Diving Diaries (Part 2)
In this new series Scubaverse blogger, Isobel Fairbairn, keeps a diary as she learns to dive with her university BSAC club (Salford University Diving Society or SUDS for short). Follow her progress as she heads underwater for the very first time.
Week 2 (8th March 2022)
Never hold your breath.
This is the first line I have written at the top of my notebook for this week’s theory session, as I continue to drill it into my head alongside the intrusive fear that one day I will simply get into the ocean in my scuba gear and just decide to hold my breath (for what reason I’m unsure).
Alongside this came the body checks associated with diving, whether one is fit to dive or not well enough, air checks, effects of nitrogen, decompression procedures and how to plan out a dive safely and correctly.
Once the writing was out of the way (sorry theory lessons you just aren’t quite the same as practical ones)… we went down to start our practical. This time me and my buddy had to put our equipment on out of the water, as last time we were lucky enough to put it on in the shallow end. I say ‘lucky enough’ as it was today that I realised how actually horrifically heavy the whole kit is OUT of water. I thought last week was a little difficult! This week, I thought I was going to topple over; I guess I have even less upper body strength than I first imagined. We did our first equipment checks, buddy checks and some more signals were learnt. We learnt the signals for when you’re out of air (the chopping off of the head imitation) and what to do with your buddy if this situation happens including how to use someone’s extra air when needed.
Now to me, of course, the idea of losing my air supply when underwater is one of the most horrifying thoughts ever but it turns out, there’s something worse you have to learn how to do: clearing your mask. Why? How? Whose idea was this? This took me a few goes, to slowly let water in halfway, hmm okay that’s fine. To fully fill my mask and then clear it out through my nose? Even longer. Worst thing ever. Spluttering everywhere to begin with. Absolutely never want to do that again, although I will have to.
Although after we did manage to get all of those skills ticked off and cleared, we worked on perfecting our buoyancy, which was a lot more fun now we’d sort of figured it out, then we got to swim up and down the pool freely following our diving instructor a couple of times and it was great! Feeling a bit like a fish on my Tuesday evenings is now definitely one of my top five favourite things. It is so freeing and calming at the same time, a complete alien experience but in the most wonderful way.
