Taking my First Breath Underwater

One of my 2009 resolutions was to become a certified scuba diver. At the time of writing my resolutions, I didn’t even know what “certified scuba diver” meant; I just knew that scuba diving was something I’ve always wanted to do.

A few months ago I realized it was getting late in the year and time was running out, so I visited Northeast Scuba, a local dive shop in Chelmsford, MA, and spoke to the guy behind the counter. He explained the Open Water Diver certification offered by PADI allows a diver to use scuba equipment down to 60 feet and that it’s a very popular entry to all other diving certifications offered by PADI, such as Rescue Diver, Deep Diver, Wreck Diver, and Advanced Open Water Diver.

After signing up for the course, I was required to complete homework before coming into the class. There were five chapters in the Open Water Diver manual, each with a knowledge review at the end. After reading the first chapter and completing the first knowledge review, I procrastinated until a day before the class was scheduled and spent eight hours straight (until three in the morning) reading the remaining chapters and completing all the knowledge reviews (not recommended!).

The Open Water Diver manual contained lots of interesting stuff: everything from scuba equipment, to dangers of pressure underwater, to ocean currents and wave types. It did a great job explaining topics that would’ve otherwise been difficult to understand.

The day before I was scheduled to take the class, I sprained my ankle bad enough that I had to reschedule the class. A few days before the rescheduled class, I got a call saying the instructor had an emergency and that the class had to be rescheduled again.

Finally, this past weekend the stars aligned and I took the class. The class took place in the back room of the dive shop and was very small: only myself and another student (an accountant in her mid to late 40s). The quizzes and final exam were easy, but time consuming.

After the classwork, I loaded up my rented scuba gear and two scuba tanks, went on a one hour lunch, and drove to the pool, which was located in a fitness center in Boxboro, MA, about 20 minutes away. When I arrived, I learned that the other student wasn’t coming (she didn’t feel well and had trouble with the dive tables on the final exam), so it was just me an the instructor.

My first breath underwater was pretty much what I had expected. What I had not expected, however, is what came next. After being under for longer than I could hold my breath, I literally felt as though I had entered a new world! When you're in scuba gear, everything happens in slow motion underwater. Once you obtain neutral buoyancy there is very little affect from gravity; you're basically weightless. It’s hard to explain how this affects the way you perceive your environment and I think it's something you have to experience first-hand to really appreciate.

I had so much fun going through all the different diving exercises and learning about all the scuba gear, including how to assemble and disassemble everything. I practiced things like flooding and clearing my mask underwater, various emergency ascents, finding neutral buoyancy, and various methods of entering the water (one big leap, going in backwards off a boat, entering from the shore).

With all my pool work done, I now just need to do four open water dives (in a lake or ocean) to become a certified Open Water Diver. Since it’s so late in the season, there’s a good chance I’ll have to wait until next spring to complete the four open water dives, but once I’ve got my certification, I’m definitely going to work towards other certifications (like the Advanced Open Water Diver and Rescue Diver).

I’ve long suspected that I would love diving and I can already feel myself itching to go back under. I know the confined dives aren't quite the same as the open water, but I expect the open water to be even more incredible.