SCUBA!

Since I took the summer off and I'm not working, I decided to take up a new activity. I chose to get certified as Open Water Scuba Diver! My Dad and Clay are both certified as Advanced Divers and my Aunt and Uncle who live down here in Southern California are certified as well. My boyfriend Adam also got certified down in Oklahoma! I thought it might be fun to meet up with them to dive or when I go up to Oregon maybe do a few dives with the fam.

The class took two weekends of diving. Last weekend I did one day in the pool and then one day in the ocean. I was lucky enough to be able to do the ocean dives out at Catalina island! The water is so clear and beautiful during the day and we were able to swim through a kelp forest and see some really beautiful fish. Since it was the first open water dive last weekend I was more occupied with getting used to all my diving equipment than enjoying the underwater scenery. On my next ocean dive, which is the certification dive tomorrow back at Catalina, I'll be able to enjoy the scenery more and have fun. After tomorrow I'll be an official Open Water Diver! This means that I am certified to dive up to 60 feet deep during the day; nothing special but great for a day of fun! Adam will come out to visit this next week and we'll probably go out to Catalina to snorkel around, not scuba but still fun! The scuba trips are pretty expensive because we would have to rent gear and pay for the scuba boat so maybe we'll save up some money and do that some other time...

Anyway, here's an idea of what my bathroom looks like after a day of diving after I've rinsed out all my diving gear and hung it out to dry; it's a lot of gear!!


This next picture is of me on the dive boat right before my first open water dive at Catalina. I know I probably couldn't have taken a nerd-ier picture but I was pretty nervous and excited! This is me in my wet suit, hood, and weight belt. That's only half of the stuff you have to wear as a diver and it's already too heavy...

I always mistake the thumbs up for the OK signal. On the surface was fine but if I did the thumbs up under water it would mean I needed to ascend to the surface, not that everything was okey dokey.

Anyway, when I get more diving pics I'll post them as well as snorkeling pics from Adam's visit. Until next time...

Lauren~