A few years ago, while on a snorkeling excursion, I decided that I really wanted to see what was deeper below the surface of the ocean. I had been a fan of and in the water since as far back as I could remember, and had no fear about learning to scuba dive.
I checked in with Dwain at Captain Nemo’s dive shop and he got me started on the path to certification.
We had a couple of weekends of class time, where we learned all about scuba diving, the importance of properly fitted and maintained equipment, and the effects of pressure on the body while diving. We covered material in our books, watched videos, and took tests to ensure we would be safe divers.
We also had a couple of sessions of pool time, which is when we were able to access a local indoor pool and learn how to assemble and use our equipment and practice our skills. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would be able to master taking off my mask at the bottom of a pool, much less in the ocean. But I did! And I left it off for a couple of minutes.
After the class and pool sessions, the time had come to sign up for my Open Water dives, which would be done in Bull Shoals Lake in Arkansas.
This is basically where we got to pull it all together in an open water environment under the guidance of an instructor to see if we would receive certification or not. Even under the horrible rainy, stormy conditions and a lot of time sitting in my car between dives, I passed! I was a newly certified, open water diver.
After that, it was time to go practice my skills. We headed to Cozumel, Mexico which is one of the top ten places in the world to dive. It didn’t disappoint! My dive buddy was an Englishman named Ray (hubby wasn’t certified yet) who was very experienced and we saw some neat stuff. We actually found a nurse shark napping and just before our ascent, 3 huge lobsters walked across our path in the sand. I didn’t have my camera yet, so I have no pics, other than one of me and Ray after the dive.
Over the next couple of years, hubby got his certification through Captain Nemo’s as well. Although, while he did his open water portion in Punta Cana, I was working on my Advanced Open Water certification. Win, win, right?
While on our honeymoon in St Lucia, we stayed at a Sandal’s Resort, which includes scuba diving. We took the opportunity for hubby to then work on his Advanced Open Water while I took a photography class.
As we are now getting ready to take a trip to the Pacific side of Mexico, we’ve discovered there might be a couple of places we would like to dive while there. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about scuba diving it’s that there’s always something else to learn. It’s a never-ending process. So even though we’ve come a long way baby, we’ve still got a lot left to learn!