A few days ago a friend was reading this blog and said, “I thought you were kidding. I didn’t know this was for real.” Absolutely, this is for real. I am learning to scuba dive, and having the time of my life. And, yes this week the ab workout as a result of uncontrollable laughter continued. My buoyancy issue continued, and this week, I struggled with the problem of turtling. My head and feet were above water, but my torso was arched and I was floating around like an upside down turtle. Actually I was sort of dog paddling to keep my head afloat. I started to laugh and couldn’t stop. The two dive masters, Kim and Tom, I think just shook their heads and thought I must be incorrigible. It’s OK, I am.

As I paddled around trying to find some semblance of sanity, I was reminded of the time when I took my oldest daughter for swimming lessons as an infant. She, much like me, couldn’t stop laughing. The difference was, she didn’t have to. It was her time to play in the water and just learn how the water felt and explore it. I, on the other hand was supposed to be learning the skills of a diver. I was supposed to be learning how to dive safely, to switch from snorkel to regulator and back, swim correctly using my fins, take my mask off underwater and put it back on, and make sure I kept an eye on my buddy. I think I did everything pretty well. At least I didn’t drown. I only took on water a couple of times when I got water in my nose and down my throat. Dive master Tom to the rescue. And, more silliness as I tried to get my fins underneath me.

I do take all of this very seriously, don’t get me wrong. I know just how easy it is to drown or to get into trouble in water. I’m a swimmer, and been through the rigorous Lifeguard training. As a half century old diver-in-training, with buoyancy issues, I am enjoying the laughter and the learning. It’s all in great fun. It just takes some getting used to hearing – “how is you weight?” and and realizing it doesn’t have anything to do with my waistline. So I do laugh – a hardy laugh, and stuff more sandbags into my BCD, so I can sink to the bottom of the pool.

Thanks to Aquatic Adventures of Michigan for a weekly belly laugh and an ab workout like no other. Laughter is the best medicine and anyone who hasn’t tried something like this, I highly recommend it. It is a gentle reminder to take life with a grain of salt, don’t sweat the small stuff – and everything is small stuff.

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My ab workout is complete. I think I laughed more in the pool trying to sink than I have all week. When my feet – in my fins – popped up out of the water as though they had their own buoyancy, the giggles began. Then, when I couldn’t get my feet back under me, and my rear wanted to float on its own, I thought I’d fill my goggles with tears I laughed so hard.

I’m sure the instructors we had tonight, a nice man named AJ, has seen it all before, but for someone like me to hear “let’s get some more weight on you,” I nearly wanted to crack. I have never been one who needed more weight anywhere. I know the rules of buoyancy though. The more muscle you have the less you float. It stands to reason that I would float like a rubber mattress, and in a wet suit and fins, all of my personal flotation was packed into a zipper-locked container.

It only took about half an hour to get me to sink, get the weights to stop falling out of my BCD and go through the exercises. We learned the hand-signals for all kinds of underwater communication, including OK, watch me, up and down. And, we had to learn what to do if our regulators got away from us. I did OK as long as we practiced the exercise where the regulator was within reach, but it was the over the shoulder stretch that had me thinking about my limitations. It was all good – no problem, except when I couldn’t reach far enough or fast enough, and started to want to laugh again. It’s not a good idea to laugh without a regulator in your mouth, or even with one in for that matter, especially when you’re under water.

Finally, everything seemed to come together. I was swimming. Swimming with my fins on for the first time was great! I have to say I don’t think the pool is big enough. Flashbacks to swimming lessons and those first long swims across the pool holding my breath under water came back to me. Of course, no holding my breath in scuba diving class. And, if I don’t pay attention to the instructor now, I don’t just have to sit on the edge of the pool for 20 minutes.

As I swam along the bottom I had those same thoughts I had as a – that I could have stayed in the water forever. If it weren’t for getting cold and having to admit I was a little tired, I thought as the water enveloped me, just how peaceful it was. I thought about how I’d always wondered what it would be like to breathe under water – like a fish – and there I was doing that for the first time. I’d never worn fins before, and I kicked my fins – like a fish – (albeit a wounded fish at times) for the first time. It was a break from reality.

When I got out of the pool and stowed all the gear, I looked back and at the surreal moments of the whole thing. From laughing myself to tears over my buoyancy issue, to finding a peace and serenity under the water.

Back to the real world.

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Open Water Student Blog Session #2

Into every puddle a little rain must fall. At least in order to make it a better place to swim, right? Well, that’s the way it is with learning something like scuba. I get the fun and excitement of getting into the water and being in an element where I feel so free, but in order to do it, I have to learn some basic principles. And, those principles involve numbers. I am not afraid of the water – never have been. So why am I afraid of numbers?

Phobic, is what I’m told. I’m not as phobic of numbers as I am of bees or tornadoes, but for example when i see the number 33, I don’t see a number exactly. I see twin misshapen bodies that seem to have lost their limbs and heads. They don’t know where they belong because they don’t have eyes and can’t follow directions. They don’t understand that in the world of words, numbers take on a meaning all their own and they’re disillusioned creatures who belong in the nether reaches of some cavernous beyond.

Please don’t think I need to be brainwashed or have some kind of mathematical immersion therapy. It just takes a little longer to get the concepts into my right brain. In our first chapter homework we needed to learn about depth, pressure and air volume. I know certain things, but when there are too many numbers and the sequences get out of order, my writer brain needs a breather. It’s a good thing the PADI Diving Society puts out a textbook on how all of this works. The book is pretty concise and people like me (I know I’m not alone) can go back over, and over, and over it until I get the numbers to act like numbers.

It took reading and rereading the chapter, watching the video segment, then having the instructor go over the table, but I think I finally have it figured out that at 20 meters or 66 feet, the pressure is 3 bars or atmospheres and the air volume is 1/3 the density.

Now that we’ve gotten that first quiz out of the way though, it is a good time to learn how to use the fun stuff. I got the mask, fins, boots, gloves and snorkel to get started with. Then we got into class and found out the pool was too cold for our dive practice tonight. Darn! A bunch of numbers floating around in my head and no where to wash them out.

On to chapter two and hopes that next week the pool will be repaired. I can’t wait to see how our little class fares remembering the steps in the process of putting together the gear.
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One of our students told me she was writing a blog about her experience in the Open Water course, after reading it, I thought I would share it with our followers..of course with Denyse's permission.


Embarking on this new adventure is going to be fun I told myself several times on the way to the dive shop. I didn’t know what to expect when I got there since I’d never been before, but I went armed with an open mind and a child’s sense of wonder.

Starting out on the wrong foot, I left home in the morning without my swimsuit and towel. I’d gone to bed with it all packed, but left it sitting at home as if the dog were going to use it. Do I drive home at lunchtime? Do I leave a little early and run home to get it before heading to Aquatic Adventures? Do I have time to just leave at 5 and go home? All my anxiety started to build from the time I walked through the door at work in the morning until I walked out at 4:59 p.m. I had plenty of time to go home grab my bag, let the dog out, eat something and get down the road. I even arrived on time. Let me into the pool where I can breathe.

I knew as soon as I got into the pool my anxiety would melt away, but there was the paperwork and the obligatory introductions first.

There are four other people in my class. A 13-year old boy, a mother and daughter, and the daughter’s boyfriend. It’s an interesting mix. Brian the 13-year old has a brother who dives, and his dad brought him to class. His dad doesn’t like the water. The family of three is planning a vacation and wants to be able to dive on their trip. Then there’s me – I’ve always wanted to learn to dive just because I love the water. I’ve spent most of my life in and around water, and even had dreams of becoming an Oceanographer until I found out how much math and science it took.

My classmates and I sat in the little classroom at Aquatic Adventures and met our instructor Kim Parker. She’s been to places most of us will only dream of, and Steve, a diver who hails from England. It’s going to be fun. Steve took me back to get fitted for my wet suit and BCD (later I found out that means Boyancy Control Device). Of course, my first thought was – I can’t imagine what that’s going to look like. I was born with swim fins and personal flotation devices, and was grateful there wasn’t a mirror in the changing room. I just laughed as I squeezed myself into the wet suit – laughed a bit harder when I tried to get back out of it.

The best part came when we got to drive over to Brighton High School to the pool. Ah – I could finally breathe. Water does that. There is something about floating, buoyancy and moving through the water that makes everything else disappear. It didn’t matter that there were a group of “older” people sitting on benches along the sidewall, or that there was hip-hop music on the boom box, it didn’t matter that there were other divers suiting up to get into the deep tank, or someone else practicing for a swim meet. It was all gone. It was just me in the water and all was right with the world.

The swim test was pretty simple. Swim 4 laps – 8 lengths of the pool. For a few minutes I felt less like a 1/2 centenarian than an Olympic wanna-be. Then when we were through with that, we headed over to the deep tank for 10 minutes of treading water. The whole thing was finished in less than a half an hour.

As I got out of the pool, the divers in the other class were getting into the deep tank and we got a glimpse of things to come. Suiting up with fins, masks and respirators, and falling backward into the pool. Let the adventure begin. Next week, we get suited up and spend more time in the water. In the meantime, I have homework to do.

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No More Bubbles at Aquatic Adventures of MI
Published on Tuesday, 26 February 2013 13:55
Written by editor from Dive News Network

Aquatic Adventures of MI in Brighton Michigan has become a Poseidon Mark VI Discovery Rebreather Center.  The news was announced at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Festival on March 2, where units were on display and experts available for discussion.  “As we looked at the future of recreational scuba diving, we saw that rebreathers will be playing an ever larger role, especially now that we have the Mark VI Discovery,” said Kim Parker, owner of Aquatic Adventures of MI.  It is the first closed circuit rebreather designed for the recreational diver.” The Mark VI Discovery is a state of the art electronically controlled closed circuit rebreather.  Its compactness, modularity, ease of maintenance, and automated features make it user friendly for the non-technical diver. For more information, visit www.aquaticadventuresofmi.com.