Oh, yea you tuff guys diving 200 feet wreck diving with 50 deco stops breathing Martian gas, you think youre men Ha! Ill tell what a real man is! I just finished two dives in a row with a surface interval with a leaking dry suit. No pee valve, no zip relief zipper, no diaper.
I held my yellow water for a number of hours.
After two dives at Lovers Point in Monterey at the Scuba Board dive on December 5th I was reaffirmed of my manliness. After the two dives in my cold leaking dry suit I finally was able to get to the restroom. Real men put up with lots of pain. Pain when you bump your head, slamming your finger in the door or slamming a hammer on your thumb without shedding a tear even though you feel like crying like a baby and crying out for mama. I put up with the internal pain of having the DYB (dry suit yellow bubble). There are two ways to flood a dry suit both with salt water only the colors are different. My dry suit only flooded with seawater. I took it like a man and put up with the pain and avoided the difficulty of the double flood situation caused by release through the human manly valve release.
I finally got to the restroom after what felt like a marathon urine holding contest. After getting my dry suit off, I quickly walked to the public restroom. I walked because the trauma to internal organs while jogging with 12 lbs of a urine bubble the size of a basketball could have caused major damage. I did not walk with dignity because I was bent over and looked like the number seven.
Upon entering the restroom the single urinal was occupied. No, I did not panic due to my expert PADI training. I did the STOP, BREATH, THINK, ACT. This all happened in less than a fraction of a second due to this emergency situation. I quickly spotted the open toilet stall. Entered, and dropped my drawers for serious deployment of emergency release of the manly valve release. At first the release valve did not deploy sufficient fluid release to ease the pain sustanance. Then, oh Yea! It was 911 time. The fire hose stream hit the toilet with such force that I worried about damaging public property but thank God it was a stainless steel bowl. Since I was streaming into a bowl of water it created an enormous amount of decibels of sound that could be heard from miles away. As the crescendo was in process, I was surprised not only of the volume, sound and speed of this activity, but the length of time that was going by. I could have completed five Sudoku puzzles during this time. I was in this cubicle while I heard person after person enter and exit. It could have been up to a bakers dozen of people who, at least auditorially, witnessed this great feat. I should have them sign my divers log book.
I finally finished this great accomplishment with a couple of manly wiggles. Upon leaving the stall I fully expected some applause from the imaginary crowd that I thought had formed. No crowd? No applause? Huh! No one to shake my hand in congratulatory admiration. (I dont blame anyone for not shaking my hand).
Well, I felt great. Getting high on the natural processes of being human.
Sure some men can dive two hundred feet, with twelve tanks strapped to them, in zero visibility, while completing calculus on a dive slate. But could they perform as admirably as I did in this emergency fluid decompression situation?
I felt like a real man overcoming this emergency dive situation. I did not panic and used my PADI dive Rescue Diver training.
I think there should be a PADI badge for this great skill and level of accomplishment.
Just my opinion.
Good health and Happy diving.
Great Post!
