Ok, this scuba diving thing is work. No way around it. We all did well until mid-afternoon when my left ear wouldn’t equalize to the pressure. That’s when I had to stop for the day. We started out in the ocean becoming familiar with all our new gear. First we had to learn how to put the whole kit together, and take it apart. This involves lots of steps testing of multiple pieces of gear from your regulator to the air cylinder to secondary air, meters and weights and your BCD which is your vest that inflates and deflates depending on what you do to it. We had the general idea down from our training so all was good. There’s a trick to scuba diving, it’s to just relax. It’s easy to panic underwater and feel like you’re not going to get a breath. After some time in the ocean, Lori was getting cold, even with a wet suit, so we went to James and used the pool there to continue training. About halfway through that is when I blew my ear out, so to speak. Not wanting to push it, I stopped. Lori and Jag needed to go back to the ocean with Michelle, our instructor, for an open water dive. They were under water for about 20 minutes and both did well.
After getting cleaned up, we went to one of our favorite restaurants, Star Noodle. We took Michelle with us as she’s a great girl and now our new best friend. She’s 41, single and is quite together, but still a young single girl. We all had a blast and will pick it up again this morning. If my ear doesn’t feel better, or won’t equalize the pressure, I’ll snorkel with Ty while Lori and Jag do another open water dive. You can’t push your body if something’s wrong. That’s the number one rule of diving, besides, don’t ever hold your breath. If you have a cold, you can’t dive, if you’re physically cold in the water, you end the dive. If you had a rough night the night before, you don’t dive. Safety is always first.
We should be done around noon today. I need to lather up the sunscreen as even with my wet suit, I got good sun and so did Lori. It was a short sleeve suit so that’s why. The weather is great, and we’re having a blast. More to come, GB.