Scuba Cert Weekend (Oct 17th-19th)

It was very close to not happening

With all the issues going on with my friends (and the conflict within me) it felt like a lot to go do. On top of the fact that the weather didn’t look all that great either. Worse was the original cat care plan wasn’t going to work and had to find an alternate. With the alternate working out and what really set it in for me was having that moment talking to them about the event and that seemed to ease my nerves. Subsequently I headed out on Friday down to Findlay OH at the Holiday Inn Express for the “dive weekend”. Got to the hotel kind of late (around 11:30 PM) so once settled in, straight to bed.

Day 1 – Saturday

Saturday morning started ridiculously early (for me). I had set alarms the night before for 6:00 AM and 6:30 AM to ensure I was up in time. The plan was to get up and get a shower in before breakfast opened at the hotel at 7:00 AM. So at the 6:30 AM alarm I got up (reluctantly) and took a shower. I tried to make it quick so I optimized my time and was down to the breakfast area about 5 minutes to 7. I got my coffee and waited for the doors to open. Right at 7am the doors to the kitchen opened and I got 4 sausage links, a turkey sausage patty, and 2 or 3 mini cheese omelets. A little high on the blood sugar but it was going to be an active day. I finished the meal up, headed up to the room to get my things and then headed out the door just after 7:30 AM

I arrived at Gilboa Quarry right around 8am and maybe a little bit before. This was the plan since I wanted to give myself some extra time if something happened plus to get my bearings straight. Walked around a little bit but just stood by myself and waited for the office to open. The office opened actually around 8:15 am and I waiting in line to check in per the instructions on the sheet. I headed into the office, checked in and then walked out, heading to my car to grab my stuff and look for others. But as I was heading out, I saw Chris, my instructor, and tagged up with him. He gave me a cart to load my stuff into and it was then that I found out I didn’t have to check in as he had all our wrist bands for the weekend.

It wasn’t too soon after that we found Kevin and we loaded Kevin’s stuff onto the cart and headed down to the “Dive Trailer” that had all the gear. Once we were all there, we started to go over the day and the first dive. Once the gear was set and the first briefing was done, we did the first dive.

The First Dive

The plan for the first dive was to do a push out to the dive spot, go down and do 5 skill tests, then go over and watch as one of the instructors fed the fish. From there we were going to go to some other locations and then surface. From the surface we would do a push back with the opposite of the people that did the push out. Planned depth was to be 30 ft with a 30 min dive time. We stayed pretty close to these marks and completed the first dive. The skills were:

• Half mask filled and emptied
• Reg out and back in, clear with mouth
• Reg out and back in, clear with purge
• Reg out, alt in, recover reg with sweep
• Reg out, alt in, recover from top of tank

The Second Dive

The second dive was going to be pretty much the same as the first except a different push method out and back and only 2 skills on performed on this one. From there to the feed fish location to allow students to feed the fish. This was not anything I was really into. Then it was going around to different locations, this time going through some of them. This was also to be a slightly deeper and slightly longer dive at 35 ft planned / 40 max and 35 minutes. The ascent also was going to be a bit different as we were going to do the first round of the share air simulation. I did the first one as the one giving air and the ascent went pretty well. The only issue with that I had was figuring out how to purge air coming up to slow the assent. Talked with the instructor and got the tip that I needed to only partial press the button. (something to maybe work on some other time). And again it was a push back to the dock. The skills test this time were:

• Full mask fill and empty
• Simulate alt disconnect and manually inflate for neutral buoyancy

One item of note was that I got confused on the last skill check (thinking it was one thing and it was actually another) but repeated it and was all fine.

The Third Dive

The third dive we did the last of the push out methods and then went down. No skills on this Other than the second half of the shared air and the push back to the dock. I don’t think we did the fish on this one but was a bit longer swim around to look at more things. This was another 35 ft planned / 40 max at 35 minutes planned. The trick on this one was we were going over an area that was deeper than 40 and we were to work at staying above 40 ft otherwise we would “fail” the dive. All went well there. On the shared breathing, Kevin was the share person and on the way up we came up a little too fast at the end. This may have been because he had a dry suit and had a lot to account for.

This completed all the dives for the day. Once we did a quick clean up and post brief, everyone was going to meet up at a resturant called “Ralphie’s Sports Eatery” which was right near my hotel. Everyone else was going to go straight there, but I wanted desperately to stop at the hotel to change clothes slightly and “take care of some business”. Something of note is that I used full leg rash guards and a long sleeve rash guard shirt. But because I hadn’t put them on before leaving, I had my underwear on under them. Since I couldn’t change that underwear comfortably at the site, I needed to change them at the hotel. I also hadn’t taken a “constitutional” all day and desperately needed to do that as well.

So after the hotel, I went to the restaurant and met up with the gang. It was a decent hang out for a couple of hours with ok bar food. I got a club wrap with cottage cheese to keep from having my blood sugar go ape shit. Went back to the hotel, finished filling out my dive log book, put on YouTube and crashed out. I don’t know if I even made it to 10pm.

Quick note for this day also, the breakfast I had didn’t have a big spike, but also it didn’t go down much after. For a snack I had hummus and pita, then for lunch just 1 sandwich and I would have expected my sugar to be way lower due to the activity.

This along with some other evidence has lead me to believe that Pita and hummus react in a strange way with me. Almost like a significantly delayed reaction. going to perform a test tomorrow (10/21) to see if I can get a clearer picture. I may need to cut this out of my diet completely.

Day 2 – Sunday

Similarly to day one except for dragging a little more ass then the previous day. Out of bed by 6:30 AM, showered and down to the cafeteria by just after 7am. Not as may people there this time (the previous day had a girls softball team visiting with them and all their families getting breakfast). This morning had a biscuit and Gravy with 2 sausage links, a turkey sausage patty and some scrambled eggs. Learned that I can no long have biscuits and gravy as this spiked my sugar mega hard (+261). The good news was that the rest of the day (blood sugar wise) as expected. At 7:30 am or a little later, headed out to the quarry.

Arrived at little after 8am and hung out in the car a bit and finished my coffee. I was not looking forward to this day. It was what I expected, cold and rainy. I pulled myself together and headed down to the dive trailer. I met up with everybody. Since I was early, Chris the instructor was able to go over the Nitrox with me and prep my two tanks. This along with the two Nitrox dives and my online work was enough to satisfy the Nitrox portion of the cert.

Everybody else showed up and we got ready and briefed for the first dive of the day

The Fourth Dive – Dive 1 Day 2

This dive was not going to have any push outs since that portion of the skills was completed. We were to do a nav check before we went in and then a nav check towards the end of the dive so we could swim back to the dock location instead of surface swimming. We were also going to get in the water on our own with our buddy watching instead of instructor assist. Once in, we were going to down, equalize, then head to the Culverts and optionally swim through them. These are located at the deepest part of our dive. Let me tell you, once going past 50 ft, that was was fucking freezing and since I wasn’t wearing the gloves, my hand hurt A LOT. But I sucked it up and made it through both Culverts. We then went through some more different locations and then did the nav check. From the nav check we swam to the dock, surfaced and came out. Planned depth and max depth was 60 ft, planned time was 35 minutes, max 40 minutes with Nitrox. Also, since were on Nitrox and had gone deep, we were to do a safety stop. This one was under instruction. Since there were no more skills and this was the last certification dive, specifying goals instead:

• Dive down to Max depth of 60 ft
• First Dive with Nitrox
• First practice with underwater navigation
• First required safety stop

Things of note, getting out of the water was fine as the wet suit acted as an insulator for part of the time. However, I always have to pee when I get out. And once I peeled that top down, the wind on my rash guard was cold AF. So I was in my hoodie and jacket pretty much right away.

The Fifth Dive – Dive 2 Day 2

This was the second of two Nitrox dives. This one was going to be a “wall” dive. The goal here being not to drop below the specified planned dive height. Planned was 35, max was 40. Again we were getting in on our own, equalizing then heading out. We would see a couple of locations, then do the “wall” swim. Which is swimming along the deep edge. Then heading up for another fish feeding event. Once that was done, we would head to the platforms for a “mystery skill”. The mystery skill being getting our certification cards and then heading back to the surface. Since again we were a little deep and because we were on Nitrox, we needed to do another safety stop. This one, was to be self managed. After the dive we actually ended up handing back the cards since the card printer was having issues and they didn’t actually have our printed cards yet. Goals achieved on the dive:

• Second Nitrox Dive
• Wall Crawl Dive / Staying at depth
• Managing going deep and shallow multiple times
• Second Safety Stop Self Managed

Again, it was still cold and rainy and getting out of the water seemed kind of horrible. But I kept the suit up as long as I could this time before zipping it down to go to the bathroom. I was doing better with eating too with getting one sandwich at the first break and the second one at the second break.

This is also the break when we did all the paperwork so that once the last dive was done, we could break camp and get the hell out of there. To note, we were observing 1 hour minimum between dives. This one, however, ran a little longer.

The Sixth Dive – Dive 3 Day 2

The last dive was going to be a bit more challenging. Essentially we are now certified divers. So we had to plan our own dive. This one was going to be on regular air. Also, this was going to be adding a third buddy to our team. This was also going to be adding towing around a diver flag. Finally we also had to do a stop as Kevin did his dry suit skills exam. As much as I always try to avoid taking charge of things, I ended up in charge of things. So between the three of us, I planned the dive and everybody agreed.

So the dive started out with all three of us getting into the water on our own. Once in the water we descended and equalized. Once we were ready, I lead (of course) through the things we were going to see (Car to Bridge, Bridge to Helicopter, helicopter to plane, plane to platforms). Everything went smoothly (for the most part) and went to the platforms but were not quite the right platforms. Found the instructor and went to the right platforms for Kevin to complete his skills test. At one point I thought he was done and I singled to our third buddy to surface, they gave me a shrug and so I waited. They didn’t seem to be coming down so I signaled to go up. We started going up and it was then that I noticed they had gone back down and signaled they were going back down. I caught the third buddies attention and we went back down and followed them. We stuck with them till they signaled to surface. Keeping and eye on ascending time, we came back up and headed to the docks.

The Drive Home

Once out, kept the suit up as long as possible while getting everything up from down by the docks. From there, everyone got everything packed up and ready to head out. The trailer was packed and we were on our way. I hiked back up to the car with a cart of my stuff and Kevin’s. We said our goodbye’s and headed out at 4 pm.

The drive back and forth to the hotel is less than a half hour. I got there around 4:30 PM. I had added an extra day to my room because I knew I was going to want a very hot shower and to change my clothes again. As soon as I got the the hotel I grabbed another cup of coffee to keep me going through the night. Got the shower, got the change of clothes. Finished up the log book and then packed up to head out. I was on the road by 5:30 PM

I checked out of the room and drove back home. It was a much longer, and a bit challenging drive as it was raining and I was admittedly tired. But all was well and made it home by 8:30 PM. Weekend done and was smart to have leftover pizza in the fridge so I didn’t have to cook. Was passed out on the couch before even 11:30 pm. But headed upstairs to call the day complete.