I'm not sure why I'm so nervous, maybe it's got something to do with the fact that at some point today we will be going 45ft below the surface. Aaaarrrgghhhh........
I'm sure it will be fine, fun in fact and as Morpheus pointed out, I have to do this to complete my James Bond era. The scuba diving will be the penultimate as I've overcome snorkeling through underwater caves, I've sky dived off mountain tops in France and also learnt to ski pretty well. So if you roll all of this together I'll be able to parachute from the plane on the way home (if need be), then as we're falling I can attach my skis and land on the piste. Then as I'm skiing downhill I can change into my scuba gear, dive off the edge of the cliff and swim underwater along the east coast to the New York sewer system, then snorkel my way into the apartment....You see if I travel home this way I will avoid the awful low temperatures that are in New York.
Oh yeah before I forget there's a guy here on holiday with his wife that goes to our gym in New York. It wasn't really that much of a surprise to see him as I ALWAYS see someone on holiday that I know, just always happens to me!! Anyway he came by "Little Saint" last night with his miserable snotty wife. He did know Santino from the gym but I'm not sure if Santino knew him that well. Anyway the wife was going on with herself about looking for property here blah blah blah. After a while they left, Santino pulled a face and then informed that the guy (Spencer) is actually a Kennedy. Apparently a cousin of John John's. Well there you go, little bit of info for you. Then again we should of known, he has that typical Kennedy look, dark hair, dark eyes and floppy boyish hair.
The wife was also wearing slacks with slip on shoes and BLACK TIGHTS (nylons). Heelllooo you in Mexico you daft cow!!
OK enough babble I'm off to die now, hopefully you may hear from me later.
God I'm so nervous
6:40pm
OK I'm definitely not dead but I think I've broken my toe and it now
really really hurts.
Who cares about the toe, scuba diving was wild. We watched a video for 1/2 an hour first with basic instructions and then we went out to the shallows and did some basic exercises which I hated and panicked all the time. I thought Morpheus was doing fine until he looked like he was beginning to panic. Apparently someone had picked up his waist weights and his were far too heavy so the poor love kept sinking.
So basically there was 4 of us in our wet suits with floating jacket, tank and other tubes that I know have some reason but I'm not sure for what. So back to the exercises, the first one was to touch the top of our masks whilst opening a small gap under our nose. This is to let any extra water out. The second was to take our regulator (mouth piece) out of our mouths whilst submerged then replace it. I freaked about this but once I began it wasn't so bad. Whoever designed scuba diving equipment certainly knew what they were doing, I mean once your under all the bits that are attached come into play and it's not as difficult as you think. Ok so back to the exercises, yes then after the regulator exercise when then had to do it again but sort of throw it away and then retrieve it back curling your right arm back around your waist so that when you swing your arm round the regulator is hanging down over the side of your arm for easy access to put it back in.
There were 6 people in our group and one of them was this asian guy who was really nervous, which is fair enough but the idiot kept banging into me. At one point he swiftly turned and his tank smacked the side of my head which then made me freak and have to go back up top. From then on I stayed as far away as I possibly could
Another exercise was using your buddy regulator which basically is a spare one so that if anything happens to the other one then this is a backup. So our trainer came up to each one of us, took our own regulators out and then she placed our buddy regulator in our mouths and brought us to the service, which on this exercise meant pretty much just standing up.
So once the exercises we're over we swam over to a small boat and went
out much deeper to a lovely secluded part of the sea. Now what freaked
me a little was that we were all instructed to put our bums very close
to the edges so that we could BACK FLIP easily over the side
ARE YOU KIDDING ME???
No wonder our instructor (Karry) had not mentioned this small detail before as none of us would have boarded I'm sure. So apart from one of our passengers completely freaking and NOT going over we all (after a count of 3) flipped back overboard.
Wow it was pretty cool really, not at all as scary as you'd think. You see you already have your regulator in your mouth plus mask when you go over, so even when you fall back and are submerged you can see and breathe clearly.
So the next thing was to do make our way down below by pulling our way down from the anchor line. As you do this you have to equalize every few metres which basically means hold your nose and breathe out through your ears to clear them. I hadn't reduced enough air out of my buoyancy controller (life jacket) so I was still floating too much and couldn't keep up with the others going down the rope. Anyway I began to panic and started to descend quite rapidly WITHOUT equalizing enough. So the next thing is that I get about 20ft down and my ears just go nuts. The pain was incredible, like someone shoving a screw driver right inside.
I went back up and saw Hilda one of the other instructors who calmed me down. She was really great and so we then both went down together, very slowly with me constantly popping my ears.
Once I was at the bottom I saw everyone else (including Morpheus) just chilling on the ocean bed. We were now about 45ft below and it was pretty scary let me tell you.
I really didn't think I was going to be able to do it as I got such an overwhelming feeling of sheer panic that I couldn't possibly explain now. So basically what I did was breathe controlled breaths, or at least try and just try to concentrate on my surroundings and NOT look up.
After a while I became calm and continued on my voyage below the ocean. To see all these tropical fish in their natural environment is truly wonderful. There were absolutely thousands of them, all different types, size and shapes of fish. We continued our exploration through the clear water, not touching anything even though some of them did. I couldn't find Morpheus for a while and then realised he was behind me, so I held back so that we could swim along together. However the asian guy was hovering way too close and bumped into me from below, the big fat idiot so I decided to forego my romantic swim with Morph and keep close to the instructor. I must say that I found the whole experience wonderful but still scary. Especially when I made any sudden movements or god forbid stop. I prefer it if I'm just gently gliding along smoothly, this makes me feel calm.
So after what seemed like only 20 minutes but had been 40 Karry motioned for us to get together in one circle, grip each others suits and SLOWLY swim up to the top. Getting above water was a relief for me, but I'm definitely going to keep doing diving until I feel totally comfortable and pass my certificate with flying colours. So there.................
So there you go I did it, I scuba dived, the proper stuff, not your farty little pool swim and PROPER GODDAMN DIVE!! YES!!
Oh yeah and when we jumped out of the board at shore, I banged my toe on the rock and broke it.....fuck!!