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What Was I Thinking??

Perhaps I was thinking, “Gee, now that Master Diver class is over, I’ll have too much spare time on my hands and not enough dry material to read.” Apparently thats the case, because I signed up for Divemaster class tonight. For those of you unfamiliar with this class, it includes some EXTREMELY challenging swim-work. For example, there is a timed non-stop swim of 900 yards. I don’t know if you’ve noticed from the pictures, but I’m one out-of-shape bastard! Hell, I sometimes think I look more like a black manatee than a diver! Needless to say, I’m going to be training all winter for this craziness. At least I have a year to complete it, so I should be ok. Besides, I needed a good excuse to get back into shape anyways.

I think the first pool session is this weekend. I’m not sure what to expect but I’m sure I’ll find out!

So begins the Master Scuba Diver class at Lake Rawlings. Today we dove like crazy! I think I used 8 tanks in two days! Met some really cool folks and had some awesome dives! Thanks go to Janet and David Hays for putting together a fun weekend. I favorite part was the light salvage and night dives. With all the divers and their lights in the water that night it looked like a disco down there. All in all, I could feel myself getting more and more “dialed in” as the weekend progressed.

Also important to note is that I finally reached dive #50 over the weekend! YAY! That was a goal I really wanted to reach this year and I’m glad the weather cooperated. Now if I can get to 100 next year, that will be perfect!

Pics are here!

So we decided to make a trip down to Lake Rawlings again. This time it was Chris, Kellie, Jeff L. and I. We made the mistake of reserving rooms at the Nottoway Motel. Wow, talk about a motel right out of the movies – HORROR MOVIES! After swapping out my initial room for one with AC, the room I had to use was one that I *swear* had just been used to film a porno! I mean this is one of those rooms that hadn’t changed since the ‘70s! Even the toilet wasn’t affixed to the floor!

Well, I tried to sleep there but I just couldn’t being myself to pull back the covers on the bed. So, I ended up getting out of there and heading 20 miles further south to the Holiday Inn Express, where I finally enjoyed a clean and quiet room.

The following day’s dives were great. Got some fun video and generally had a good time. Was a nice prequel to the Master Diver class I would be attending over the next couple days there.

We had our orientation last night, and I have to say that this looks like its going to be a very detailed class. The book is a bit thicker than most, and covers a lot of ground. This weekend we are planning some dives at Lake Rawlings to get things moving along. I’m actually headed down there on Thursday afternoon in order to claim a good spot and get some dives in on Friday. I should get some good pictures up after this weekend!

Wow. That was a tough course! Today wasn’t nearly as bad as yesterday though. We did more in-water stuff, and scenarios at depth. Plus, today was like 10 degrees cooler than yesterday which helped a lot. Now I just gotta take my CPR/Oxygen Administration test and I get my shiny new c-card! Whew… I’m just glad its over, although I know it has improved my situational awareness considerably. Next stop: Master Diver. More money, more money!

Today was the first day of the NAUI Rescue Diver training. I can honestly say this is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Maybe its because I’m in such terrible shape, but I’m almost too exhausted to even type! I thought the 225 yard swim in 6 minutes was going to be tough. Little did I know, that was just the tip of the iceberg!

Today we hauled a victim to shore from about 50 yards away, after diving down to the platform to recover him. Oh ya, and while you are hauling the corpse to shore, you have to give him “rescue breaths” every 5 seconds, get his gear off, get YOUR gear off, and carry him out of the water! I think I pulled some muscles today that I didn’t know I had!

I have one more day of this torture to get through, and I will have the certification. Just one more day…

Well, I guess it could have been worse. Trey and I headed out to Millbrook and got there about 8AM. After setting up, we did a quick pre-run dive to just muck around. Afterwards, the poker run began. Each team was to go to five different locations and collect a chip from each spot. Then, you bring all these chips back up top and exchange them for cards. Highest 5-card hand wins. Much to my surprise, we were able to find all the chips, even in zero visibility! Unfortunately, the hand I got could not have been worse… Oh well, it was a fun dive! Pics are here!

If I’m not too late, I’m headed over to the shop to register for the poker run they are having this weekend. I’ve never done one of these, so it should be interesting. The prizes are gift certificates to Adventure Scuba. I’ve blown so much cash there already that I would certainly welcome some free goodies! I’ll try to post some pictures of the even tomorrow night…

Still a little late getting these pics out, but I had a LOT of stuff going on back at work.  It seems that when you are gone for a week, stuff starts piling up!  These are pictures taken with my SeaLife Reefmaster Mini.  Some may be a little grainy, but I’m still figuring it all out 🙂

I have to say that Cozumel is the best diving location I’ve seen yet.  The water was a color of blue that I had never seen before.  All in all, it was pretty amazing.  You can see the pics here.

I finally got all the video and pics together into one place.  For those of you who don’t know, a cenote is a type of cavern system.  Its more like a sink-hole that has a vast network of caves and caverns.  Well, in my recent trip to Cozumel I finally got to dive one.  It was unlike anything I’ve ever seen.  I gotta’ say, it definitely beat open water diving for me.  Now it looks like I need to think about cave certification in the future… You can see the video here or browse the photos here.