become a PADI advanced open water diver

Tobermorey was fantastic! I loved every second of it. I’d love to get back again before the season’s over, hoping it’ll be possible at some point.
I just have one more set of dives- navigation and night- both of which should be done this Saturday. An old friend of Nick’s will even be there as my dive buddy since my dad doesn’t go into Canada. Should be a fun day!
Sure you’ll hear from me again soon, just nice to see my summer goals being accomplished.

As an added bonus, I’ve made it a goal to get up to 20 dives by the end of the summer. I’m at 13 now and have 3 more planned other than the ones I do weekly in the river, so I should be able to hit it easy. I just would love to get a charter and see some of our local lake wrecks soon too. The more experience the more fun!

I have all my dives scheduled for this summer and 2/5 done! I complete two in August (I was supposed to have a couple weeks ago, but I got sick) and another in Tobermorey this July. I cannot wait for more dives!!!
In the meantime I know for sure I have two more planned, probably a third- repeats of river drift and lake dives, but diving is amazing, people who don’t want to dive the same place twice are nuts! I’d dive in a pool, just for the feeling of being underwater.

I’d like to do 20 by the end of this summer, but as of now only have 12 (maybe 13) planned. Diving’s a bit expensive, and the timing is tough to work out, especially with all the regular summer activity going on, so we’ll see how many I end up doing.

But I feel GOOD. I’m not as afraid, I know how to do a lot of skills and have more confidence. This is amazing and great, I just want to practice all the more, especially buoyancy. Even dad’s doing better.

This fall I’ll have my license and with my job only being weekdays can finally volunteer to dive in the tanks and clean the aquariums at The Aquarium of Niagara. It’ll feel good to get more dive time and to do something helpful at the same time.

I am so glad I did this. Underwater is where I belong.

If all goes well I’ll have completed all the necessary dives by July 23rd to be an advanced diver! The Tobermorey trip will be the last required dive (should all go according to schedule with the other dives). I’m excited and nervous. I’m still not great at buoyancy unless I’m actively swimming, but I suppose there’s always time to work on that and it’ll get better every dive.
I just hope all the instructors think I’m ready enough.

There’s a few things I need to get better at: holding/controlling my breath (I can’t really much at all)and buoyancy. I also need to work on swimming against a current. I’m a bit tiny and easily pushed by it. I’m good with it in that I don’t run out of energy, but I’d like to be a bit stronger so I could swim against it faster and feel more in control. It took me ages to get back to the boat against a strong current and we were some of the first people up! Better navigation skills (getting closer to the boat) may help that too.

Sometimes I feel like I look less trained than I am too just because my diving partner, my dad, is so all over the place.
I’m glad I’m doing it with him, but he’s always floating up or swimming away and I spend so much time twisting and turning and looking for him that I can’t focus on advancing my skills. Also, in Key Largo his lack of skills put me in danger a few times and shortened my dives. He’s getting better, but wow…. It’s hard being a beginner and trying to learn, look poised for the instructors and keep track of him.
In the classes, I’ll hand it to him that it’s so crowded it gets tough. Everyone’s all over each other’s area, so you do end up having to move a bit. I just wish he’d signal to me more and get the hang of staying with me. If he does this in a real dive setting (not the pool) like he did in Key Largo and leaves me, if I have trouble or an accident it could be very serious.
I had trouble equalizing and he went down without me! He saw I wasn’t there, zoomed back up and started swimming back to the boat. I saw him do all this without looking for me. I was two feet behind him for twenty minutes trying to get him to see me and catch up to him and he didn’t notice or even look! Thank God other divers were around.
He also has ripped out my regulator, knocked off my mask and kicked a jellyfish (which stung me) into my face.

I love my dad but I’m not advanced enough to deal with all of that on harder dives. I also don’t feel safe if a problem arose (the whole reason for having a buddy). Both the instructors and I have spoken to him and he’s gotten a bit better, but still… Wow.

I sometimes think if I could find another dive partner and get some more experience separate (but not give up diving with my dad- that’s too nice of a bonding activity for us), it’d be easier to try and handle diving with dad. Also I could show the instructors I’m not that bad after all. Wish Andy dove!

Either way, I’m just excited about the upcoming dive season. Problems aside, I can’t wait, because it really is a whole other world down there!

I need to complete a weekend series of dives in Tobermorey over the summer. I’ve booked it, but getting there’s a problem. I live six hours away and will be a very new driver. Also a female travelling alone, which my mother and Andy both object to. So I have no real idea of how to fix this.
None of the divers I know enough to carpool can go that weekend- I got one maybe. But with the price of gas, I’m hoping to meet other divers going and convince them to carpool, even if we just met. We’re heading from the same place to another place and it cuts the cost in half.
Crossing my fingers…

But in the meantime a random friend said he might just want to go for the sake of going! He doesn’t dive, but likes random travel. So maybe I have more possibilities than I thought? Gulp!

I just want to get there and dive!