Rain or Sunshine: Let's Dive

After 5 months of waiting and rescheduling, I finally completed my open water dive certification and it’s such a good feeling. With all the confusion and disorganisation I experienced from Elazmo Sydney Underworld, I’m so happy to not only have completed the course, but truly feel a sense of confidence in going out on a scuba tour anywhere around the world.

We had such a sour perception of the company that we would have to entrust with our lives underwater. In January the company placed a group coupon deal on Spreets for this certification ($170) plus they threw in free snorkel, mask, flippers and booties. With a deal like this, people all over the Greater Sydney area were quick to jump on this deal. Because hundreds of people had the deal, the company became overrun by scheduling flops, lack of giveaways not to mention books and shoddy equipment giving the sense of total disorganisation. As humans it is not natural to breathe underwater. This company was charged with our safety. If they couldn’t get their act together in the office, how were we to believe they could out in the open ocean?

So to put things in chronologically order, I got my Spreets deal in January, took in a classroom course or watched a video from the early 90s projected on a while wall in March, received my course booklet in late April, took my written test in early June along with my first pool session. Two days later, I had my first and second ocean dive and today I finished my third and fourth ocean dive.

It really is true that the more you put something off the less important it seems to be. That’s the feeling I had before I took my written test. After months of unpreparedness, I read the entire 70 pg booklet the night before and answered the practice questions. On the day of the test, we realised we weren't even studying for the PADI course, but an AUSI course. Inconsequential because they are both universal courses recognised like Visa and MasterCard. With much whispering and thumbing through the book, I passed missing only 2 questions!

Off to the pool, the first thing I had to do was swim two laps of a 50 meter pool. This coupled with the fact that I hadn't been in a pool since I was in Seoul in May 2010 seemed like torture. Have I mentioned that June in Australia is winter? This weekend also happened to be one of the coldest and rainiest of 2011. Of all of these factors, swimming the 200m was probably the hardest thing I had to do. After proving that we could actually swim, we put on our wet suits. This was another first for me. Coming from Texas, the water is just fine and you never need a wet suit, unless it was winter time, but you’d be crazy to go into the water in the winter! With the help of Dave and our friend Zach, I squeezed into my wet suit fighting against the rain and cold winds. We then learned how to assemble our equipment by our instructor Jason, a Cali dude who seemingly had the care free vagabond spirit because he’s been an ex-pat for years instructing all over South East Asia. This was not his teaching style. He was actually very blunt with us warning us, “This is your life!” In the end, I’m glad I had him as my teacher for the pool and ocean dive 1 and 2 because everyone else in our last dives that had other instructors just didn't seem as prepared. For the rest of the afternoon, we learned hand signals, how to clear our masks, breathe without the regulator or masks, take our equipment off and on in and out of the water, find our buoyancy, and perform a rescue dive. The hardest part of the day with exception to the first 200m swim, was probably putting on and taking off my fins in the water. Feeling pretty good. We ended the day eating Thai with Jason and discussing US politics and why he was glad he wasn't living in the US anymore – real conversationalist.

Two days later was the Queen’s Birthday – a holiday in the Commonwealth and Australia gets a day off of work. We took to the ocean on yet another rainy and frigid day. The company’s track record at this point was lackluster. On our way to La Perouse, the dive site we were told to go to, we received a phone call from the company saying that our dive was actually at Rose Bay, 45 minutes back the way we had came from. Thankfully, we had Jason’s number and he assured us of the dive at La Perouse because he was there with all the equipment. In all this frenzy, we had gotten off the bus and now had to walk 30 minutes to the dive site.

Two days after the pool session, we assembled our gear with ease. There was another couple joining us today and they just didn't seem to have it together. They didn't know how to properly connect their tank with their jacket and Jason saw their incompetence immediately. Nevertheless, we all got ready and set out for the wavy bay at La Perouse. Jason took them aside and tested their skills while Dave, Zach and I bobbed on the surface. After 15 minutes, I peered down and saw the girl rush to the surface inflating her jacket – the number 1 no no! Jason sent them away back to land to wait in the rain and cold with their wet suits on because all of their belongings were locked in Jason's van! For the next 45 minutes, Jason tested us with all the things we had learned in the pool session and we finally swam amongst the wildlife below. On a day with heavy rains and sweeping winds, coupled with my inability to swim without brushing my fins along the sandy bottom, the visibility was poor to say the least. We did however; spot some colourful starfish, schools of fish and an octopus, which could have been dark vegetation. Back on the surface, I felt like vomiting. From waiting on Jason to test the incompetent couple and the crashing waves, seasickness took over. Diving was the easy part. Containing my queasiness was becoming a problem. After the dive, we treated ourselves to Korean food at Madang on Pitt Street.

A week later, the company confirmed our last session at Watson’s Bay Camp Cove. We were supposed to do a boat dive, but again the company could not get their act together. This time we had perfect weather (17 Celsius high) and did a shore dive. We arrived at 9am finding nearly 20 people to be led by two unfamiliar instructors. With what seemed like over an hour to gear up and instruct, we finally got into the water. When we split into two groups our instructors signaled to go down. We deflated our jackets and started to descend. I was left flailing on the surface because I could not descend. I had deflated everything. I kept trying to descend, taking in Dave’s suggestions to hold my BCD regulator in different ways and even push all the air out of my jacket. Finally, my instructor had to pull me down. I blame it on her because she didn't give me enough weights for my weight belt. It was good practice though because one day I’ll have to adapt to situations like this since every scuba company will have different gear and perspectives on what gear you need.

For the rest of the morning, we practiced a few skills we had learned in the last ocean dive and pool session. On our last descent we took a 20 minute tour around Camp Cove. We didn't see much except for the random fish. Weird enough there were oblivious fisherman not knowing there were no fish today. At this point I practiced my buoyancy and felt much more comfortable with swimming without using my hands and keeping neutral staying not too low nor too high. We made our way back to shore fully competent and confident certified open water divers.

Although I had a rocky start in my journey to getting scuba certified, the experience was worthwhile and became easier to deal with. Apparently, in the last few months, the dive masters revolted against management protesting for a week, leaving the management’s hands tied. The company finally gave in, got their act together and even gave the dive masters new equipment. The company has started to get its act together and it showed. Just like any business, making money is no good unless you've ensured customer satisfaction – and that’s just what we got. We had good instructors, proper equipment and learned everything we needed to know to be confident divers. The last thing to do is get our card back at the dive shop, but they have yet to get our masks, snorkel, booties and flippers in order. Hopefully it won’t be another 5 months till I get these things. In the meantime, I’ll have to start planning a trip to Cairns or Port Douglas to dive in The Great Barrier Reef.

Giving the 'Good to go' Sign at La Perouse