I’m home at last. My Open Water scuba trip to Hoodcanal is finally
over. After dive 3, I had to refuel with some food and water and relax
for about 15 minutes. I was glad to find out that I was not the only
one who lost a fin in the water, well not glad for him, but glad that
me losing my fin wasn’t because of my own stupidity, it can apparently
happen to anyone.

After the break, I had to don all my gear and walk back down into the
water. At this point I was really tired and I just wanted to take a hot
shower and take a nap. While on the way to the water, I remember
something that my friend Natalie said to me when I was describing the
pool sessions to her. She said that scuba diving sounded “like torture”
and as I was making my way down there I kept thinking to myself “this is torture.”
I would not be denied though, I got in the water and did another free
descent (this time deeper) where Dan and I did a full removal
of the mask, replacement and then clearing it. Dan was the first to go
and in the middle of it his regulator flew out of his mouth (apparently
he was having a hard time with that the whole trip). Like a true
champion, he didn’t freak out and Billy recovered the regulator and
stuck it back in his mouth. Of course, after witnessing this first
hand, I was thinking to myself, “Shit, that better not happen to me.”
Luckily it didn’t and I was able to remove the mask, replace it and
clear it without any major difficulties. After that, we did a swim
underwater with the compass which I didn’t do too bad in and then it
was time for our recreational swim to look at stuff. He took us to 40ft
(we can only go to 60 feet as Open Water divers) and I can honestly say
that I don’t think that I’m cut out for deep diving. At 40 feet, it’s
pretty dark and the squeeze on my dry suit and mask were incredible. I
was able to equalize them, but I just didn’t like the notion of being
40 feet underwater. It’s probably something that will pass over time
but for my first time down that far it made me uneasy.

After the recreational portion, we ascended and as Billy was swimming
to shore he said “Congratulations, you’re certifiable now.” I’m sure
that to him, we seemed like hapless fools that should be sent to a
mental institution.

So now I’m Open Water Certified! Although I might just be certifiable
too. If you’ve read all of the Yellow House posts and this one you’d
think that I would never want to go diving in the Pacific Northwest
again. Maybe I like being challenged to the extreme, but am I crazy because I want to go again?