Scuba diving

I wasn't sure if I wanted to go scuba diving. I didn't like the idea of leaving the kids behind and swimming to the bottom of the ocean with Coreen. But I went, and I'm sure glad I did.

Coreen, Greg, and I went for training in the morning with our divemaster Luca. Sherry and Cornell — already experienced divers — met us at lunch time at the dive shop.

Luca led us out to the boat. There were lots of waves this afternoon.

I was wondering if maybe I shouldn't have had lunch. Then I was wondering if maybe I wouldn't have it for long anyway. The boat kept rocking up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down... well, you get the idea. I was OK as long as I kept looking at the horizon, but I had to look down to get my flippers on. Uhh...

Greg quickly moved his equipment out of the way. Probably wondering where he heard that the Dutch were seafarers.

"Looking a little green, there, Jan."

Actually, I was OK. Luca was just helping me get my weight belt on.

And away we went!

All the pictures this day are courtesy of our wonderful undersea photographers Cornell...

... and Sherry. If the colours are off, that's my fault for mucking around with them.

Well, it sure felt good to be on solid ground, even if it was under forty feet of water.

Luca had explained beforehand that our regulators are designed so you can keep breathing even if you throw up in them. Of course, then I started wondering if anyone ever had.

Doesn't Coreen look like a natural?

I, on the other hand, look like a fish out of water. I mean, a fish out of air... anti-fish out of air... well, you know what I mean.

It sure was amazing down there...

Totally cool.

We actually only saw a fraction of these things as everything was so new to us and we were trying to get used to the environment.

These things would retract under the sand when we got near.

I think I've been playing too many video games as I was trying to use the buoyancy stabilizer to control my depth (it's got inflate and deflate buttons, which are like up and down buttons). Twice I pressed the inflate button too much and started shooting for the surface before someone grabbed my flippers and pulled me back down. It happened to Coreen once, too, so it's not like I was the only spaz down there.

I guess the idea is to stabilize your buoyancy for your depth and only adjust it when the water density changes, just swimming up and down the rest of the time. Takes some getting used to, though.