But I’m in the Pacific NorthWest. So it’s ALL cold water low visibility scuba diving for me. Yes, this makes me a little sad, I want those tropical vacations and colorful fishes.
More than that, I’d love to swim with less gear on. Oh, to swim without 7 inches of neoprene or a dry suit! 5mm wet suits, 3mm wet suits! Or even… imagine skin diving!!! just a rash guard! So naughty!
But where I am is frigging cold and the water is murky. I see flatfish and crabs, plumos, and not so bright schools of fish.
SO I went for my Advanced Diver Certification this weekend up at YSS Diving in Hoodsport. It was supposed to be a weekend experience but it did not go so great.
There was another student who had only ever done diving off the coast of hawaii, and had never been in a full body wetsuit. Part of the course is to do drysuit training (though not to get certified) and she was severely intimidated by the drysuit. Let me tell you, if you’ve ever been in a 7mm wetsuit you will find putting on a drysuit super easy. Poor woman.
Her fit and equipment was a mess, took us a LOT of time to get started. She had a lot of trouble, and then her BDC (the harness that holds on the tank and inflates/deflates as needed for buoyancy) didn’t fit right, so she started spinning in the water and had to quit because of nausea. I got to snorkel and watch tiny crabs while waiting. but only did the two dives which was learning dry suite and low visibility training (a gimme in PNW diving) instead of three dives. Didn’t get to do a deep dive or anything outside of the murk of the near dock areas.
I did get to see a shipwreck, small though it was, and a crab about 10 inches across. And on the low vis dive we were picking up trash and I found a the big D, picked it up and threw it away (in my trash net.) (It’s the “small” things in life, you know? 😉 ) Came across a large horde of crabs.
I’d have dived the next day but that night my sinuses decided to give me a major headache and I had to call off the dives. Boo, but that’s what divers have to do. All that means is that I have 4 more dives in much better places later on to go to!
MCM Creative 