Welcome to Thunderdome

This is an expensive fucking hobby.

End of post.

Yeah it is. It's fun though. I wish I could go more.

Here's me and my kid practicing buddy breathing.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/oxd0vyPFAXk

Here's a fun timeline with new info I just learned today:

1. 4 months ago I talked to a local dive instructor about getting certified this Spring for an early Summer road trip to Florida for me and the kid.

2. 1 month ago I paid $400 and we took the book-learning classes.

3. Last weekend we spent two days in the pool doing the pool work.

4. In 3 weeks we are going to a local quarry for two days to do our open water certifications, and getting certified.

5. Two days after that we are heading south. There is no wiggle room in the schedule. If we don't get certified, vacation ruined because we can't do all the diving we've planned and booked without certifications.

6. Over the last few weeks I've spent another G on various gear.

7. Today I found out my dive instructor's wife has terminal cancer and is in month 8 of her 6 month prognosis, and is not looking good. He took on the commitment when I could have gone to a different instructor and now there's a pretty good chance....

Well, I don't want to be a dick and say it, but maybe he shouldn't have taken shitloads of my money and made a commitment like this.

Ugh.... hope it works out. Any chance of stepping up the checkout dives?

That's how I found out about his wife. Communication was breaking down via email... "I thought I responded to you..." so I called because dates had to get locked down, and he said things had been hectic and then all the stuff about his wife. He says this is the only opening in his schedule, so I guess the answer is no.

We dove the quarry tonight. Minimum temp recorded on our dive computers was 52 degrees.

It was pretty stressful. My kid is the minimum age they allow to certify.... the instructor took him on only after meeting him, and decided he was a good kid, would pay attention, follow orders, etc. Can't have any shitheads at 35 feet.

But my kid is so small that his limbs just weren't long enough to do some tasks easily... especially taking off gear/putting it back on while in the water. He just had a hard time, he's 75 pounds, he's free floating, he can't manhandle 30 pounds of gear very well, getting so frustrated he's crying. But he stuck with it.

The last task he was failing was getting his weight belt off/on in the water. He had 8 pounds of weights, which is over 10% of his entire body weight. He could get it off, he just couldn't get it back on... all that heavy gear was in the way, and his arms just aren't very long. We actually had to convince the instructor to give us one more night out at the quarry to give us one more shot... officially, we failed the final dive/final task. (Final dive got fucked because my son's BCD developed a malfunction, which we could have lived with, but my kid was concerned and we surfaced too early and technically that ended our final checkout dive prematurely, and the instructor was being a stickler). So our final dive yesterday at noon got fucked, and he still couldn't do the weight belt, and dive vacation was officially ruined, and everyone was upset, but I talked the instructor into coming back tonight late in the day.

So we failed in the morning and rescheduled for the next day and yesterday afternoon we were in my Mom's pool practicing with that weight belt. There's a trick to rolling it around your body/gear/scuba tank while in the water, but he just wasn't getting it. We spent an hour floundering, and I saw he was whipped and we called it a day.... and I had serious concerns we were not going to pass.

Today after lunch we went back to the pool.... and it was like it just clicked. He did the "rolling" technique first try, and he comes up smiling. "Wow, that's actually easy." I had him do it another 20 times, to make sure, and then we got out of the pool to wait.

We were still worried... we didn't have a scuba tank on his back to practice with, so we were both still concerned about him with that weight belt... but what we ALSO didn't have in the pool was a regulator in his mouth, giving him an air supply. In the quarry he removed his belt, and clumsily... with the tank on his back... performed the roll maneuver, and I could see that he got close, but missed grabbing the other end of the belt... but now he could breath... and with his face in the water he adjusted, improvised, adapted, and overcame, and he got the belt on first try.

So we got certified tonight.

Very big joy and happy.



Here's a vid. That boat is sitting at about 33 feet.

Congrats! Of course, as you know, the cert is full of things you'll probably never ever really do.

Yeah, we could never think of a single real-world scenario where he'd have to put on that weight belt solo.... but I am proud of him that he couldn't, and we trained, and he beat it.

I've rented gear locally for 10 days, so I wouldn't have to scramble all over central Florida renting gear, and backtracking to take it back before we hit the next area. I am now about $3k deep* into this fun little hobby.... beware of the costs if you decide to take it up. I kind of wish I'd decided to buy the kayaks this year, instead. It'd be $1k and done.



*Granted, $3k for 2 people. It would have been exactly half if just me.

I've got rec kayaks you can borrow if you ever drive through

Woohoo, just booked a shipwreck dive off Wilmington next month, since we're going to be down there anyway.

The wife is already lamenting the fact that any time she wants to go somewhere now, I am googling to see if there is any diving nearby.

I have all my scuba pictures sorted from the Florida trip, I'll have to make a post.

I am googling to see if there is any diving nearby.

Tell her your scouting some places to dump the body.

GORDON wrote:Woohoo, just booked a shipwreck dive off Wilmington next month, since we're going to be down there anyway.

Awesome, always wanted to do one of those. How deep is the wreck?

TheCatt wrote:

GORDON wrote:Woohoo, just booked a shipwreck dive off Wilmington next month, since we're going to be down there anyway.

Awesome, always wanted to do one of those. How deep is the wreck?

He hasn't caused it yet.

TheCatt wrote:

GORDON wrote:Woohoo, just booked a shipwreck dive off Wilmington next month, since we're going to be down there anyway.

Awesome, always wanted to do one of those. How deep is the wreck?

Sitting in 50' of water.

http://www.wilmingtondiving.com/libship.shtml

It isn't anything impressive, but considering I said I wasn't taking my 10 year old son diving in the ocean for a few more years, I was delighted to not only find this nice easy ocean dive for him, but a local charter company had a trip planned out there in the exact 2 day window in which we'd be in town. They certify people for open water out there, so I feel OK taking my kid.

I gave them a call and asked if they had a problem with him being 10. They asked if he had any dives logged, I told him we did 5 post-certification in Florida last week, and he sounded impressed for some reason.

Granted, everywhere we dove in Florida, we had instructors coming up to us, doing their own classes, asking how old he was, and saying they were impressed by his water skillz, at his age.

We also may have set a record at one spring for youngest diver/deepest depth, but it was kinda illegal so shhhh.

But yeah, we're excited. I wonder if he is going to get seasick... I am guessing probably. I do. I told him we just need to power through it and get in the water as fast as we can.

GORDON wrote:But yeah, we're excited. I wonder if he is going to get seasick... I am guessing probably. I do. I told him we just need to power through it and get in the water as fast as we can.

Odds look good.

Dude at the charter recommended Dramamine night before, and morning of, if I had concerns about the kid. Kid's never been on a boat that size on the ocean, and 3 foot rolling swells are typical even on calm days.

I haven't been on a lot of boats in my time, but I recall liking it.

I've lived on boats for months at a time. Flat seas are rare.