IVC
Contributor
This is my first post here and I figured it's better to start with something more meaningful than "hello everybody" in the introduction section.
My first experience with scuba was couple years back in Maui with "intro to scuba diving" shore dive. It was great and I ended up having to dodge massive turtles who, for some reason, acted as if they knew they were protected and we'd have to get out of their way. Reminded me of how skunks acted late at night on campus during my grad school - when they walked slowly towards you, it was time to get out of the way.
After my intro dive I asked the instructor about what it would take to get certified and he mentioned multiple dives and theory class. Well, there was no time for that. A few trips to Hawaii later, after going snorkeling with my two young daughters at Molokini and resenting a group of scuba divers having a much more fun experience below us, after snorkeling by Captain Cook's monument south of Kona and snorkeling off of Napali Coast in Kauai, I finally figured out that I had to get serious and get on with the program.
A week before our trip to Kona this year we had some family friends over and it turned out they had been NAUI certified for a long time. The conversation suddenly reminded me that if I let it slip again, it will be too late once we are on vacation. So, I went online and found Kona Diving Company, contacted them and got the standard list of how it all worked. There was no time to do the referral program, so I signed up for PADI e-learning and spent many hours going through the material. The one aspect of e-learning that constantly rubbed me the wrong way was the talk about "color matching gear" - c'mon, I'm married and my wife color matches me when we go somewhere; I don't need to go through this.
The experience in Kona was great. The whole family got up early and went to the shop. While I signed the paperwork and did my knowledge test, the kids kept on looking at all the gear and having fun finding all the little items that they "really liked" and "really wanted" (with the standard answer of "How much money did you bring? None? That's how much you can buy.") On the spot we decided to add a scuba lesson for my wife and kids at the end of the pool session so they can try it out with me still there (my wife had tried it once in the pool before but it didn't go too well for her.) As I was getting ready to start my introduction to setting up equipment, I sent the rest of the family on their merry way until later that afternoon.
Setting up gear was mundane, but necessary. I was much more worried about finding a mask that fits than about tinkering with the BCD and the tank. After several full setups, off we went to the pool. The initial swimming test was annoying because it was a small pool and the pool sides were not straight. Few strides, turn, push at an angle, surface somewhere off center, figure out where to go, a few more strides, turn, ... rinse, repeat 24 times. As a kid I was a competitive swimmer (albeit in the middle of the pack) so being in the water was pretty natural, but I was glad when it was over. Ten minutes of floating and chatting to the instructor later and we were ready to get into the gear.
Pool exercises were smooth and I didn't even realize that clearing mask underwater and taking it off is supposed to be the scary experience. I spent a lot of time in the water growing up, so it was just "normal." One thing, though, I did get to really appreciate - understanding how the clearing of the mask works. The instructor was telling me to lean the head back while exhaling, so the initial impression was that somehow I was supposed to "blow the water out" and that the angle of the mask was critical. Finally after several clearings it occurred to me how simple the physics behind it was (my background is in physics.) I am not blowing anything out of the mask, I am simply adding air. Air will immediately go to the top of the mask and as the pressure increases, it will simply push the water out at the bottom as long as I don't let the air escape at the top. To more experienced divers this might seem trivial, but it was a big revelation to me since understanding it made it very simple to deal with the full flooded mask and putting it on at depth - instead of frantically blowing into the mask, just keep exhaling into it until most of the water is gone, then give it a stronger snort out of the nose at the end to force the last bits of water out.
Open water was amazing. Two days of two dives in beautiful coral reef. Eels were all over the place, turtles, reef sharks (I saw just one, but there were others around us.) The most interesting part was seeing a huge Triton's trumpet battling with a poisonous starfish it supposedly eats. It's a good thing the instructor had a slate so he was able to write these things down as we were watching them. The technical exercises were virtually unnoticeable since we'd do them at the beginning of each dive, enjoy the reef, then do some more at the end. Being on the boat and cruising along the Kona coast was fun in itself, but getting under the surface multiple times made the day. I just wish I could've shared it with the rest of the family - when the girls are old enough they'll get to go.
So, that's how this new diver got certified a month and a half ago. Since then, I got my Nitrox and have gone diving off of Great Escape (boat) to Catalina, but that's another post.
My first experience with scuba was couple years back in Maui with "intro to scuba diving" shore dive. It was great and I ended up having to dodge massive turtles who, for some reason, acted as if they knew they were protected and we'd have to get out of their way. Reminded me of how skunks acted late at night on campus during my grad school - when they walked slowly towards you, it was time to get out of the way.
After my intro dive I asked the instructor about what it would take to get certified and he mentioned multiple dives and theory class. Well, there was no time for that. A few trips to Hawaii later, after going snorkeling with my two young daughters at Molokini and resenting a group of scuba divers having a much more fun experience below us, after snorkeling by Captain Cook's monument south of Kona and snorkeling off of Napali Coast in Kauai, I finally figured out that I had to get serious and get on with the program.
A week before our trip to Kona this year we had some family friends over and it turned out they had been NAUI certified for a long time. The conversation suddenly reminded me that if I let it slip again, it will be too late once we are on vacation. So, I went online and found Kona Diving Company, contacted them and got the standard list of how it all worked. There was no time to do the referral program, so I signed up for PADI e-learning and spent many hours going through the material. The one aspect of e-learning that constantly rubbed me the wrong way was the talk about "color matching gear" - c'mon, I'm married and my wife color matches me when we go somewhere; I don't need to go through this.
The experience in Kona was great. The whole family got up early and went to the shop. While I signed the paperwork and did my knowledge test, the kids kept on looking at all the gear and having fun finding all the little items that they "really liked" and "really wanted" (with the standard answer of "How much money did you bring? None? That's how much you can buy.") On the spot we decided to add a scuba lesson for my wife and kids at the end of the pool session so they can try it out with me still there (my wife had tried it once in the pool before but it didn't go too well for her.) As I was getting ready to start my introduction to setting up equipment, I sent the rest of the family on their merry way until later that afternoon.
Setting up gear was mundane, but necessary. I was much more worried about finding a mask that fits than about tinkering with the BCD and the tank. After several full setups, off we went to the pool. The initial swimming test was annoying because it was a small pool and the pool sides were not straight. Few strides, turn, push at an angle, surface somewhere off center, figure out where to go, a few more strides, turn, ... rinse, repeat 24 times. As a kid I was a competitive swimmer (albeit in the middle of the pack) so being in the water was pretty natural, but I was glad when it was over. Ten minutes of floating and chatting to the instructor later and we were ready to get into the gear.
Pool exercises were smooth and I didn't even realize that clearing mask underwater and taking it off is supposed to be the scary experience. I spent a lot of time in the water growing up, so it was just "normal." One thing, though, I did get to really appreciate - understanding how the clearing of the mask works. The instructor was telling me to lean the head back while exhaling, so the initial impression was that somehow I was supposed to "blow the water out" and that the angle of the mask was critical. Finally after several clearings it occurred to me how simple the physics behind it was (my background is in physics.) I am not blowing anything out of the mask, I am simply adding air. Air will immediately go to the top of the mask and as the pressure increases, it will simply push the water out at the bottom as long as I don't let the air escape at the top. To more experienced divers this might seem trivial, but it was a big revelation to me since understanding it made it very simple to deal with the full flooded mask and putting it on at depth - instead of frantically blowing into the mask, just keep exhaling into it until most of the water is gone, then give it a stronger snort out of the nose at the end to force the last bits of water out.
Open water was amazing. Two days of two dives in beautiful coral reef. Eels were all over the place, turtles, reef sharks (I saw just one, but there were others around us.) The most interesting part was seeing a huge Triton's trumpet battling with a poisonous starfish it supposedly eats. It's a good thing the instructor had a slate so he was able to write these things down as we were watching them. The technical exercises were virtually unnoticeable since we'd do them at the beginning of each dive, enjoy the reef, then do some more at the end. Being on the boat and cruising along the Kona coast was fun in itself, but getting under the surface multiple times made the day. I just wish I could've shared it with the rest of the family - when the girls are old enough they'll get to go.
So, that's how this new diver got certified a month and a half ago. Since then, I got my Nitrox and have gone diving off of Great Escape (boat) to Catalina, but that's another post.
