Scuba Diving Lessons

I haven't posted anything for the last week because I've been really busy with work and preparing for scuba diving lessons. Some of my friends are avid divers so I decided to give it a try with a PADI instructor that they knew. Spent most of the week reviewing a big PADI lesson book, shopping for some gear, and watching some PADI videos. You can't just show up and start taking lessons, you need to do a lot of reading ahead of time so that you have an idea of some of the techniques you’ll be learning, how scuba diving equipment works, common hand signals used when you're in the water, and common problems and how to prevent them.

This weekend I went to a pool for my first lesson, putting the equipment together and learning the basics. All told I was in the pool over 3 hours. It was not as nerve-racking as I thought it would be, in truth I was probably more nervous before the lesson started, but once I got in the pool and realized that breathing with the regulator was easy I was a bit calmer and was able to focus on the exercises. That gear is heavy though! I am not the most muscular guy so lugging all of that stuff on my back was probably the hardest part. It's fine once you get in the water but out of the water it's a lot of weight.

I need to practice buoyancy control a bit more but otherwise I did fine for the first lesson. Next week the class will be doing a dive in the ocean near Sealine, in an area where the sea is shallow, where we will practice the exercises again.