We get NAUI Certified as Basic Scuba Divers!

Well today was the end of a long, fun, and demanding week for both Heather and I! After going to work EARLY every morning, this week we also had to be over to the base pool from 5PM to 10PM every night which included about 3 hours of snorkel & scuba training each night plus about an hour or two of classroom studying. It was a VERY demanding week for both of us, and poor Tazzy never got to really spend much time with either of us... in fact one night we couldn't even make it home to feed her and had to ask the neighbors to take her out... :( On Saturday we had to be at La Jolla Shores by 7AM for our open-ocean dives... our class started out by doing the first dive with just snorkel gear... we went out to about 10-12 feet of water and practiced various dive maneuvers and safety procedures. The water was in the low 50's but we were wearing 7mm wetsuits so it really didn't feel too bad. We got out of the water, grabbed the rest of the scuba gear and headed back into the water... we again proceeded to practice various safety procedures and went on a brief tour of the area... going down to about 30 feet. We came out of the water for about 45min. and headed back in for our third dive and went down to about 42 feet depth. The water was fairly murky but still had about 20 feet visibility. Sunday we showed up at the same place, same time... the water was a little warmer at about 56 degrees. Our first dive we went down to about 50 feet after having first practiced bringing an unconscious diver to the surface. We sat outside the water for about an hour and a half and got back in... but this time: ALONE! No instructor, no team... just us two! We were responsible for planning our own dive, surveying the conditions on our own, assessing our gear and performing a safe dive.... it was a little scary but really not too bad... we decided to snorkel out a ways to a buoy that could be seen from shore, align our compass and descend down the buoy's anchor chain (which rests on the ground at about 40 feet of water)... once below we would check all of our gages, pose for a few pictures of each other with our disposable underwater cameras and then continue down to around 60 feet... out just a bit past the anchor chain is a huge cliff that drops off for hundreds of feet, so we agreed to swim over to the cliff and begin our descent down the side slowly until we hit about 55 feet at which point we would use our compass to determine North and swim up the coast until our watch indicated we had been below water for about 16 minutes at which point we would use our compass to determine the direction of the coast and head back in-shore. We stopped several times along the way to take pictures of each other and check our gages. From the minute we went down below the surface until the time we returned to the beach and could stand up with our head above the water we had been down for about 29 minutes and our gages indicated we had reached a depth of about 57 feet.

So... we safely (and successfully!) went on our first dive together alone! And, being our final dive, we had passed and are now certfied divers! It has been a ton of fun for us both and has helped us both grow a lot... we would recommend diving to anyone! Aside from swimming, it is the first sport we have found that we both enjoy doing together so much and we plan on continuing diving!

Here's a picture that one of our instructors took of us (Heather is on the left, Brandon is on the right):

As we get OUR pictures developed, I'll post them here for anyone to check out... keep in mind, the San Diego water is pretty murky especially over THIS weekend... so they may not be all that impressive... but from our vantage-point it was VERY cool... we saw a harbor seal that swam around us pretty close, a few crabs, a LOT of 'rays', schools of small fish and a lot of inanimate objects like starfish, shells, snails, etc. But, in truth, we are just training to get us prepared for the really cool dive spots that we want to hit in the future!

We were trained by the excellent instructors at IB Divers down in Imperial Beach, CA. If you are interested in learning how to dive, this is the place to go! Ralph, the owner, was ESPECIALLY knowledgeable and patient with us through the learning process and is a very friendly guy to work with! Their website isn't much to look at, but it has the basic info. you need and I figure they are spending more of their time in the water and less stuck on the stupid computer anyways! :) Anyways, we appreciate their help in teaching us this life-long skill! Check out their site and then go visit their shop!




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