Since I have started my own blog, I figured I would repost some previous posts I posted in Melissa's blog (Ok, a little over the top with the word "post") Sorry bout that....
Normally, I let my wonderful wife do all of the posting on our blog. She does an amazing job, has an incredible way with words and 99 % of the time, the stories or postings that she writes are very enjoyable to read. Why mess with a good thing? Well, since she was more than awesome once again by hanging out with the 5 children for 5 days in Eilat, Israel while I took a Scuba course, I figured the least I could do was to document the experience.
Before I begin, I would like to thank Melissa for giving me the opportunity to have this amazing experience. Without her support and willingness to be ditched a large portion of each day, I could not have done this. Also, I would like to thank a good friend of mine, Sam Murr, for giving me the diving bug over 4 ½ years ago in a pool during training. While we were living in Brunswick, Georgia for 12 weeks, I walked to the pool to find Sam reading a book. Not really all that remarkable if you stop to think about it. What got me was the fact Sam was reading the book at the bottom of the pool. He had a Scuba tank and all of the equipment and was lying on the bottom, enjoying his book. Sam took a break from reading to give me a quick lesson on the use of the regulator and mask and let me have a go at it. Fast forward to present time and Melissa, the kids, and I are living in Israel, just a few hours drive from some great diving. I figured if I could not get motivated to dive here, it probably wasn’t meant to be. I had a ton of questions and once again, Sam stepped up and gave me enough info to put Wikipedia to shame. He explained the different organizations that provided certification, courses that I needed to take, should take, and courses that are a waste of money or can be done with other certifications. He explained gear and what I needed at a minimum and what I should buy if I was single with no kids. (more than$1000 for a fancy watch? Really?) He also told me what courses I needed to take so that he could fly out to Israel and go diving with me. So, thank you Melissa and thank you Sam.
On to what I came here to write about
Scuba Diving…
I know Melissa is currently writing a post about our trip to Eilat so I will not cover the drive down (which was awesome), the hotel (which was expensive and not awesome) or the dinner we ate our last night in Eilat (which was expensive but so very worth it.). I will cover the 5 days of diving, which by itself, was way cool. :)
Picking a dive school…
I will be the first to admit, I had no idea what I was doing when it came to picking a dive school. I typed into Google “Dive schools Eilat” and came up with a ton of choices. I started checking each one and really had no idea what I was looking at. The website I liked best was very simple and professional looking and basically described the courses I would be taking or could be taking. I sent an email to the company (U-Dive) and received a very informative reply from the office manager. She patiently answered all of my questions and was incredibly helpful so, without calling or emailing any other company, I scheduled a class with U-Dive. When Melissa, the kids, and I drove by the school our second day in Eilat, I wondered if I made the right choice. Of course, as I saw all of the other schools, I realized that I could not base my decision off of the looks of the school. (One school looked like it was in a tin hut with most of the tin falling off). I figured I would have to wait and see.
Day 1….
I was supposed to arrive by 9 am to start my first day but being the overachiever that I am, I was up by 6:30 am and Melissa, the kids, and I walked out the door of our ridiculously overpriced hotel room at 8 am. After the 8-minute drive to the school, I realized we (I) might have been a little over anxious. We sat in the van for a little while talking and laughing as we watched the employees arrive and set up the school. Melissa left with the kids and I went and met the office manager, Claire, who was very friendly. She took me into the classroom and had me watch a video about diving. I covered three chapters and then met my instructor, Tamar. At this point, I also found out I would be the only student for the open water class. I was excited I would get one on one instruction and figured I would have an even better experience because of it (and I was not disappointed). I was issued my gear, which included fins, mask, and snorkel, a wet suit, weights, tank, regulator, and BCD (Buoyancy Control Device). At this point, I had no idea if I was being issued good gear or not but I was impressed with the quality of everything and I found out later that the gear was fairly top of the line and the school let me try out different types of gear as the course progressed so I could decide what I liked better. Tamar showed me how to set the gear up and then she had me do it. She then had me take it all apart and then set it up again. She then told me to go get the wet suit on.
I do not know how many of you have had the experience of putting on a wet suit but for me, this was the very first time and if I could have been a fly on the wall watching myself, I would have fallen off the wall from laughing so hard. They make it look so easy in the movies. I managed to get both legs in (in the right leg holes even) without falling over and was working on getting my arms in at what seemed like a snail’s pace when Tamar came in and said, “good, your almost dressed”. She told me she has had many students take an hour to get the wetsuit on the first time. She gave me some pointers, which mostly involved taking a shower while getting the wet suit on (It really works). After I managed to squirm into the wetsuit and get it zipped up, we had a pre-dive brief where we talked about what we were going to do. Because I had paid attention to the video I watched earlier, I was able to answer all of her questions correctly. We got our gear on and headed down to the beach. I failed to mention previously that it was a very windy day and as we walked into the water, I was immediately knocked down by the waves. Then, I tried to put my fins on. I ended up drinking a lot of salt water and that was before we even started swimming. I got everything on right (to include my mask) and we waded the rest of the way into the water. The section of beach we were at was waist deep at like 3 feet from the shore and then dropped dramatically after that. I was now underwater and breathing.
Before I get too far ahead, I should mention that most conventional dive schools carry out the first three days of the open water certification course in a pool. I was getting to do this in the Red Sea and cannot begin to express how awesome it was.
When we touched down on the bottom, we did a bunch of drills that included filling my mask half way with water and clearing it out, taking out my regulator (which means no more life giving oxygen to breathe), and practiced using an alternate air source, which in this case, means taking the secondary regulator (called an octopus) from my instructor and breathing with that. One of the things I struggled with initially was kicking up sand from the bottom. At one point, my instructor pointed out the cloud of silt I had accidently kicked up. She then pointed out the Moray Eel that was ticked off at me for kicking up all the sand. He was a beautiful green color and very unhappy with me. All I could think of was the old dude who comes out of his house and yells, “Get off my lawn you crazy kids.”
After approximately 30 minutes of bottom time we swam back up to the surface and exited the water. The surface was still very rough and actually ripped my face mask and snorkel out of my hand as well as knocked my instructor face first into the rocks. Even after eating gravel, she managed to find my snorkel and mask for me. We went back to the school; I eventually wiggled out of my wet suit, got dressed, and debriefed. It was a fun and exciting first day and I could not wait to get back in the water. Of course, I had to read three chapters of my SCUBA book before the next class so water would have to wait.
Day 2…
Melissa and the kids dropped me off at this school at 8:30 am, only half an hour early this time. It was good though as I was given a quiz to start off the morning with. Actually, it was three quizzes covering the three chapters I read the night before (Yes, I actually studied). After the quizzes, I suited up and it was off to the water again. I entered the water a bit more gracefully this time and seemed to get better at adjusting my buoyancy and did not kick up nearly as much sand while I was on the bottom. In fact, we had an observer with us (a guy from Dublin, Ireland who was becoming a dive instructor), who kicked up a ton of silt and got the same, “What are you doing” look from Tamar that I got the day before. We completed several of the required drills, such as taking the mask completely off while underwater and another drill where the instructor has you watch your air supply on the gauges and slowly shuts off your tank of air. The reason for this drill is so the diver gets to experience running out of air in a controlled situation and will be able to recognize an issue before it becomes an issue. I watched the gauge drop to zero and did not like the experience of not being able to breath while 30 feet or so under water. When I gave the “out of air” signal, which does not involve waiving my arms frantically around, Tamar turned my air back on so I could breath again. We finished a few other drills and returned to the surface after about 40 minutes or so. We debriefed the dive and I headed back to the hotel so I could read the next two chapters of the book.
Day 3…
I arrived at the school at 8:30 today and had no tests or quizzes to take. I discussed dive charts with Tamar and learned how to figure out dive planning. We then suited up and headed out to the water. We had several drills to do so we wanted to get started on them as soon as possible. We dove to about 12 meters (36 feet) and started working on the drills. Our first drill was dropping the dive weights while on the bottom. I dropped the 10-kilo weights and almost floated to the top. After a struggle, I got them back on again. The next drill involved taking off the BCD with attached tank and then putting it back on again. While Tamar demonstrated the drill and I watched, I saw something large and grey swimming at us at a very fast speed. I quickly turned my head to see what it was while my heart stopped beating. I initially thought it was a shark but it was a bottlenose dolphin. He swam past us so close he almost bumped my right shoulder. Tamar, who could not see him until he passed her was really excited after getting over the heart attack she almost had when she too thought it was a shark. About 15 minutes later, Tamar was demonstrating another drill, which involved taking off the mask when the dolphin came back. The timing was perfect, as Tamar had just taken off her mask. The dolphin swam past my left shoulder, again almost hitting me, and then cut between Tamar and I (we were only about 3 feet apart). I think I heard the dolphin laughing as he swam out of sight.
When we finished everything and explored for a while, we headed back to the dive school to tell everyone about the dolphin. Tamar was really excited about it, as was I.
We dropped our gear and Tamar told me we would head back to the water with our fins, mask, and snorkel to do some drills on top of the water. We got into the water and Tamar told me to give her my mask, fins and snorkel. After I complied, she told me to swim to a buoy that was about 15 meters away. I swam out to the buoy, not liking the heavy waves one bit. When I got there, she told me to swim back. I went back to where I had started only to find Tamar was at the buoy. I had to swim back to her. She gave me my fins and told my I had to tread water for 2 minutes. After finishing, I had to tread water for another two minutes, this time with my hands over my head. I started thinking that if this was a swim test, I probably should have done it on day 1 but I was too tired to actually say that. Tamar then gave me my snorkel and told me I had to dive down to the bottom, which was about 15 feet away. Trust me, it was a lot harder than it sounds. After finishing, we went back to the school and then took quiz number 4 and my final test. I passed everything with flying colors.
Tamar had arranged a special tour of the underwater aquarium just up the street. The aquarium gave the tour free to dive students so that the divers could learn about reef conservation and about the fish in the area. It was an incredible tour and I learned a ton about fish. For instance, did you know that clown fish (yes, the fish in Finding Nemo) are very interesting fish. A male and a female clown fish live in a sea anemone. The female is the bigger of the two fish and the more aggressive of the two. It is the female’s job to protect the anemone and drive away other fish. Because of this, the female gets eaten a lot. In the likely event the female gets eaten, the male fish changes sex and becomes female. Sometimes, there is a third fish that lives with the male and female but it is always a much smaller clown fish and never grows until the female dies. When the male turns into a female, the smaller fish grows to full size and takes over the role as the male fish. I don’t know how this information is actually useful but someday, it might be a question on Jeopardy.
Day 4…
Today, we started the portion of the course that would start in open water for those who take a conventional course that has the first three days in the pool. Our first dive of the day was to the deepest depth I have been to. We dove to 18 meters (about 60 feet). It was awesome going that deep and I look forward to going much deeper in the future. There was a military ship that had been sunk (hence it being 18 meters underwater).
We swam around it and through it and I enjoyed the experience immensely. It was a lot of fun seeing the fish living in an area so man made yet still be in nature, if that makes any sense.
As we left the area, we came across a puffer fish that refused to hold still for a picture but Tamar finally got a few of it.
We went back to the school, debriefed and rested for a bit prior to our next dive. Melissa stopped by to see if we were done yet just prior to departure. She and the kids enjoyed seeing me all suited up and I think they only laughed a little bit at the sight of me in a wetsuit…not the most flattering style of clothing.
We then went to a different area and Tamar had me do a drill that would have made everyone laugh at me. The idea is to remain floating on the surface and remove your gear, holding on to it and bringing it to the front of you. The idea is to be able to fix something or, as Tamar told me, sometimes a boat will be too small to put your gear on while on the boat. After taking it off, you have to put it back on, which is easier said than done. I did a lot of flopping around in the water, very ungraceful like. After she finished laughing at me, she told me all drills were completed and we swam around at about 12 meters, checking out the fish and the coral. It was another awesome day in the water.
Day 5…
I showed up this morning at about 0830, got my gear and we headed to a new location to dive. There was a University Dive spot where they had coral farms which was a lot of fun to see. Prior to diving, Tamar was kind enough to let me do the drill I did so miserable at the day before and I managed to pull it off really well. I was pleased. We swam around the coral and I finally started getting my buoyancy under control so I felt like I knew what I was doing. We finished up the first dive of the day after about 40 minutes or so and took a lunch/rest break. Our final dive of the day and my final dive of the course was uneventful but still a ton of fun as we swam around a bunch of coral formations and through a coral cave. Tamar pointed out the largest moray eel I have ever seen. Granted, at this point, I had seen two but this guy was curled up in a coral and he was as thick as my thigh. We swam wide around the coral and we saw what looked like a field of snakes. There were hundreds of them floating straight up out of the sand. As we got closer they all sunk back into the sand (straight down). We moved away and they all came back again. I was not that crazy about swimming through their little snake farm so I was okay with them not hanging around to say hi to us. We finished the dive and I signed some papers and officially became a certified open water diver.
The course was fantastic and the Red Sea was awesome. I will be heading back in March to do the Advanced Open Water course as well as a Deep Diver course and a Nitrox course (which is an air mixture that helps diving be a bit easier).
I will make sure I blog about those experiences as well when they happen. Until then, please continue to enjoy Melissa’s posts and I will stop in later. :)
