open water divers!!!

since we weren't able to make it back to the states for bear's vacation, we decided to put the time off to good use and go get our open water certification...("what is open water certification? - i thought you guys were scuba diving?"...open water certification means we are qualified to go on our own...scuba certification means you know how to dive but still must go with a divemaster to supervise you)...

so we started by getting the best instructor out there...perfect blend of cool guy/jokester/laid back, while still being knowledgeable, safe, thorough, and trustworthy...we had two days of classwork and tests, then we got in the pool...

at first i wasn't sure i would be able to go under the water...it took me a couple of tries to psych myself up to submerge...but finally i just closed my eyes, focused on breathing and didn't open them til i was underwater...from there on out it was smooth sailing!

here is rodney having bear do the free-flowing regulator skill test...

and here is me doing it...it looks really violent in real life...the air is blowing your head all over and it almost makes your mask come off, but it is very easy to do really...when he demoed it, it looked like his head was gonna blow off and i admit i was like "holy $h!t!!! - how are we gonna do that?" - but it was easy as pie...



(a little shout out to jeff and becky who watched palmer that night so we didn't have to worry about her, and were really great when we were late picking her up cause we weren't allowed in the pool on time!)

the next day we headed out for our first open water dive...the fish were swarming the second we got in...it was great! (we even saw a lion fish)


we did two dives that day and did different skills in each one, both surface and underwater...here we are doing an alternate air "ascent" (bear is breathing from my second regulator - then we hang on to each other and swim)
the next day we did two more dives...we saw a sea turtle which was really cool and got to pet a pufferfish!...we also did underwater compass navigation which had us swimming through pure blue water where you could not see anything around you...no point of reference (well, the surface 50 ft up but you would have to look straight up)...no floor no wall of reef, nothing...eerie, but cool...
then we came up to this really great massive flat reef...AWE-SOME...really cool stuff to see and touch...(gently of course!)...we didn't have our camera for that one though cause it's only rated to 33 feet and we had already pushed it the day before in the 40 ft range...didn't want to take it to 60!...

but then we grabbed it off the float again before we came in so we could feed the fish! (they love vienna sausages!)(another shout out to kelly and alyson who watched palmer for our second day of open water...she had a great time at their house! - we had a babysitter from our gym for the first day)

it was really cool...i would recommend trying it to everyone...i thought i would be all panicky and anxious...but really doing the reading and knowing what to do made me feel really prepared and not a bit of anxiety...




i think we have a new hobby!...(we really ought to find cheaper hobbies!!!)