Halloween PLUNGE

Earning open-water diving certification worth wait, cold

By Misty Brown

Photo by John Taft / Contributing Photographer

Rian Howard of Cabot, top, helps Marc Johnson of Little Rock, left, and his son Chris stay hydrated in between dives.

ADVERSTISMENT

TRI-LAKES AREA — On any ordinary Halloween weekend, I would most likely be dressed up in a humorous costume prepared to pass out candy to the neighborhood children or attend a party somewhere.

This year was different, though. Not only had I told my Halloween costume-loving mother that I planned to dress as a scuba diver, I was actually going to skip all the candy and parties and go diving to finish up a Professional Association of Diving Instructors open-water diver certification.

Growing up in Oregon, I was always drawn to the beauty of the ocean, lakes, rivers and other bodies of water there. I remember once as a child wading in the Pacific Ocean and getting my short, little legs entangled in a piece of seaweed. It was either that experience or the viewing of Jaws not long after that made me water-shy for quite some time. I’d view the water from a distance, but it took a lot of psyching myself up to get into water where I couldn’t see or touch the bottom.

Luckily, as an adult those hydrophobic days are far behind me. Somewhere between adolescence and adulthood, I conquered my fears of swimming in anything other than pool water. Perhaps it was because of all the trips our family would take to Arkansas’ many lakes and rivers after our move here.

My interest in scuba was sparked last year when my boyfriend, Steve, showed me all of his diving gear that he purchased during a scuba class he took at Henderson State University in Arkadelphia. Not long aftermy interest was sparked, I found an ad in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for a Christmas special for an open-water diving class at Rick’s Dive ’N Travel Inc. in North Little Rock. When I called Rick’s to sign up for the class, the earliest I could get in was March because the classes had filled so quickly.

When March rolled around, I was armed and ready for the class, wielding all the required equipment: mask, fins, snorkel, boots, swim suit, towel and the 260-page PADI Open Water Diver Manual, log book and Recreational Dive Planner table. My eight-person class, taught by certified dive instructor Richard Jones, met on Tuesdays and Thursday for two weeks, four hours each, for a total of 16 hours of classroom and pool instruction in one of the center’s two classrooms and 14-foot-deep heated diver-training pool.

I remember my first time sitting under water watching our instructor demonstrate each skill we had to learn. It was amazing to be able to sit at the bottom of a pool and still breathe. For a brief moment it reminded me of Ariel in The Little Mermaid, only not as slim-lined and glamorous.

We learned how to assemble and don the heavy gear, enter the water and handle minor mishaps, such as water getting into your mask or someone knocking the regulator out of your mouth and more serious issues, such as running out of air under water and needing to share air with a dive buddy to get back to the surface or towing a tired diver at the water’s surface. Every skill was demonstrated by Jones and repeated by each classmate until we were able to do them without error.

There was one skill - the snorkel-regulator exchange - I struggled with a couple of times before I could get it right. When I started to choke on water I accidentally inhaled in the process, Jones was right in front of me encouraging me to stay calm and complete the skill. It didn’t take me long to figure out how to do it correctly, and I was thankful for his reassuring demeanor.

Jones had a since of practicality and a dry (or is it wet?) humor about him, pardon the pun. In one of the last pool sessions, we had all been under water for quite some time and our oxygen levels were getting a little too low for our comfort. Since we had one last set of skills to learn in the shallow end of thepool, some of my classmates were worried about their oxygen levels. He responded with, “Well, if you run out of air, all you have to do is stand up.”

Our classroom training ended with a final written exam, which we all passed. The next step toward certification was diving in open water at a lake or ocean. Some of my classmates were going on vacations and would complete their open water sessions in tropical locations. Those of us who didn’t have the time or resources to take a fancy vacation had the option to completeour training using the center’s 40-foot long dive boat docked at Lake Ouachita State Park marina in Mountain Pine, just outside Hot Springs. It didn’t matter where we completed our training, just as long as we finished within a year of taking the class and used a PADI-certified instructor.

Since my summer was a blur of busy-ness, I kept putting off finishing my open-water training till the last minute possible. Because several months had lapsed between my classroom sessions and the open water dives, I was required to take a refresher course with our open water instructor, John Taft of Cabot, on Friday after I picked up the rental equipment I needed. We reinforced all the skills I learned in the class so I could recall them at the lake the next day.

As I made the two-hour trip from my home in Cabot to the marina on Saturday, I calmed my nerves by taking in the beautiful sites of the multicolored wilderness. As I winded along U.S. 70, I watched the sun burn off the dew from the tops of the trees. I also watched the outside temperature gauge on my car rise from ICE to 37 degrees Fahrenheit. It was going to be a cold day, I knew, but I had to get it done. When I arrived to the boat ramp at Lake Ouachita State Park, I started unloading my equipment and mingling with the other people who would be diving along with me.

A fat her/son duo f rom Little Rock was among the group. Marc Johnson is a water resources engineer and his son, 16-year-old Chris, is a senior at Central High School. Chris, a soccer player at his school, was apparently usedto the cold air and only wore a T-shirt and swim trunks while the rest of us wore multiple layers. The mere look of him made me shiver. Finally, to our relief, Marc said, “Put a sweatshirt on, Chris. I’m your dive buddy, but I’m also your father.”

After everyone loaded the gear onto the boat, Taft navigated to Crawdad Island, a small strip of land that had been engulfed by the rising water from heavy rains.

Since it was so chilly, I wanted to finish my first set of dives as soon as possible so I could have plenty of time to warm back up. My dive buddy for the day, Deborah Patterson of Center Ridge, and I assembled and donned our equipment. Taft was smart enough to bring coolers of hot waterfor us to pour down our wet suits before we entered the water. The air temperature had finally risen to about 58 degrees and the water was at 64 degrees. The first step inwas a doozie, but our bodies quickly adjusted.

We completed two dives with a short surface interval in between each one. At the lake’s bottom, Taft had each of us demonstrate the same skills we learned in the pool. Once he was confident with each of our performance, our dives were completed and we could dry off and let the next four divers demonstrate their skills. After we completed our two dives for the day, we returned to the boat ramp and made our way home.

On Sunday, we had the advantage of Daylight Saving Time ending, so the extra hour allowed the sun to warm the earth a little longer.Although the water temperature was about the same as Saturday, the air temperature had risen some 10-12 degrees to 68 degrees. This time, we dove at Point 49, a much larger island than Crawdad Island. Our dive-buddy groups were slightly different than Saturday’s, because Taft wanted those with ear issues to go first so they would have time to clear and feel better. We also rested in between dives instead of going consecutively. By the end of the day, we finished two more dives and were signed off as certified open water divers.

I have heard people say, “There’re two types of people: Those who dive and those who haven’t, yet.” Last weekend, I can say I boldly earned the privilege to be among that first group of people. When I returned my equipment on Monday, I was eager to learn how I could get more training and advance to higher levels of certification through more classes at Rick’s. Once the water warms up in the spring, I can’t think of any place I’drather be than exploring the underwater world and learning new skills.

To learn more about diving, visit www.ricksdivecenter.com.

Tri-Lakes, Pages 141 on 11/08/2009