Hows everyone doing these days? I am back from a short break away from the boards and newly certified in Open Water, Dry Suit and Nitrox. It has been a couple of rough winter months for me as I took my initial classes back in December. The local quarry by me was only open one weekend a month in Jan & Feb then closed in March and opened for business every weekend in April. As luck would have it I got blown out by weather every weekend they were open as it was somewhere around 12 degree surface temps. So needless to say I was a litttle bummed out and kinda took my mind off of scuba for a while.
I was at the quarry this past weekend with surface temps on Saturday at 77 degrees and the water temp was a cool 43 degrees. We had a small class, myself and one other student with one instructor. We briefed for the first dive of the day, got geared up and went for a nice dive. We had a few skills to do but it was more of an orientation to the site. The second dive of the day was going great, we got all of our required skills in and each of us did a pretty good job at all of them. We were about to go on a tour to get some bottom time and we decended to about 50 feet and my right ear would not equalize. We accended back to 40 foot and bang equalization of the ear. We called it a day and got some rest for my ear.
Sunday we were back at it again and the forcast was calling for rain around noon. First thing in the morning we got in our gear as we were trying to get in 3 dives this day, 2 to complete our Open Water cert and 1 for our Dry Suit cert. The first dive went well we again did all of our required skills and quite well. My ear was not a problem this dive and so far so good. We had some surface time and then back to dive number two on the day. I dove this on a tank of Nitrox as I took the class and figured it would be good. All went well and we were now Open Water certified Divers. We took a long surface interval and took time to debrief and talk about the dives the last two days. We got an air fill (Mind you we needed a third tank to make the last dive of the day, but our instructor was still on his first tank of the day with pleanty of air left) and got geared up one last time. We started our decent and at about 10 feet I could feel the pressure in my right ear. Not so good as I accended a few feet to try and equalize. No good, and I didnt want to screw my new friends drysuit check out dive so I told the instructor I was done and would return to shore and put some drops in my ear. He was ok with this and took the other student on his third dive of the day. When they returned my new friend was now a Dry Suit certified diver. He packed up his gear and was on his merry way home. My instructor asked about my ear and said he did not want to push it but if I felt up to it he would take me on my third dive (his now fourth dive in 42 degree water and STILL on the SAME TANK OF AIR, amazing!). I said lets give it a shot and we returned to the water. As we decended I was equalizing every 2 feet or so and before I knew it we were on a platform at 25 feet, no problems. We ran through the skills and bang all done, lets go look at some sights under the water and finish out the day.
All in all I got three certs this weekend and I am now more psyched then ever to dive again. The quarry actually gave a pretty sweet deal to any new certified diver and cut their season pass rate from $250 to $185 and then on top of that they would credit the weekends rate ($32 per day for a total of $64) and my season pass would only cost me $121.00, so of course I couldnt turn that down
!! I thanked my instructor, went on my way, vowed to dive every weekend if I can to practice my bouyancy, get to know people and have fun, then went home and slept like a baby!
I was at the quarry this past weekend with surface temps on Saturday at 77 degrees and the water temp was a cool 43 degrees. We had a small class, myself and one other student with one instructor. We briefed for the first dive of the day, got geared up and went for a nice dive. We had a few skills to do but it was more of an orientation to the site. The second dive of the day was going great, we got all of our required skills in and each of us did a pretty good job at all of them. We were about to go on a tour to get some bottom time and we decended to about 50 feet and my right ear would not equalize. We accended back to 40 foot and bang equalization of the ear. We called it a day and got some rest for my ear.
Sunday we were back at it again and the forcast was calling for rain around noon. First thing in the morning we got in our gear as we were trying to get in 3 dives this day, 2 to complete our Open Water cert and 1 for our Dry Suit cert. The first dive went well we again did all of our required skills and quite well. My ear was not a problem this dive and so far so good. We had some surface time and then back to dive number two on the day. I dove this on a tank of Nitrox as I took the class and figured it would be good. All went well and we were now Open Water certified Divers. We took a long surface interval and took time to debrief and talk about the dives the last two days. We got an air fill (Mind you we needed a third tank to make the last dive of the day, but our instructor was still on his first tank of the day with pleanty of air left) and got geared up one last time. We started our decent and at about 10 feet I could feel the pressure in my right ear. Not so good as I accended a few feet to try and equalize. No good, and I didnt want to screw my new friends drysuit check out dive so I told the instructor I was done and would return to shore and put some drops in my ear. He was ok with this and took the other student on his third dive of the day. When they returned my new friend was now a Dry Suit certified diver. He packed up his gear and was on his merry way home. My instructor asked about my ear and said he did not want to push it but if I felt up to it he would take me on my third dive (his now fourth dive in 42 degree water and STILL on the SAME TANK OF AIR, amazing!). I said lets give it a shot and we returned to the water. As we decended I was equalizing every 2 feet or so and before I knew it we were on a platform at 25 feet, no problems. We ran through the skills and bang all done, lets go look at some sights under the water and finish out the day.
All in all I got three certs this weekend and I am now more psyched then ever to dive again. The quarry actually gave a pretty sweet deal to any new certified diver and cut their season pass rate from $250 to $185 and then on top of that they would credit the weekends rate ($32 per day for a total of $64) and my season pass would only cost me $121.00, so of course I couldnt turn that down
!! I thanked my instructor, went on my way, vowed to dive every weekend if I can to practice my bouyancy, get to know people and have fun, then went home and slept like a baby!
