"Life under the sea is better than anything they got up there."

-Sebastion, The Little Mermaid



I finally did it! I finally SCUBA dove! (Dived? Whatever.) As you may (or may not) recall, I had bought all my SCUBA gear back in September of '10. And it's been hanging neglected in my closet ever since. But last Saturday I rounded up all my various underwater attire and biked to the SCUBA shack to do a walk-in dive off Emon Beach.

Turns out, the two most important components of a dive outfit (the BCU - Breathing Control Unit - and the regulator) of mine were busted. My AirII hose had no shut-off, and I was missing some hose. Luckily for me, my dive instructor came prepared with extra equipment, so the dive got underway without a hitch. Well, besides that first hitch.


We dove to 42 feet for about half an hour on a lovely, barely-cloudy day. The outside temp. was around 87 degrees F, and the water was around 80 degrees F. I'm a big baby, though, and still needed my 3 mil shorty!

I have no sightings of super-awesome things to report (such as: sharks, mantas, octopi, whales, etc.), but I DID see thousands of tiny fish, and some wrecked thingamabobber.



After the diving and photo-taking and coral-investigating, I commenced my check-out test.


1. Fling regulator from mouth, hang out for a bit
without air, insert regulator again.

2. Flood mask, then clear it of water.

3. Take mask completely off, open eyes underwater,
replace mask, and clear it of water.

4. Take cheesy peace sign picture.

I passed!

*Update! I just asked Doug, my dive instructor (who's office is about 20 steps from mine at the high school library) what that thingamabobber is. He said it's an old aluminum navigation bouy. Cool!