May 31, 2008 Saturday evening - The Night Dive!

Jack and I woke up from our nap, made a quick dinner and joined Margie at 7 pm in the small dorm to go over the fish and fauna we'd seen during our afternoon dive. It's always easier to check the dive computers for information when sitting with someone that knows how many times to tap the left or right button to get the screens to change to where you want them.

Being the slowest at getting geared up Jack and I started assembling our equipment as soon as we were done with the Underwater Naturalist paperwork. The rest of the class was to be suited up and ready at the boat ramp at 8 pm. With our "head start" Jack and I were suited up and ready when Kaya came down the ramp. That was a first!

Kaya is the class instructor... Jack and I were assigned to Margie. I think we were the "special cases"! Whatever the reason we were lucky to get Margie as our individual trainer. She took the time to get us properly weighted, show us the intricacies of our dive computers, point out the octupus under the ship remains, and share to 'wonder of the deep' amoung other things.

After the instruction portion of the night dive we all shrugged into our BC's and headed down the ramp to the waters edge. As we did a bueatiful bald eagle swooped by and landed on the point just past the ramp. In the gathering darkness the white feathers gleamed. Noble and regal he watched our group of seven black hooded, bug-eyed, white faced humpbacked creatures swim out in to the dark waters. Wondering what type of creatures we were?

Before going in I made sure I knew the compass heading for where we were going, the heading back, that Margie's tank light was white, and Jack's was red. I turned on the big hand held light, swallowed my apprehension and waded in with my dive buddy, Jack.

The mission was simple. Navigate out to the bouy, practice communication skills with lights underwater in the dark, look around for the nightlife, turn our lights to our chest and experience the darkness and watch the luminous fauna glow, then navagate back to shore. All the time staying close to your dive buddy.

I got an unexpected extra credit assignment. My hand held light dimmed to a orange-red glow after only the first few excersizes. I could see Margie's white tank light ahead of me but as I looked around for Jack the glow didn't penitrate the darkness enough for me to see him. I didn't see his light either. We had stirred the bottom up with our decent and visibility was extremely bad.

First I shook the light hard several times - that's what works on our flashlight at home. Then I banged on the side of the casing feeling more anxious as the 'glow' faded to nothing. It was completely dark. "Keep breathing. Be still. Think the situation through. Move slowly and deliberately." I repeated to myself. The 7 mil gloves made unzipping the pocket on my BC by touch awkward but I managed to get it done and pulled out my back-up flashlight. Basically by braille I oriented the flashlight and found the On switch. And there was LIGHT! Whew! And the little light seemed much brighter than the large one! And there was Jack and Margie - not far away. I guess if I'd looked around longer I would have seen their lights but I'd become very focused and tunnel visioned around the fading light in my hand.

I was very glad to see them! I did not want to do the lost buddy routine no matter how much extra credit could be earned. I'd embarrassed myself enough earlier in the day!

Signaling I was 'OK' I happily let Jack take the lead in navigating us back to shore.

Topside Margie complimented me on handling the situation so calmly. Evidently she'd been watching me the entire time. She even admitted she'd enjoyed watching the process and was impressed that I solved the delimma without assistance. I accepted the praise, mentally promising myself I will not be doing any other night dives.

One more dive to go! Sunday morning 8 am at the boat ramp for the Deep Dive!

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!