My Summer of Firsts - Scuba Dive Part 2

Scuba Dive, Part Two: Barron Lake Dive. (PS I could not find a pic that would illustrate this entry, but I think this poor dog will suffice.)

My first dive was absolutely terrifying. We'll get into that. But, first, the details of the day.

Barron Lake is a little dirty lake in Michigan that happens to have a huge dropoff, so it's a great place to practice diving. I was to do two dives that morning: the first, just swimming around and getting used to it. the second, completing some skill sets underwater.

It was 60 degrees, overcast and cold on the morning of my first dive. I had two (fitting) wetsuits though, so I actually stayed warm this time.

I felt prepared that morning as well - I had a good night's sleep, good breakfast, I was not too caffeinated, and I had brushed up on the textbook basics the night before. I may be spacey at times, but I'm not one to make the same mistakes twice.

The day started going downhill, however, when I was given a new "buddy" or dive partner. Because Kyle was just doing a re-certification, his dive plan was different than my group's.

There were six people in my group. The partner they gave me was a quiet, laid back young man who didn't seem real educated on diving. Now, I'm not going to say I was an expert, but at least I knew that my goggles needed de-fogger and how to properly put my fins on. (Even though he had gone through the same pool course I did, he seemed like he didn't know any of these kinds of basics).

He even left his tank standing up on a grassy hillside, where it could easily fall and explode (a big no-no), and wandered off to talk to someone until I went to get him and told him I had laid down his tank for him.

In the pool, Kyle had served as my buddy, and I kind of liked having a person who knew what they were doing and could refresh my memory if I forgot something. Plus, I know Kyle cares about me, so in an emergency situation I can assume he will look out for me.

This new buddy, however, I wasn't so sure about.

Since the lake was so murky, the six of us were told to hold on to each other's SPG, which has all of our dive information on it, including depth and amount of air left in your tank. Which meant that he was supposed to watch my air and signal to the instructor if it got low. This guy seemed seriously inexperienced and a little slow (everytime they would say, "get with your buddy" and do this or that, I had to lead the way, otherwise he would just kind of stand there.) Not suprisingly, I figured he would be more concerned with getting comfortable diving rather than worrying much about my air.

I admit it was probably a good learning experience for me to have new buddy and be forced to rely on my own memory, but it certainly did not do anything to soothe my nerves. It was highly unlikely we would run out of air with two short dives, but the last thing I needed was some sort of paranoid fear about my air level in the back of my mind while we were at the bottom of the lake.

To add icing on the cake, the experienced instructor that owned the dive shop and taught us our pool skills said he was training someone and she would be taking us on our dive that day so he can observe her teaching us on our first dive.

I thought, "Greeeat. Now I have an inexperienced buddy and an inexperienced instructor. I am so dead."

But no time to think. All of the sudden we were going under.

We were to dive off and down over the side of the cliff, which was a sudden dropoff into a dark, murky brown-greenish depth.

I expected to feel a little nervous. I expected to have some issues clearing my ears, and maybe some buoyancy troubles.

What I didn't expect, however, was the loss of my eyesight completely. I was blind. Have you ever played that game where you get blindfolded and someone leads you across a field? Scary, huh?

Try doing that swimming.

They told me it was going to be murky.

By "murky," I thought that meant fuzzy images, cloudy water, etc. In this case, "murky" meant blind and dark and black as a cave. I could not see my hand in front of my face.

When you are blind, how do you find your bright yellow BCD  inflation button that takes you to the top when it's time to go up? When you are blind, how do you see your instructor's hand signals or signal to your instructor if you are out of air or some other problem?

When you are blind, how do you know if you are floating right side up? (And no, I could not see the bubbles)

Hint: You don't. Somehow you just have to figure it out on your own.

I tried my best to hold onto my instructor's SPG and trust in the situation. For awhile, I thought I lost my buddy. I thought he had done something stupid, like let go, and then got disoriented and floated away from the group.

I thought, "Nice. First dive and I lose my buddy. We are supposed to watch out for each other's safety. Crap, I'm going to flunk this. What kind of buddy am I?"

Turns out he was never gone. He said he held on the whole time -- I just couldn't see him.

There were small, slight, quick moments where we were swimming and passed an area that was a little clearer, but they didn't last long. Looking back, I think those were the moments of light the helped me to keep my sanity.

Then it felt like we were stopped on the bottom, and something happened. Amazing how you can sense things without hearing or sight. Through only my sense of touch, I knew something was wrong.

I didn't know why we were stopping or why we were huddled so close, because (and I found all this out later) my instructor's fin had become lodged into the black muck, kicking up a cloud of fine black mud in the water that looked like smoke engulfing us. Except smoke blows by and this never went away. A couple of times, I felt myself floating around --- this way and that ---- sideways, etc. I completely lost my bearings.

I had to give up my worldly comforts of my sense of balance, safeness, and sight. I had to rely only on trust.

So there we were, floating in blacker-than-blackness, and stopped. There was some dizzying arrangement of hands and fins and bodies and I think we were a little tangled up. But it was obvious we were supposed to be stopping for some reason.

We were there a loooong time. It was probably only like five minutes, but it felt like eternity, because I didn't know what was going on. I thought, something must be seriously wrong for us to be just stopped here. We were supposed to be just swimming around and coming back.

A whole cornucopia of ideas flittered through my mind: Maybe my instructor had blacked out and we were all just sitting there, connected to her, waiting for her to guide us somewhere....until we all inevitably ran out of air. What a story this would be for the papers tomorrow.

Or, maybe someone was having a seizure or was out of air. Or someone was stuck on something.

I can't even remember what else crossed my mind, because I think I went to my happy place and said some prayers at that point.

I find out later that the guy connected three people away from me had almost lost his weight belt -- it had loosened and dropped around his ankles. Through just hand motions (not signals, because you couldn't see) his buddy had grabbed the instructor and showed her what was happening. It took her a while, but she re-secured the weight belt, so that is the reason we were all sitting there waiting.

When I started to feel us rising, and could actually see my instructor's face with the thumbs-up sign, I could have kissed her.

When we ascend to the surface and into the sweet, sweet air, my buddy looks at me, wide-eyed.

"I really freaked out for a minute there," he said.

For once, I agreed with him on something.

Thankfully, my second dive that day (can you believe I did it again?) was to a completely different part of the lake, and it was more clear and relatively uneventful. I could actually see things. I felt much more comfortable and even explored a little, picking things up from the bottom and completing my skill sets with ease.

After getting through that first dive, I seriously felt like I could do anything. Oh, how I long for the clear salt-water lagoons of Bora Bora!




Next week's Summer of First post: My First 5K race!