined the show for Meredith as I repeatedly asked her if the song we were watching was in the movie; eventually she gave up and just started fabricating stuff to tell me. I bought it all, and ended up very confused until I figured out that she was jerking my chain. Whoops.
