My first dives as a certified scuba diver!!!

Well, I have my certification, and I'm allowed to dive to a depth of 60 ft. But being from New York, and having gotten certified on a Caribbean vacation in November, it's hard to have to wait to be able to dive again. I guess eventually I can get dry suit certified and go diving in NY in the winters ... that is, IF I feel crazy enough!!

So, what's a gal to do? Well, I guess go diving on any vacation or mini-vacation that you can! And that's exactly what I did.

Last week my sister had a conference to go to out in San Diego. I join her every year for this conference, because I only have to pay for the airfare, and the rest (hotel, food, even an excursion) are paid for by the sponser of the conference. The first day of the conference is taken up with workshops and presentations. I usually get together with one of my friends that live in San Diego, or go sight-seeing myself. But this year, I decided to see about going diving!

Now, remember, I was certified in the Caribbean. Cold water diving is NOT something that is second nature to me. And being a somewhat ... um .... tiny person, I already get cold so easily! But, I am game! I mean, it's a dive experience, right?! And I want to get as many of those as I can!!! So I found a dive boat (Dive Connections), and signed up for a morning of 2 kelp bed dives. I was all psyched to possibly see seals!!!

So early Friday morning, I get up, get some breakfast and go out to the hotel lobby. The owner of the dive boat, Barry, was so nice, and even offered to pick me up at my hotel and bring me to the boat! Talk about service!!! We chatted a bit on the way over, and I felt really at ease!

I filled out all my forms, paid and got all my rental equipment (remember from my previous blogs that I only had some of my dive equipment. Then I went onboard the boat we were taking that morning and set up my BC/Regulator/Tank. My first regulator was doing a free flow so I had to exchange it.

The rest of the people started to file on, and get themselves set up. During this time, I sat with an advanced diver named Roger who had a REALLY good looking dive camera with the strobes and all that professional looking stuff. Yet, he was really nice and talked to me about the little starter camera I had, and what I could possibly do to increase the likelihood that my photos would come out better.

There were 3 women on the boat who were also newly certified like me. We all talked and figured we would try to dive together. We went over our plan. I even worked out a hand signal with one of them, who was going to be "my" buddy that would mean we were scared (the hands on the face like the kid from "Home Alone")

One of the women had actually talked with another guy, named Todd, who was an advanced diver. He was nice enough to agree to "babysit" us newbies!! I learned later that I was VERY glad that she had talked him into this! You'll understand why in a minute. Another advanced diver, Mary joined our little group as well.

So, we get to our first dive site (Quast Rock, depth of approx. 60', near La Jolla, CA) and into the water, make our way to the front of the boat and start down the anchor line. The 3 women were taking some extra time, so Todd signaled to me to go ahead down. It was REALLY murky on the way down. But once I passed about 40 feet, it opened up .... a bit. Visibility was nowhere near what I had in the Caribbean!! But I was there, breathing under water, looking around, enjoying the whole experience! Mary got down next. We just hung out for another few seconds, and then Todd was with us. He gave both of us the "OK" sign, which we returned, and then signaled for us to start out.

Confused, I quickly wrote on my slate "Where others?", to which Todd somehow signaled to me that they were not coming afterall. I found out when I got back on the boat that they had started down the anchor line, didn't like that they couldn't see too far, and decided to just hand onto the anchor line, and then go back up on the boat. Had I been with only them, I would not have gotten to dive at all on that dive. Now do you see why I said I was really glad that Todd had agreed to "babysit"? (side note, Todd told me that I had done really well, and that I didn't seem like a newbie! Yup, I'm proud!!)

Ok, so we went off and did our dive. It was murky, but I saw lots of different things, and really enjoyed myself. Check out what I saw on my photo profile on Scuba Board. http://www.scubaboard.com/gallery/member.php?uid=90301&protype=1

But then I started to get cold. I was having such a great time that I didn't want to go up. But with hypothermia setting in (just kidding, it wasn't THAT bad) I signaled to Todd that I was cold. He signaled back to see if I wanted to go to the boat. I said yes, but he could see how cold I was, and decided we should just ascend and then swim back to the boat. We hadn't gone too far, so it shouldn't be too much of an issue.

That was, until we started to ascend, and I realized that I was underweighted!!! Going up slow, I was able to keep myself at an "ok" pace, but I needed to use my arms to push myself downward. But when we got to the 15 ft. safety stop, I had a LOT of trouble staying there!!! So much so, that Todd actually had to grab hold of me, and keep me at the 15 ft. level. It was scary, but once again I was so happy that Todd was there for me!! When we were up on the boat, he said that although you'd want to do the safety stop on all dives, at the depth we had been to, it wasn't such a big deal if we didn't get to do that. Then I remembered reading about that (how a safety stop from a depth of 60 ft. was recommended, but that it was "required" at deeper depths)

Back on board the boat, I was sooooooo cold!!! I could hardly hold onto the cup of soup that I had!! After about an hour rest, we went back in for dive #2! This second dive was also in La Jolla, at a spot called Chuck Rock, with a depth of approx. 60'.

This time a seal did come by!!!!!! Yup, soooooo incredibly psyched! Unfortunately, my camera had not been handed down to me yet, as we had just gotten in the water! So no photos! But the cutie was swimming around the boat, and actually kissed it. I told Barry later, that the seal had blessed his boat! Mary and I called to him ... yes, we did the "kissy" sound you do to a dog. He looked over at us, and then disappeared underwater. So immediately, Mary and I stick our heads in the water. And within a few seconds, there he was, swimming around our fins!! I wish he had stayed, but off he went! But I felt so honored that he had come by at all!

This time I had the proper amount of weight! The problem I had on this dive ... getting too distracted! I was taking a photo, and so concentrated on that, and I didn't notice that Todd and Mary had kept moving. The visability was really bad, and within seconds they were out of sight! I looked up from my camera and realized I was alone!!!

Slight freak out!!! But I stopped myself, and looked at everything logically. I was not in any emergency situation. I had enough air in my tank. I was breathing fine. Worse case scenario, if I had to ascend by myself, I knew how to do that. I had the proper weight, so I should be able to do the full safety stop. But before I ascended, I figured I should at least try to find Todd and Mary. Or they'd end up spending their whole dive looking for me! I didn't want to ruin their dive because I was inexperienced!! So I looked all around. Yeah, it was murky (maybe 10 feet of visability), but wasn't that one area a little more murky than the rest of the ways I could go? Could that extra murkiness be caused by Todd and Mary stirring up some silt or knocking into some kelp? I tried it, and guess what?! Lo and behold, there they were. And it looked like Todd was just starting to freak out and notice I wasn't there. He gave me the "OK" and I gave it back to him. Later on the boat, I told him about what happened. Not that I want to lose my dive buddy, but I was happy that I didn't freak out and that I was able to figure it out for myself!

The ascent on that second dive was MUCH better! And Todd made us stay there for a full 5 minutes! :-) Back on the boat I changed into all my warm clothes! I came prepared, thankfully!!

After we got back, returned our gear and washed off our own gear, I hung out for a few minutes while they closed up shop (no afternoon dives that day) and Barry and I headed to Pacific Beach for a bite to eat! We chatted some more, and now I have yet another friend in San Diego!! I will surely dive with the people from Dive Connections again!!

Ok, on to the next dive experience!! (by the way, that's in 12 days from now, when I go to Florida to visit my Mom. I'm signed up for 4 dives, including one wreck dive!!!)