Into the Great Wide Open - Part 2

originally published July 18, 2017

My Confined Water days were officially behind me and I had just two dives left to complete. I was poised to make my entry into a wider world, but there were still a few obstacles to overcome.

The other students arrived - a guy in his 30’s and a teenage boy - both finishing up their Open Water certifications - along with the teen’s dad, who was on hand to get a refresher. While scuba certifications are valid for a lifetime, it’s recommended that you take a refresher course if you’ve been out of the water for more than six months.

While Will, Isabelle, and I took a short break (snack time!), Will reviewed the plan for the rest of the day with the whole group. The guys had a few skills to run through first, then we would all be able to move on through the rest of our training together. The menfolk hit the water, leaving Isabelle and me to hang out in the shade and gab for a bit. She is new to Florida, from a place nowhere near the ocean. The great thing about diving is, that doesn’t matter. There are opportunities for diving nearly everywhere, if you know where to look. You can literally dive in every state in the US. Wait… Arkansas? Nebraska?! Yup. Don’t believe me? Check out this book by Jennifer Idol, the first woman to dive all 50 US states.

http://www.theunderwaterdesigner.com/An-American-Immersion

Isabelle is working on becoming a Divemaster, a professional level of scuba certification, with her sights set on becoming an instructor, something I can imagine her excelling at. She has the right personality for it. I’ve met a lot of people in the Diververse and I can’t think of one who hasn’t been friendly and kind. Despite my non-diving status, I’ve never been made to feel like an outsider.

Time for the ladies to join the gents back in the lake. Now we had to get some depth and run through the skills we had been working on in the shallows. Yup, more mask removals! I’m actually starting to kind of like it. Overcoming a fear can be exhilarating. The group ran through the skills tests pretty steadily. I got a bit turned around on my underwater navigation check but still found my way back to where I had started. After a short surface briefing, we headed down and made our way around the lake once again. Other than some buoyancy issues (not unusual for an inexperienced diver) things seemed to be going well. Until my hair got in the way.

At the bottom of Lake Denton, there are some "swim throughs", big PVC squares anchored to the bottom that divers can, well, swim through. I was following Will through one of these when I suddenly stopped. I tried to move forward but something was holding me back. Reaching back over my head, I found the problem. My ponytail had wrapped around the algae covered PVC tubing. Another life lesson: laughing underwater makes your mask leak. It took but a couple of seconds to free myself and swim on, giggling through my regulator all the while.

Soon our group was headed back to the shallows. At the surface, Will reviewed a couple of key points and then… he called me and the teenage boy out by name. Oh God, what did I do?

“Congratulations, you are now both certified Open Water divers.”

Whaaaaattt?? Holy shit. I did it. Is this real life?

This journey had been harder than I’d anticipated, but the fabulous team at my dive shop had my back the whole way. Again, it makes things so much smoother when you find a shop and instructors with whom you mesh well. This goes a long way to being successful in your training, and there are great dive connections to be made in every town.

Of all the posts on this site, this one was the most difficult to write. I found myself breaking down in tears more than once as I typed. Partly out of being proud of succeeding, and excited about what lies ahead… but also due to the metric ton of melancholy because Guy wasn’t there to see it happen. He should have been there. That would have been the Hollywood ending, right?

Due to my relationship with Guy (whatever its current status), I have been immersed in the dive community for nearly three years, and have met dozens of amazing people. But they could all go to places where I could not follow. Not anymore. Now I could truly call myself one of them. One of these newfound friends summed it up with perfect eloquence.

“Welcome to the rest of the planet.”


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