Today was my first day of open water training. Am doing my open water with the Ft. Lewis dive center. So far only covered a few chapters in the book and demonstrated basic swimming skills.
Think we are pretty lucky doing the cert with Ft Lewis - the pool we use is used during the day by Madigan Army Medical Center for hydro therapy - so it's warmer than normal plus the pool area is heated to about 80. We were in the water for for at least 45 min and still felt quite comfortable.
Tomorrow we get our equipment and get to begin basic skills training and practice.
Hooray. Have fun and get ready for a life of Wonder.
Like, I wonder if this is gonna work, I wonder where my buddy is, I wonder why I'm not sinking, I wonder what that is, I wonder why my instructor can do it and I cant, I wonder how I ever got certified, I wonder how Im gonna pay for all of this and I wonder if I can dive tomorrow and the next day and so on.
Finally there's I wonder how I survived so long without diving!!
PEZ - you forgot one wonder.... how the heck am I gonna figure out what equipment I'm gonna get! Everytime I think I know what I'm going to get I come across something else that makes me reconsider my earlier decision. Fortunately I'm able to try out about 1/2 the equipment during training that I am considering buying.
Ray left Ft Lewis Scuba over a year ago. He just left for his 2nd tour in Iraq as a contractor. When he is in town, he works with Eric and Stan over at All in One Scuba in Tacoma.
I'm glad you understand the concept of "scuba units" and totally understand about finding more/different gear that makes you reconsider an earlier thought/opinion. Welcome to an expensive but rewarding hobby!
GUE Seattle - The official GUE Affiliate in the Northwest!
Sounder wrote:I'm glad you understand the concept of "scuba units" and totally understand about finding more/different gear that makes you reconsider an earlier thought/opinion. Welcome to an expensive but rewarding hobby!
yeah; like ... i bought some really "nice" not-very-cheap fins brand new ... used them a few times ... and now i only use some other ones i got off of craigslist for $10. :-) i think that as you dive more, you will realize more what you want/need. the catch, of course, is that you need a lot of gear to dive in the first place, so chances are you will end up buying some things you don't like later ... but i think that's just part of getting into scuba (or any other gear-intensive sport for that matter).
looking forward to hearing about your first OW dive!
Yea, the 80 degree water is nice, going to continue the warm water with a trip to Curacao the end of October.
I am already planning in using lots of scuba units! With lots of trips to warmer climates in the future I can easily see having at least 2 BCDs, a wetsuit, shorty, dry suit and much more! Gonna have some fun shopping!
TLG, I'll have some pictures for ya later this weekend.
The first week is over! 3 more classes and 4 open water dives are no all the stand between me and the open water!
All in all it has been a very fun and exciting experience! So far the skills have been comming along pretty easy - the real test will be next weekend! Suprisingly the on thing that gives me the most trouble is putting the tank and BCD together! I know.... practice, practice, practice!
Am doing my open water with the Ft. Lewis dive center. So far only covered a few chapters in the book and demonstrated basic swimming skills.
that was great, pez! (and this is about where i'm at right now ...)
