Scuba Diving...

A few weeks ago I signed up for a scuba diving course through my university and today I finally got to do my first enclosed water dive!

I arrived at the scuba centre at 11am, handed in my homework and immediately went to get some scuba equipment fitted. I got a BCG (jacket), fins (flippers), goggles, snorkel, weight belt, regulator and an air tank - which weighed a tonne! I then had to do a quiz to see how much of the homework I'd actually taken in, I got 8/10 so I passed. 

By 12 noon it was time for a briefing from the head scuba diver who told us what we were going to be doing in the class and some necessary safety things. After that we headed to the pool - a few miles down the road - and the instructors showed us how to put our equipment together and then we began with some skills.

Firstly we had to fill our masks and then empty them buy breathing out through our nose. Now above water I found this easy, but under the water was a completely different story. I was trying so hard to breathe through my nose but every time I just ended up breathing through my mouth which meant I had to come up to the surface a couple of times coughing and choking. The man then told me a cheat so I did it that way and cleared my mask with ease :). To be honest, I   don't know why I can't just do it that way all the time, it seemed to work just as well. 

Anyway, the next skill was clearing your regulator if water had got into it. This one was easy and just involved you taking it out, putting it back in and pressing the button to clear it. Then we had to share our air with one of the instructors and visa versa, by using the second regulator attached to our BCG (don't I just sound like I know what I'm talking about!). This was also relatively straight forward. 

Finally we got to free swim around the pool getting us used to the feel of flippers and buoyancy control (where we are under the water). This was the best part and it was soooo much fun! Even though the water wasn't very deep if still was so weird being able to stay under the water for so long being able to breathe. I felt like a fish! Once we seemed comfortable the instructors then took us into the really deep part of the pool which was the highlight of my first scuba lesson. I got to sit on the bottom quite comfortably, kneel on the bottom, swim at all levels of the pool, play frisbee (underwater don't forget!). Oh it was just super party awesome!

I am looking forward to continuing scuba diving and eventually getting out into open water. Maybe I'll find some treasures! or at least see some fish. I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed today and I think this is a lesson that I should try more things because I may just end up enjoying them...

I'll now leave you with some scuba diving photos which hopefully in the future will be things i'll get to do and see!

xoxo

(sources: tumblr)