I’ve been told my more than a few people that Scuba is a sport for crazy people and diving/swimming with sharks or pretty much any animal that has the ability to kill you at any moment is insane. Perhaps that is the case and I could be clinically committed to a straitjacket in a padded room for the remainder of my days...but that room would have to be pretty large and your supply of jackets would most likely be exhausted sooner than later from the numbers of fellow crazies who consider ocean diving one of their first loves. Also, I was surprised to find out that major problems can be experienced in a pool just as they could in the wilds of the ocean. Such a comment brings me to today’s story and what looks to be my second to last post pertaining to the certification process we went through: shall I begin?
As I said earlier, the training was divided half & half between the classroom and the pool, so it wouldn’t be tough to determine that the pool probably encompassed the greater level of danger when compared to the classroom. That is, unless you consider accidentally poking yourself with a pencil or the embarrassment that comes from answering a question incorrectly in public to be a debilitating situation from which to recover from…and if you do, you will probably want to work through those issues before attempting tackle something akin to diving with all the variously toothed creatures great and small who call the ocean home.
After the swimming (10-15 laps) and treading water (for 10 min.) tests have been completed we are asked to don our gear and report to the bottom of the deep end of the pool (15 or 20 deep I believe) for some additional testing which all prospective divers are required to complete. These tasks include removing various items of gear (mask, regulator*, BC**), manipulating them underwater and putting the ensemble back together properly. To accomplish this we all gather in a circle at the bottom on our knees so we can watch each other and learn from example of the dive master and each other.
Down we go and everything is going well with my gear for now. On the bottom I am watching the other people I don’t know in our group complete the mask portion of the test: taking their mask off, put in back on & clear the water out of it so they can see again. After each one is done the DM points to the next person to give them a chance. My heart is beating a bit faster as my turn is coming quickly. The issue with this test is, for many, the big change in going from a dry face to a wet face and not having any air available around your nose. When you breathe in thru your nose while diving, the mask, which has a small amount of air in it, will suck tighter to your face from the vacuum you create by lessening the amount of air in the mask until you exhale a bit from your nose, thus equalizing the pressure again. So when your mask first comes off (whether you take if off in training or another diver’s fin kick in front of you pulls it off accidentally) the water hits your previously dry face which some find cold & uncomfortable and you realize that you have to concentrate and breathe only through your mouth/regulator. This may not seem like a big deal to non-divers but once you are in an environment where there is just a single source of air available from your regulator you realize how much you do breathe through your nose, even if it’s just a little bit. That little bit of water you would breathe in would cause you to start to cough and wheeze which is an activity to be avoided, both in a 20’ foot swimming pool or out on a 75’ reef. I get through my turn of this challenge well and watch my bro and parents also complete it with flying colors. This is such a great experience do go through together with them! Next we take our regulator out of our mouth and put it back in and clear the water out of it for the same precautionary reasons as the mask drill. Lastly, we succeed in taking off the BC, the vest which holds the tank and regulator in place so the devices can be properly utilized as the diver has need, over our head placing the tank length-wise on the bottom facing up so the equipment and connections can be checked or fixed without making the diver change position too drastically. My BC goes back on and I buckle it snug again and look at the DM next to me to signal I am ok when I go to take another breath but find no air available from the tank. I try again but it seems the tank has just said ‘no air for you!’ like the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld or something. I didn’t even have time to look at my computer as my brain started to race from the lack of available oxygen. I was beginning to feel like Arnold in Total Recall when he got thrown out onto the surface of Mars. Without thinking I grabbed the regulator out of the DM’s mouth and pulled it to myself and breathed out of it with much enthusiasm. After two breaths I went to return the reg to the DM but I saw that he has calmly retreated to his second stage unit to breathe from. I offered it back to him but he signaled for me to continue using it while he grabbed by BC shoulder strap and started to ascend to the surface with me to resolve my issue at the surface. Quite the unforeseen circumstance for newbie Brent! I surely didn’t see all that on the horizon!
After reaching the surface with my new best friend I expect to be reprimanded to some degree for ripping his air supply out of his mouth without asking his permission but instead I am greeted with a commendation from him. Hearing his approval I am surprised and perplexed that he is congratulating me but he explains why: when most people have a problem underwater, their first thought is to jet to the surface for safety. In a 20’ deep pool this isn’t a big deal, but acting on that thought while on a medium depth or deep dive will kill you. Why? When air is breathed in from the tank at depth it is pressurized due to the weigh of the water on top of it. This means that a breath taken at 15’ down is actually much more air than a breath taken at 80’ down, could be almost twice the air because of the compression difference. So who cares? Well if you take that breath at 80’ and swim to the surface (because you’re having a gear problem) without exhaling it, the air will expand as you ascend and eventually your single breath will look like multiple breaths in your lungs which will pop or tear because lungs aren’t designed to hold more than the air needed for one breath. This is Boyles Law and disregarding this law will kill you. Check it out on Wikipedia when you have a moment.
So I have no idea if someone, maybe the DM, turned my air off intentionally as a teaching tool or if the tank just wasn’t filled up enough but either way it freaked me out a bit but was a great lesson to me and the whole group about what to do and what not to do when a problem of this type occurs. Luckily for me I had no reason to be embarrassed at all as I handled it the right way by staying at depth and fixing the issue instead of shooting for the surface and possibly getting ‘The Bends’ (you can Wiki that term too, scary stuff!) or a tear in my lung tissue. Another tip I learned from that was to keep my dive computer close and check it often because even when you think things are going ok a problem can pop up without warning.
That is the second scary/exciting/funny story I can think of during the certification process and ill write about the final one next time. That one has to do with my experience during our ‘final exam’ in the rock quarry in northern VA. Oh what fun!
* Reg. is short for regulator, really air regulator; which is the device that attaches to the tanks air nozzle on one end and to the BC inflator tip as well as to the mouthpiece(s) [primary & second stages] on the other end which the diver breathes from. Another term for this device is the ‘Octopus’.
** BC stands for Buoyancy Compensator; it is a vest which houses the tank and can be inflated/deflated using the air in the tank (connected via the regulator) when at depth or the air from your lungs when on the surface.
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