Aye Skooba in zee Osheans!

And I went down 30 feet! Go me! It was pretty cool. The waves were really low though the tide was high, and we swam out to a small reef in Shaw's Cove. I had a little trouble getting my ears to clear so i could go deeper though. I also got pricked a tiny bit by one of the sea urchins on the rock I was trying to cling to before I could get deeper. After trying to cling to the rock I realized the seaweed was strong enough to hold onto though and I just hung out on that for a while until I could get deeper. After we were all down deeper, Jim, our instructor took his dive knife and tapped on one of the rocks and a bunch of big orange Garibaldi fish came up to us, looking for food. He showed us why they were so interested by cracking open a sea urchin and handing us each a piece. The fish all came up and quickly stole bits of the inside of the urchin as we were holding it. It was pretty nifty. I also saw a sea hare clinging to a piece of seaweed. I love those guys, they're slimy and fun! ;) I had a great time diving, even if I did swallow more than my fare share of saltwater. Blegh!
The gear was super heavy. I had 30 lbs on my weight belt and was given an extra 2 pound ankle weight so I would have neutral buoyancy. That's a hell of a lot of weight especially when I had to climb the steps up to the cars. Add on a tank, BC, and a soaked wetsuit and you have one Crystal loaded to the max.
On the bright side, it seems I was the only one not suffering from calf soreness after the experience. Can you say step aerobics anyone? ^_^ It's rather odd seeing as I was struggling my way up the steps, but whatever. Yay for scuba!

Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus....... ing!

For a couple weeks I've been taking SCUBA lessons with Mark's dad's dive club with Mark's mom and him. Last week we got to practice swimming methods and dive methods and then we got to actually scuba dive a couple laps around the shallow area of the pool. It was tons of fun and I had a great time. I had a really horrible wet suit to wear. I lost my butt, boobs, and waist all in the motion of putting that thing on, and it held a lot of air and water, so if it wasn't hard enough for me to get down and be less buoyant when I dived, that didn't help. I realized I really needed to get a wetsuit of my own made to fit me. I ordered a custom wet suit from our instructor and did measurements after class. It'll cost a lot of money ... over $300 for the wetsuit plus more for the class. I don't think it'll take tooooo long to pay off though... I can manage some this paycheck then $150 to $200 for the next ones. I took out $160 the other day to give to our instructor today, and my wetsuit should be ready so I can wear it today in the pool. Fun stuff!