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!

Camping!

Mark and I went camping this weekend. It was great. It was raining on Friday night/Saturday morning so we were a little unsure about even going but we already had everything planned and it didn't look like we'd have many opportunities after I got into my new job. Sooo... we went! We left in the afternoon on Saturday for O'neill park. It was pretty easy to find and although Saturday wasn't optimal weather, it didn't rain and it was generally nice out.
After it got dark we saw a couple across the way had their fire going already so we asked to borrow a bit of their flame. They were overly generous and gave us a bunch of their kindling to start with and some lighter fluid. We got a little fire going but it wasn't too impressive. We had bought the last bags of firewood, and so they weren't very full bags. The girl in the couple (Liz) came over to ask if we wanted any hot water and we said we'd already gotten some hot cocoa going, but thanks! I asked her if she wanted any of our smores, and she said she had marshmallows but her boyfriend (Crispin) didn't like smores because they're too sweet. I said she shouldn't miss out on the smores awesomeness just because he didn't want any, and she could have some of our chocolate and graham crackers, and she accepted... We ended up abandoning our pathetic fire to join their roaring one and share smores and stories around the fire. It was a really fun night. In the morning they left, but they left us their leftover lighter fluid and logs (they were really good logs) Because of them, we didn't need to get more firewood for our second night camping, We even had one extra log we gave away. Thanks Liz and Crispin!!!
Sunday was a beautiful. It was nice and sunny but not hot out. We went for a hike in the morning and went up a big hill... then we walked back a ways and decided to try and find a way back down the hill... We found a path but it was a pretty steep one. The trails were technically closed because of rain too, but it wasn't too muddy. It was difficult to get down and I was tense the whole way. I ended up sliding on my butt for parts of it. The descent wore me down pretty well. Now, all of my muscles are sore from being so tense.
After that we decided to look for stuff to do outside the camp, and we called Mark's parents to see if they knew of anywhere to go. They knew of a place but we spent forever looking for it. We eventually gave up after we found that the directions we were given were wrong... like 5 times... and when we asked the sheriffs and park rangers if they knew where it was they had no clue.
We also ran some errands that day. We went to the grocery store and got some hamburger helper minus the hamburger. to cook in a pot over the fire. We also got me a pad for the ground so I wouldn't toss and turn so much at night. The ground is a very hard thing that is not fun to be sleeping on. The pad really helped the second night. I was happy to have it. Monday morning we pretty much just woke up, ate some breakfast and left for home!
It was a great trip and we definitely have to camp again sometime. Yay camping!