Diving We Will Go, Dive Day No. 1

Scuba diving has hands down been one of the best things I've ever done in my life.  There really is nothing like it.  I've been open water certified since I was twelve as part of a summer adventure class I was very fortunate to take one year at St. Andrew's Priory Summer School.  During that summer course, I got to go wind surfing, kayaking, banana boat and bumper tube riding, and parasailing.  But the definite highlight was being able to get scuba certified.  After that summer I didn't ever get the chance to go diving, one, because I was too young to go without an adult, and two, because none of my family members or friends were certified.  My love for diving sparked again when the year after I graduated, my friend Mia got certified.

It's been a little over a week since Mia and I began our course for PADI Advanced Open Water (AOW) certification and I am so stoked to say that we are certified!  We chose to go through our favorite dive shop for the certification, Kaimana Divers.  Of all the dives we done with Kaimana Divers we've always dived with Drew, one of the dive leaders and instructors at Kaimana, so it was very fitting that he ran the our certification course and dives.

I've never been nervous when it came to being near or in the water, not even when I was the awkward twelve year old going scuba diving for the first time.  But gearing up to get my AOW certification sent me on a mind trip.  I read the chapters Drew assigned to us and I literally freaked out.  I guess it didn't help that I read it all the night before the first dive.  There's summer break for you, huh?  On all of the dives I've ever done, the maximum depth of the dives had always been around 40 feet, the limit on my dive license.  Reading and knowing that I'd be diving up to (well literally down to) 100 feet, I psyched myself out.

The day of our first dive my stomach was nothing but knots.  I've never experienced that kind of reaction to a dive and to be honest, it scared me.  The first dive site was a shipwreck called the YO-257 and it was at a depth of a little over 90 feet.  I had half a mind to call it a day and stay on the boat.  But all of that agitation and fear left as soon as I hit the water.  The descent down was a little rough.  I usually take a little longer on my descents because my ears like to equalize on their own terms.  That usual delay plus a little anxiousness had me filling up on oxygen at a higher intake, filling my lungs and making it harder to go down.  But once I got down to the descent depth, it was a whole other experience.

The YO-257 is a old shipwreck that the government sunk and bought out by Atlantis Submarine to use as the site for their sub tours.  It was so strange seeing this wreck down in the water, definitely different from what you see on television.  It wasn't eerie like I expected it to be, but rather very calm.  Wrecks serve as an artificial reef that coral attach to and form around.  For someone who has only ever dove at reefs, this was definitely a nice change.  Our depth for the dive was 90 feet with a bottom time of 34 minutes, pretty good for our first deep wreck.

 

YO-257, Oahu, Hawaii

After the YO-257, we went to another site for the second dive.  We ended up at Turtle Canyon, a site we've dove before.  This dive was more of a relax and cruise dive after the course dive we did at YO.  The water was a little murky with the currents so visibility wasn't what we were used to.  Despite that it was a very chill dive.  There were massive turtles everywhere we went.  We went to an easy depth of 36 feet for a bottom time of 53 minutes.

For me, diving is also about the people you get to meet.  I love meeting new people and there are always other people on the dives with you, some local and some visiting from all over the world.  On this dive we met Michelle from California visiting with her husband (he doesn't dive) and Oliver from France.  Oliver was so fun to talk to because he's traveled so much.  He told us he got to dive in Egypt!  Definitely going on my to-do list.  Dive Day No. 1 was definitely a success!