Summer Vacation Part III: Scuba Scool

Less than a block up the street from the coffee shop is the Byron Bay Dive Center.  Looking at the outside, I'd have to say we didn't exactly know what to expect.  Within a few minutes we felt as if we were in good hands.  To say the staff is professional is an understatement. Every aspect of our training was top notch, from the people who greeted us at the door to our instructor and dive guides.  I couldn't recommend them more strongly.

We were signed up to do an introductory scuba course called "scuba diver" it was supposed to consist of one day in the pool and one day at sea.  We found out that this was really just an introductory course and wouldn't really get us certified to dive.  We met our instructor and started the class with the "open water" students.  The open water course is four days and consists of two days in the pool and two days at sea.  At the end of the four days you are a certified open water diver and can dive up to 18 meters deep anywhere in the world.  Within ten minutes of the class starting we decided to stay in with the rest of the class and go for our certification.  The price difference was only $100 each plus the cost of a dive medical, about $60.  I think I twisted Leah's arm a bit, but in the end we're both really happy.

Our instructor was an Aussie guy named Mick. We both found him to be great.  He has been an instructor for ten years and has dived all over the world. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend him to anyone who wants to learn to dive.  Learning a skill like scuba where the slightest problem can be deadly, you want someone in charge who is really knowledgeable .  Mick is a great teacher.

The first thing we did was sit in a class room for about half the day, reading manuals and watching videos.  There were six of us in the class, a husband and wife (a few years older than me), a mother and son (late 40s? and 17) and Leah and I.  After lunch it was time for us to get in the pool.  We changed into our swimsuits (togs) and selected our equipment.  By the time we did that we had a good idea of what we needed.  Mick helped everyone select wet suits and the rest of our gear.  The dive center has hundreds of people come through every week for snorkel and dive trips so they have a ton of equipment to use.  Here's a shot of the equipment room:

What you can't see here are the racks and racks of wet suits in the back by the pool.  The first thing we did in the water was demonstrate some basic swimming skills.  We had to swim three laps of the pool and tread water for a time.  Of course Leah is a fish and I had no trouble with the tests.  One person in our group though (the wife') started to hyperventilate and just like that we lost one person from the class.  This would become a theme.

After the basic swimming tests, we geared up.  By this time it was starting to rain pretty hard so we were happy to be getting under the water.  Mick walked us through the steps of getting into wet suits (tight as) and prepping our tanks and vests.  The tank attaches to the vest (called buoyancy compensator) and the you adjust the amount of air in the vest to keep you neutrally buoyant in the water.  Once we were geared up it was time to dive.  We entered the pool by stepping backwards off the deck and dropping in the pool.

The pool was really no bigger than most backyard swimming pools you might have seen with a depth of about two meters at the deep end.  The water was nice and warm, about 24C.  In the pool we learned the basic skills that we would need to know in the open water.  Things like how to get your regulator back in your mouth if it gets knocked out.  How to clear water from your mask if it leaks and most importantly how to equalize the pressure in your middle ear as you dive deeper.  Apparently lots of people have trouble with this, but again Leah and I had no difficulties.  We spent about two hours in the pool and Mick sent us away for the day feeling pretty pumped and ready for what was to come next.  Needless to say we learned a ton on the first day, but we still had lots to learn.

Here's the pool, this picture was taken a couple days later when the sun was out.  And since it was mostly raining and we were mostly wet, I didn't have the camera out most of the time.  This is about as exciting as the pictures from scuba class get.

The second day we started in the class room again.  This time we got into some deeper theory of diving like decompression and emergency situations.  We got in the pool again after lunch and this time had much less trouble gearing up and getting dressed.  Leah looks pretty good in a scuba kit and she told me I look like Aqua Man.  I must admit to having a cool face in my gear despite the fact that I selected a wet suit just a hair too small and felt like fat man in a little coat.

For this pool session we were joined by a british girl who started her scuba training somewhere else but was unable to finish because the visibility on her third dive was less than one meter.  She joined us for the pool session so Mick could be sure of her skills before we went in the open water.  More on her later.

This time in the pool we worked on emergency skills.  We had to remove our masks entirely and get them back on under water.  We also practiced the procedure for sharing an air source if one person runs out of air.  Not something you want to be doing, let me tell you.  I haven't mentioned it yet but Leah and I are "Scuba Buddies"  you never dive without a buddy and never let your buddy out of your sight while in the water.  That way if either of you have a problem, it's not a problem.  If you were by yourself and ran out of air, you'd just bite it.  If your buddy is there you can share air.  Comforting.

Mick joked with us when he heard Leah and I calling each other buddy (we do that all the time anyway).  He said Australian guys get weirded out by the buddy system, they're always like "why can't we be dive mates?" and he has to tell them that the certification agencies are American and mate means something totally different there.  It was kinda funny, but you probably had to be there.

Also funny, in the scuba workbook, they talk about some of the fish you can see during fresh water dives.  They mention Crappie.  Aussies find it totally hilarious that there is actually a fish called a Crappie and Mick made us explain just what the hell one was. I think he still thinks we're messing with him.

Here's Mick and Leah and Me:

We finished up our skills in the pool and got out of the dive center about three pm.  We had to return in the  morning at six am.

Tomorrow: The Open Water!

ps.  Tomorrow I start my new job and Leah starts school.  We're both excited and nervous.  I haven't been to work in over a year.  I think it's going to be a rude awakening.  Back to the real world for us.  Wish us luck.