100 feet under the sea

This past weekend I went scuba diving! It's been a while (July '08) and despite being completely terrified beforehand; I HAD A WICKED TIME!

I went up to a little place called Mike's Beach Resort which is a little resort (And it's not fancy at all which is how I can afford it!) on the Hood Canal that caters to scuba divers. It's located just North of Lilliwaup on the olympic peninsula in Washington.

There I got my Advanced Diver Certification from PADI and completed five dives which included:

• Search and Recovery
• Underwater Naturalist
• Night Diving
• Underwater Navigation
• Deep diving
• Plus, I am now certified to dive with enriched air that contains a higher percentage of oxygen (32% to 36% compared with normal air that has about 21%)
  

The dive that made my heart beat fast and my palms sweat just thinking about it was the deep dive. It was our first dive on Sunday and I was worried that I would be so nervous I'd puke into my regulator. However, I sucked it up, was internally grateful that I had my very own scuba instructor to take me down slowly so I could have lots of times to equalize the pressure in my Eustachian tubes, and together we went 100 feet below the surface of the Hood Canal! If you're familiar with diving you may have heard of nitrogen narcosis which is the mind altering effect of nitrogen that occurs during deep dives. It's not the same for everyone, some are paranoid, some become euphoric, some become angry and so on. Me, I'm the paranoid one!

All in all I noticed a considerable improvement in my skills by the end of the weekend and if it wasn't for the chilling 44F water; I probably would've stayed!