Advanced Open Water Certification Dives

Friday - May 30th- We were up at 5:30 am and had the trusty Tahoe Trailer on the road at 7:20 am! First stop was Caleb's house in Portland to deliver the two recliners. Rain and clouds hovered over us all the way to Portland but we caught a break in the showers long enough to get the chairs into the house dry. We were back on Hwy 205 within 20 minutes. 30 minutes later we had crossed over the Columbia River in to Washington.

Retracing our steps to Mike's Beach Resort from the Washington border took 3 hours pulling a trailer which had us in the RV site about 5:30 pm. This was good because Underwater Naturalist had been added to our certification and I still had to do the chapter excersizes to hand in come morning.

The air was warmer, the waters clearer. Hope rose that this round of dives would be better than those done in March. If they weren't, I doubt we would continue with the sport.

The only other occupants at Mike's RV campground were a group of young Asians that had gathered for an oyster cook-out. The first few showed up with bags of oysters, followed by several carloads of friends. I slept but Jack heard them laughing and talking until 4 am. They were not overly loud just enough to keep him up. Not good when you have 3 dives planned for the next day.

Saturday, May 31st 9 am We are suited up in full 7 mm wetsuits, hoods, gloves, booties, BC's and dayglo tanks! Our first dive was an equipment check dive to check out Jack's new BC (Bouyancy Control Device), wieght distribution, and final Peak Bouyancy swim through the PVC diamond! Everything worked and we were jazzed!

Then came the navigation dive. Jack lead us out to the bouy on the compass heading as directed. I was to bring us back using a reverse heading. Numbers and I are not really on a first name basis and when I looked down at my compass to set my course I had no idea what numbers to use! So I headed to shore using "natural navigation" - following the upward slope of the bottom. I knew I was "off course" as we approached the 15 ft level and did our safety stop. The large oak leaf looking seaweed was nowhere in sight. After our 3 minutes swimming along at 15 feet I lead Jack up the slope into a batch of sea grass - first time we'd seen that! Surfacing at 5 feet we were looking at Margie and Kaya's ( our instructors) smiling faces. They were standing ankle deep in the water and greeted us warmly. Jack surfaced, looked at them and just pointed at me.

They were so nice! I'd taken us from one side of the resort's beach to the opposite side. Margie just said she was glad we didn't keep on going! They'd been following our bubbles first from the boat ramp, then from the pier, and finally along the beach! I really appreciated the lack of criticism! I felt pretty stupid.

Margie gave me a new navigatgion task of leading Jack from our current point on the right side of the pier back to the pier pilings - compass heading of 60 degrees - from a piling I was to make a 90 degree turn - to the right for a new reading of 150 degrees and proceed out in to the canal looking for 5 different kinds of fish, 4 non-fish, and 2 plants to identify later. When we were at 1000 psi we were to return to the shore at the boat launch on the left of the pier where we'd original started at, which would be at a bearing of 300 degrees! What a task! And she really believed I could go through with it!

So off we went! Jack dutifully followed me. We made the turns using the compass headings and got to explore something of the Hood Canal. At 40 feet we ran in to a thermoclime just as we came across the remains of a fiberglass boat. Jack indicated to me that he was cold and wanted to move out of the cold water - great underwater comunications! I settled myself on the bottom and rest the bezel on my compass to N off 300 degrees and headed back. We came up right at the boat launch!!!! I did it! We'd been underwater for 40 minutes! It was a great dive!

We exited the water feeling like we really are scuba divers! Shedding our gear we debriefed with Margie and got our marching orders - time to eat and rest up for the NIGHT DIVE. She gave us several id books to look for life we'd made note of during the dive and we returned to our little Tahoe. We were to met with Margie at 7 pm - the night dive would be at 9 pm... after some instruction time. Reading went to napping almost instantly when we streached out on the bed to go through the books! We were so exhusted!