Fishes in the ocean... March 26 - April 1, 2001 ... almost had me for breakfast, as I barely survived an ocean diving class.

	Have you never seen any aliens before?

There were just two pool lessons left and then a weekend in Monterey, with four "real" dives. Sid came to visit during one pool session and took pictures of me in the suit. Even my very own mother did not recognize me on those photographs, and to be honest, after seeing them myself I am quite clear how lucky I must be that Sid married me before he saw my diving appearance.

	Packing all the stuff in complete darkness

Last pool session was somewhat chaotic, for most of my classmates decided to rent drysuits for Monterey (drysuits are rubber overalls that do not let any water in at all - theoretically - and hence you can wear normal clothes underneath), which are said to be warmer than wetsuit, but requires additional certification. They were supposed to handle it at the pool, and I admit I was tempted, too, until Randy told me that even though I could finish my class with it, it would not suffice for said certification, and next week, with Sid, I would have to take a classic wetsuit again. So I thought better to learn well how to handle standard equipment, which I was to use from now on, instead of adding extra tricks.
Unfortunately, this last pool class encompassed mostly drysuits, leaving anything else out. So I sat in my corner and practiced clearing my mask. Sid and Don had quite a laugh when I told them about my "whale" experience and suggested that I stop lifting my chin (yet Greg told us to do just that!), for that way I get my nose full of water -- which I knew all the while, only I thought there was some more knack to the skill. Keeping my head in normal position, I had no problem. While practicing skills, I also tried to balance air in my BCD (buoyancy compensator device - an inflatable jacket) to hover close above the pool bottom. Meanwhile, my classmates got all back to point zero, drysuit requires extra control since it is full of air, you have to add weights to compensate for it, BCD is harder to put on (there's a valve on a drysuit shoulder) and so on.

On Friday, I went to get a thicker wetsuit (7 mm), resisted Randy's attempts to rent me man's sizes (he feels that since I'm taller than he is, I'm not a female) for I did not want to repeat my first lesson mistake, when I could not pull my suit over my thighs, while it formed an air pocket all around my waist, obviously for the M.I.D.L. (Masculine Integrated Decorative Lifesaver). A wetsuit in the largest female size had two pieces - first part were pants with a sleeveless top, and the second had long sleeves, but only short pants. That stroke me as a great idea, as my body got covered by two layers of neoprene.

Two desperate phone messages from Sid awaited me at home, saying to come immediately, because he wiggled out of his last Friday meeting and we can leave at two p.m. It half past one, and I was not packed, having taken it easy in the morning, assuming to leave in the late afternoon. I tried all I could, but still I started out at about 2:15.

In San Jose, where Sid works, we transferred all our stuff to our bigger wagon and went to pick up George. He left Madeleine and Martina at home and decided to have a weekend in Monterey without his family. On Montague Expressway he remembered that he put some video tapes there for conversion, and it became imperative to stop by and pick them up. A clerk at a very Indian small business store returned the tapes, pointing out that one of them got torn -- but two out of three in our group were engineers. After some half an hour of disassembling the tape cartridge, identifying the problem, and a theoretical discussion, they formed a hypothesis on how the tape manufacturer probably does it, concluded they had no means to repeat the process, attached the tape back using a scotch tape, and returned it to the store clerk for retry. American encoding differs from European video standard (applies to not only tapes, but all the VCR and TV technology), so any European movie must be converted. This strange business does that for about $3/hour, other places we inquired ask over twenty.

	Saturday, sunshine, even a wet suit is fun to put on...

The whole way to Monterey was marked by permanent friendly arguments about which exact way to go, as both gentlemen are established experts for this route. George gave us another key to his apartment, this time attached to a massive dog chain -- in the past summer we paid back his hospitality by losing a key. Sid looked great with the chain around his neck; if he also had some tattoo on his arms, he would look like a real tough guy.

We had to go to bed early, expecting to raise at 5:45. Greg the Sadist seemed to suffer insomnia and had ordered us to be at the beach at 7. Fortunately George is not a sadist, yet he wakes up at five, thus giving us an opportunity to share breakfast -- well I ate while still almost mummified (so sleepy that I could not move). At the idea of food, Sid whipped up his attention level to being able to stumble between a fridge and a silverware drawer, while George happily ate, browsed the internet, ran off to shave, and was generally annoyingly agile. We left him to his chosen fate (he chose to remodel his fireplace) and drove to Breakwater Beach.

	Rising from the waters ... Priscilla still unaware of a gallon or so of water she will let from her "dry" suit

There, I was to listen to a lecture about the protection of ocean fauna -- besides insomnia, Greg seems to suffer from another malady of advanced age -- he has difficulties to hold on to an idea, and, as Jara Cimrman says, has also has difficulties letting go of one. I must confess that at seven a.m., I was completely indifferent even to all the kelp forests of Pacific Rim being clear-cut. Eventually we entered the ocean. Hardly alone, for this beach is a sort of "training grounds" for divers from near and far, and it was relatively crowded.

Our first dip was without air tanks, only to learn how to get into the water and out of it, wearing fins, for the case of heavy surf -- then, you get out crawling on your knees. Other groups could also be seen dragging over the sunny beach, pretending to be whipped by a storm.

	Me, Priscilla, and a piece of Breakwater Beach

Right on my first real dive, I managed to get lost. Visibility was horrible and I experienced for the first time, how heavily pressures change -- we were swimming from some thirty feet to twenty -- pressure went down by a quarter, which expands air in your BCD, lungs, neoprene suit bubbles, hence expanding the volume of the body (diver including all her gadgets) and the diver shoots up to the surface like a cork from a spumante. It took me a while to realize what happened and blow off enough air to sink again. I spotted a group of people under me, I gathered that they were my class, waiting for me. I labored to get to them, settled on the bottom and - geez, they were somebody else! I went back for the surface to look around. I found two more losers and we swam over to our buoy to wait for whatever was coming. Some time later, the rest of the class surfaced, after they noticed us missing.

With our break, wonderfully relaxed and well rested Sid appeared, chatted with us for a moment, while part of the class wrestled with their final test (which we could not complete in the theoretical phase thanks to confusion with dry suits). Greg also took only four test books with him, and naturally Priscilla and I was somehow left out. He also advised me not to take off my wetsuit, but I ignored him -- the sun was shining and the idea of sitting down in dry clothes and watching seagulls and other divers was too tempting.

Priscilla claimed she saw a diver who looked GREAT in neoprene, but as I was watching the buzz, it was clear I should not have any inferiority complex -- in the dress we all looked like right out of a monster movie.

We had one more dive to do, and it started by Priscilla (my diving buddy) complaining that her dry suit leaked. Greg told her that it was nothing, that sometimes a neck seal will shift and leaks a few drops. After a short time, however, Priscilla announced UP and I gladly followed her - diving buddies are not supposed to ask questions and if one of them needs to go up, they both go - I confess it did not bother me NOT A TINY BIT - I've just had enough. Greg was a little abrasive at Priscilla, but she told him that she was so cold she was shaking and that she was getting out of water. And that was that, but it was not so easy, Priscilla was unable to stand up, she fell two time though I tried to help her and dragged her across the beach out of the surf. We discovered that her dry suit leaked much more than just a few drops, she poured about a gallon of water out of her sleeves -- no wonder she was so cold and could not get up. Imagine 30 pounds of lead, a tank, plus all the water...

	On the deck in America...

Throughout the day I only saw a couple fish, yet I got quite an appetite for them. We picked up George and had a late lunch at Ichiriki (sushi). Then our guys fiddled something on their computers, grilled another fish - red snapper - on a barbecue, and I went to relax up on the upper deck of Kren's apartment. George brought cushions for my seat, and finally ran up with an American flag, to make me feel in the right place .

	Monterey at night

We adjusted our clocks after dinner (times, they were a-changin', a week later than in Europe) and we went to bed, while George kept a vigil for a ghost of his friend who used to own the apartment. Jerry did not come, however, so he either does not mind the fireplace being remodeled (and torn to pieces momentarily), or he did not appreciate George only waiting for midnight PDT - ghosts probably scorn Daylight Saving Time.

Morning was very hard, because of the time change we were getting up in the dark, and low clouds were rolling outside, above leaden Pacific... nothing was more remote than the idea of diving. Still we started out. At seven, Breakwater was half deserted, yet our class in full count - minus the instructor. We agreed to call him at 7:15. He showed up shortly before that, and disappeared again. I did not believe my eyes, when he reappeared in about ten minutes - grasping a hot chocolate cup from a nearby deli - he was getting that while letting us rattle off, dressed up in suits! The following training with compasses took an hour (I'm not kidding!!! we had to do it in 52°F, in howling wind and steady drizzle, we could not have done that back in school!). And then -- no, not a chance to go diving, to make it quick -- he announced half an hour for changing (all students were already dressed!). Some of that half hour I spend at the deli (fortunately everyone tolerated my wetsuit, wet from previous day), some inside Priscilla's heated car (Sid already left to continue sleeping).

	We are exercising the skill of removing and putting on our BCD, on the surface. I am the diver in the upper left corner, with a blue snorkel tip. The ocean was even colder than it looks...

It was horribly dark underneath, roily sand everywhere, and cold (50°F = 10°C). It was the first time I got a terrible claustrophobia, this feeling I want to get AWAY and NOW (later I found I was not alone, everybody was frozen, tired, and annoyed). I kept it under control somehow, and when we surfaced, I gazed longingly across the bay to the houses where we stayed, and promised to myself, the moment we crawl out I would call George to get Sid, and come to take me away, and that my diving's over.

Priscilla did not have water in her dry suit this time, but I still had to help her out of the water, take off her fins and weights, so she could stand up. At that moment I saw Sid rushing down the beach, and he helped us carry some of our things. Ugly weather did not let him sleep so much that he grabbed a blanket and a thermos with hot coffee, and he had been waiting for me for some time on the shore. I think that I was never so happy to see someone like this time. The whole hassle since morning till our getting out of the ocean took almost five hours, with surrounding temperature not exceeding 12 degrees (52°F; water was two degrees colder) - in the end, we were all shaking with hypothermia.

After about an hour in our car, in dry clothes and wrapped in fuzzy blanket, warmed by coffee, I stopped rattling; a discussion started, whether to finish the last dive, which would make me certified and I would be able to dive next week with Sid and DOn, or whether to give it up and come to finish my course later, with someone else.

I chose to do the first, Greg promised it to be short -- well, we must have different time reckoning -- two hours were not short, not even if the water were fifteen degrees warmer. Some of the time we spent on the surface, as our air was running low (I got sand into my regulator's second stage and lost a sixth of my tank contents before we could fix it), Sid and I had to drag Priscilla out of the water again, becoming used to it a little. Only Greg's signature on some stupid paperwork was missing. As I forgot my diver's logbook at home in the rush, Sid had to run to a nearby store to get another one -- but I got the signature. What joy. I also got an awful cough, never see anything worth seeing under water, and experienced diving in conditions I would never impose on me voluntarily (tired buddy, both Priscilla and I suffered hypothermia), because I would deem it too risky. Most of our dives consisted of keeling down on the bottom and trying again and again things we already trained at the pool. Since we were eight together (plus Greg), everything took awfully long, there was no time for any real scuba diving -- we did not swim anywhere, we did not see anything, we just sat rolling in sand, roiled by nine pairs of fins.

Why did not anybody protest, you ask? Simple - Jessica and Will were leaving for vacations in Hawaii and wanted to get certified (could not postpone ocean dives), Priscilla had been sent on a business trip outside California for three weeks, and she could not put it off, I needed my certification to be permitted to dive with Sid, and Dinah with David were Greg's friends...

Copyright © 2001-2005 by Carol & Sid Paral. All rights reserved.