( self contained underwater breathing apparatus, duh!)

After 4 hours of video and 250 pages of study, a 200 meter swim test, a 10min tread water test, 2 pool training sessions,  four 40foot ocean dives and a 90 question exam (98% correct), I’m proud to say I’m an Open Water Certified scuba diver. This means that I no longer need to dive with an instructor (unless taking advanced classes like deep or night dives) and can plan and lead my own open water dives.

Here are some of the skills I had to learn and demonstrate both in the pool and at depth in the ocean (40ft):

Underwater:
Partial and full mask flood and clear
Regulator (the thing you breathe through) loss and replacement
Master neutral buoyancy both with BCD (vest) inflation and oral inflation (at depth).
Remove mask and replace and clear (easily my least favorite test)
Remove mask, swim 75ft, replace & clear.
Compass navigation
Simulate running out of air and tell buddy and use their alternate air
Host air for an out of air buddy
Controlled emergency ascent (out of air, no buddy)
Communicate with hand signals

On surface:
(I was lucky–the water wasn’t too rough for these)
Remove, inspect and replace weight belt
Remove, inspect and replace scuba unit (BCD and tank) (a little challenging since you’re removing your flotation and you have a weight belt on, especially if water is rough)
Switch between snorkel and scuba without breathing water
Tow a tired or injured diver

I also learned how to assemble and disassemble the scuba system.

And here are some interesting tidbits about diving that I learned:

• Pressure is double at 10m than at surface, 3x at 20m, 4x at 30m, etc.
• You use proportionally more air as you go deeper.
• #1 rule of diving: never hold your breath.
  If you held your breath from 20m to the surface, the air in your lungs would triple in size. ie your lungs are busted.
• During a controlled emergency ascent, you swim up at about 1ft/sec slowly blowing air out of your lungs. Its hard to run out of air because the air in your lungs is constantly expanding as you go up. Kinda odd.
• Air is over 70% nitrogen, which is not processed by the body. This limits the amount of time you can stay under. The deeper you go, the less time allowed (to prevent nitrogen narcosis–which causes drunk-like symptoms underwater) and the longer you must stay at the surface between dives to expel all the nitrogen (to prevent decompression sickness–when nitrogen bubbles block blood flow)
• Air can compress but water cannot. This is why only 3 areas on our body are susceptible to pressure–ears sinuses and lungs. This is because these are the only parts with air in them. Your mask is also susceptible–you need to breathe out your nose as you descend to equalize your mask.

It was a very “Yes Man” thing to do and I’m glad I did it. I learned a ton and am WAY more comfortable diving now. Here are some pictures:

Studying decompression tables for my exam.

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The 2nd pool training session with my instructor Pablo.

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Reviewing what I’m about to be tested on in the upcoming (3rd) dive.

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About to hop in for my fourth and final open water dive. The dreaded “remove mask and clear” test in coming up! Not too fun with saltwater at 40 feet.

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Pablo congratulates me after I passed all tests in my final dive and I’m officially certified!

GOGO