learn to SCUBA dive

What a weekend. Scuba diving drags everyone down to the least common denominator intellectually and physically, and does so unapologetically. It’s a fascinating exercise in humility because everything that gives you confidence – your smarts, your looks, your sense of humor, your style, your personality, your terrestrial grace – is worthless for diving. First, you have to do far more book learning than you anticipated, because this is a complicated undertaking and you are ignorant of its details. Then, you get stripped of your clothing and squeezed into a cumbersome and unflattering rubbery sheath. Then you’re thrown into the water and faced with the fact that you’re an awkward piece of meat, frantic for air. Even accepting your base animal nature provides no comfort, because the instincts of that animal – for instance, to surface immediately when panicked and underwater – can be life-threatening.

After the first day of open water diving I wasn’t sure if scuba diving was for me. I had ear and sinus issues due to the extreme swings in pressure. And swimming around in a pack with seven other amateurs stripped of their peripheral vision was a comedy of errors. Imagine eight Scuba newbies who can’t see well and can’t control their own buoyancy bouncing off the sea floor or accidentally floating away, bumping into and kicking each other while trying to occupy the same space right behind the teacher, and otherwise displaying their utter lack of underwater prowess. It was a mess.

But by the last day, everything felt more natural. Reaching neutral buoyancy was still hard, but no longer impossible. Equalizing ear pressure was still trying, but not prohibitive. We went on deeper dives and saw more interesting sea critters. Granted, we never reached the point of “fun diving”, because certification is all about building and testing skills. It’s more like taking a three-day driver’s exam than it is like driving on the open road. While I’m pretty neutral about the experience overall, I think one real dive is all it will take to be hooked. I haven’t decided whether I want to tool around the cove where we did our open water dives, or head out on one of their organized trips to the northern part of the Puget Sound, but I hope to do a “fun dive” this fall, then start up again in the spring if it’s as rewarding as I expect.

I figured that the Puget Sound’s cold, murky waters would be a crappy place to learn but could provide an accessible springboard for other adventures…you know, like attending a state school. But the local folks I surveyed all spoke enthusiastically about diving around Seattle. So I’m going to check this off during the summer, and it’s beginning to look a lot like summer (one of Seattle’s two seasons) around here. So…time to think about making it happen. First, I have to find a school and decide on which certification to get. Then, I have to recruit and/or bribe some friends to sign up. Then, we have to sign up. Then, we delve into the cold, murky, apparently-not-lame Seattle underworld.