This week's session, the third in my Open Water Diver course, finished with a bit of an epiphany. I think it is safe to say that up until this week, my scuba experience has been endured rather than enjoyed. I've made no secret of the fact that I was learning to scuba-dive mainly due to morbid curiosity and coercion.
Whilst the instructors and the PADI course itself do their best to make it an entertaining experience, the truth is that there is an unavoidable amount of academic work and technical drills to trudge through in order to minimise the chances of a watery death. As a result, classrooms and swimming pools are the venues of choice and both are renowned for their safety and their dullness. However, this did not prevent a deep sense of foreboding from being the theme at the beginning of the session.
A Special Place in Hell
So it was for week three, when after a more concerted effort to study, I got some questions wrong in my mini-exam. It was nothing too much to be concerned about; one I was guilty of over-thinking and the other was basically the fault of the PADI question researchers - one question went beyond mere pedantry and into the realms being fundamentally misleading. When two answers are equally right but only one answer is accepted as correct, 50% of people will be marked as wrong when they're not. There's a special place in hell reserved for exam question writers, crossword compilers and people who steal jigsaw pieces from old people's homes.
The PADI video was as nauseatingly jaunty as usual, with the attempts at humour ranging from the cringeworthy to the obnoxious, although I did laugh out loud at a comical moment involving a shark glove puppet and a clever perspective shot. However, I think that very moment encapsulated the reason for this week's rising sense of dread. Repeated shots of things that can kill you aside, the video did it's best to make light of the procedures we would be learning which largely involved not using any of the equipment we've painstakingly been familiarising ourselves with. Whilst I totally understand the need to learn how to cope with not having any oxygen and not having a mask on, that doesn't really sell it to me and there's nothing funny about it. Fluffy shark or no.
But We Really Aren't Fish
En-route to the swimming pool, fellow student Darren and I agreed that there was something slightly more ominous about this week. Neither of us were particularly looking forward to getting into the pool. After assembling our equipment (again under supervision - I wouldn't be happy if I was expected to trust breathing apparatus I'd assembled alone), we went through the 'buddy check system' using the BWRAF (BCD, Weights, Releases, Air, Final Okay) acronym to ensure relevant equipment is checked. There seem to be a number of mnemonics in circulation to assist in memorising this procedure from the official (and weak) PADI "Begin With Review And Friend", to the more memorable "Burger With Relish And Fries". There was suggestion of a more amusing mnemonic involving Bangkok Women, but the presence of minors prevented it's utterance.
Preparation and checking over, we were shown how to get into the water using the 'giant step entry' method. Essentially this is something straight out of Monty Python's Ministry of Silly Walks, but is a technique designed to ensure you clear the side of the platform from which you enter the water. It has become quite clear to me that looking silly really isn't something that divers are really bothered by
Once everyone was wet, we engaged in some drills involving changing from snorkel to regulator and back without lifting one's face out of the water, before descending into the four-metre pool. My ears failed to equalise properly on the first attempt, but I calmly communicated the issue to the dive instructor then ascended until I was able to rectify the problem. I quietly congratulated myself on my professionalism.
Like a Jedi Space Bird
Darren's ongoing mask versus face issues manifested again and he struggled for some time with ongoing leakage, resulting in myself and Chloe being left under the supervision of some other divers to swim around at our leisure whilst it was resolved. It was at this point that the aforementioned epiphany occurred.
My ongoing frustrations with buoyancy and breathing melted away as I was allowed to swim around. Suddenly I was free and I discovered that whilst in motion, minor corrections can easily be made to compensate for the rise-and-fall caused by lung ventilation. Like a true geek I found myself comparing my movement through the water to a spaceship firing maneouvering thrusters to maintain control. I felt almost like I was flying as I swooped and dive-bombed the tile-fields and pubic-hair roads below. Now this was fun, give me kelp forests and coral skyscrapers now!
Darren's issues over, we were gathered together to practice changing from main regulator to our alternative air supplies. Thankfully time constraints meant that we did not get a chance to experience having our oxygen supply switched off and we returned to the surface. I was again pleased with my performance as I managed to successfully control my ascent, and was complimented later on the fact that I managed to level out in the shallow end without breaking the surface, controlling my buoyancy to swim along in the comparatively narrow shallow end of the pool.
It was just like bulls-eyeing womp-rats back home!
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