I've always wanted to learn how to scuba dive and an upcoming work trip to Australia (my first time there) inspired and motivated me to get my open water diver scuba certification. I'd been snorkeling on Maui years ago and loved it and I was ready to take things a bit further and explore the world under the waves.
THE RESEARCH
After doing a little bit of online research I chose Eco Dive Center. I liked how the certification was spread over 2 weekends with Saturday classroom/pool and Sunday ocean dives - more chance that weather would be good on at least one of the ocean dive days. Plus, it's close to my work so would be fairly easy to pick up and drop off equipment and they had good reviews. I'm really pleased with my choice.
I had considered just doing the classroom and pool portion here and completing the certification in Australia - mainly worrying about how cold the water is here! - but after speaking with someone at Eco I was convinced to do it all here - as he said "If you learn how to dive in Southern California where it's cold and dark wearing a hood and gloves, then you can dive anywhere!". As I would find out, the certification process isn't exactly "fun" and another friend who had been certified before made the great point that at the Great Barrier Reef I'd want to be exploring and looking at everything, not demonstrating diving skills.
BEFORE THE FIRST DIVE
The first part of the process is to get your book and study all the concepts of diving and get familiar with the gear - and there is quite a bit of it! The text was easy to understand with good illustrations and little quizzes throughout to test your understanding. I would recommend not trying to read it all at once. Some of the concepts are a bit technical and they needed to sink in a little for me (I've got a master's degree, but not in a science field so I was taken back to High School with concepts of air pressure, buoyancy, water density, etc.).
I also needed to go into the shop to buy my fins, snorkel, mask, gloves and boots. These are required to be purchased, not rented, and I felt like the person at the shop really spent time with me to make sure everything fit properly and I was comfortable with it. It's a bit hard to spend such a chunk of money on something before you even know if you're going to like it, but I figured if I hated it I could sell them - lots of divers here in SoCal - or at least use the mask and snorkel for snorkeling. I opted for fins that you can separate into 2 pieces since I'd need to fit them into my suitcase when I went to Australia - the Tusa Hyflex Switch Bungee Strap Travel Fins. I'd also bought a one-piece bathing suit to wear under the wet suit.
A few days before the first classroom/pool day I picked up my wetsuit, hood, weight belt, tank, BCD and regulator from the shop so now I had my whole kit. . .
and Man was it HEAVY! I've been keeping in pretty good shape doing Crossfit 2-3 times/week for a couple of years and I still had a hard time. I would come to learn that you only put everything on when you're just about to get into the water, and you rely on others to help you move around otherwise. It's heavy and awkward for everyone!
DAY 1 - CLASSROOM AND POOL
So the first day of class came and that's when I found out that instead of a class of 8-10 people, my class only had 4 because 2 of them were younger than 15. It was a man who had already been certified and his 2 sons. This was great and gave me a lot of extra time and attention from the instructor (the great Skip Tucker) and it was reassuring knowing that I was diving with another adult who already knew how to do it. Also, I couldn't be a wimp about things if the kids weren't!
The classroom sessions are really time to go over the skills you have read about and for the instructor to demonstrate some things and answer any questions you have. You also go over the tests for the chapters in the book to correct them together and review any answers anyone got wrong.
After the classroom session that first day we made our way to the pool in Hawthorne. That first day was hard, I'm not going to lie! First of all, we had to tread water for something like 10 minutes without touching the side. I was fine with it, but then right away we had to swim 200 meters (that was 8 laps of 25 meters each) without stopping. We could use any stroke we wanted and good thing because I got winded after only 1.5 laps of crawl. I hadn't really swam for years. I finished the rest on my back. Relieved I passed!
Next - getting a wet suit on is a workout all in itself, and I think mine was a bit small so I never really got the crotch of it pulled up enough to not have the neck strangling me, but I made do. There was also a moment of realization when, after I was suited up with BCD, weight belt, tank, etc. I dropped my fin and instinctively bent down to pick it up - but then couldn't stand up again! Lots of learning here.
The time in the shallow side of the pool was great to start to feel comfortable with the gear and just breathing under water - which is so cool! Obviously, it's a relief from the weight as well. This is when it became clear to me that certification is pretty much all about learning how not to die when you're diving. Fun stuff! So you do things like take out the regulator (i.e. the only thing keeping you alive down there!) and throw it away from you so you can practice retrieving it. You learn how to empty your mask if it fills with water and even remove the mask altogether and put it back on and clear it. You learn the hand signals for communicating underwater - telling someone else you're out of air and that you need to share theirs and how to do that. You learn how to drop your weights in case you need to ascend quickly. And lots of other things. All while keeping calm and equalizing your ears and making sure you still have enough air to get back to the boat. It's a lot! And honestly, I was a bit nervous for the following day in the open ocean - but also excited!
DAY 2 - OPEN WATER DIVES 1 AND 2
So the next morning is an early one - I think we had to be in Long Beach (a 45-minute drive for me) by 6:15, ready to go. We went out on the Sundiver Express. This boat is small and does not have an indoor area or bunks - which also made it super fast!
It was so nice to experience the sun rise over the marina. I just love boats and the water. There were maybe 20 people on the boat, most doing their certification.
So you use what you learned the previous day about setting up your gear and then it's a couple of hours out to the diving spot off Santa Catalina Island. You talk with the other divers, eat food, and just enjoy the time. That day we dove at Button Shell Beach. It's not a great spot for diving once you know what you're doing because there isn't much to see, but I think they take new divers here because it's protected and there is a flat, sandy bottom which makes it easier to do the skills training.
So, we geared up (this time I'd brought a bottle of diluted conditioner to help get my feet/legs into the wet suit and in general just had more experience in putting it on - I turn mine almost inside out because it seems like getting the ankles placed correctly affects the whole rest of things) and got into the water. There is this moment of exhilaration as you take that first giant stride before you land in the water. It wasn't even as cold as I'd feared - not with my boots, gloves, and hood. However, with the hood on you are continually needing to pull it away from your ears as you descend so you can equalize and it took me a lot longer than others to get my ears comfortable. But you can't rush it - you just descend slowing and keep trying until it happens, which it eventually did.
That first dive pretty much everything went wrong. My ears not equalizing, I was underweighted so I kept floating up (and then had to equalize again) - Skip noticed and gave me some small weights to help, my mask wasn't tight enough so water was getting in and I kept accidentally exhaling through my nose (luckily I didn't inhale through it!).
Since there were so many new divers the sandy bottom was all kicked up and visibility was awful. At one point, I was disoriented and couldn't find my diving buddies because there were so many people down there and I'd forgotten to check the color of their snorkels, fins, etc. But I found them and we gathered in a semi-circle around Skip to demonstrate the skills we'd learned in the pool the day before. On one of the skills where you remove your regulator from your mouth and replace it I forgot to clear mine before I breathed in and so I took a big breath of salt water and had to cough it out through my regulator. And it was so unpleasant, but I survived and now I know I can get through that.
These were some profound moments for me. I was uncomfortable because of all that I detailed above, but I was down there and I was breathing and there wasn't really anything I could do about any of it and I couldn't even tell anyone (the not talking thing is so weird!) so all I did was take another breath. And another one. And soon I accepted my circumstances, however uncomfortable and however unnatural it felt to me to be below the surface of the ocean, breathing. And it was a very zen experience.
I guess I could have abandoned the dive and gone back up to "fix" things, but I'd gotten so far and I knew I could hang on and I'd have another dive that day to try again. And the second dive was better. It's a steep learning curve so it's also very satisfying because you're getting better each time. I even had some moments to look around at the sea life before we came back up from the second dive. There were these bright orange fish - the Garibaldi which is the state fish of California.
DAY 3 - CLASSROOM, WRITTEN TEST AND POOL
The second day of classroom is similar to the first but you're working through the more advanced chapters and taking the final written test which you need to pass in order to continue. Luckily, we had been paying attention and we all passed and then we were off to the pool again.
This pool day included the more advanced skills like breathing out of a regulator that has free-flowing air (meaning something is wrong with it), and the controlled emergency swimming ascent (CESA) as well as others. The one that was really hard for me was manually inflating the BCD - for this you have to breathe in through your regulator and then exhale into the BCD manual inflate tube. It was hard for me to get a seal around the tube and hold the valve open only when I was exhaling but I eventually got it. In general, I found it hard to control my buoyancy - I was either sinking or floating - hard to stay still.
DAY 4 - OPEN WATER DIVES 3, 4 & 5
Once again we were to be at the boat at 6:15 on Sunday - this time with Pacific Star in San Pedro. We were greeted with a beautiful sunrise this day.
This was a larger boat than last time with bunks below and an indoor area for meals. It also took more time for us to get out to the island, but it was great to hang out with the dolphins on the way.
Views of the island from the boat were beautiful - I felt like I was back in Hawaii or some other far away place but was right here in SoCal.
This day we mostly dove between Bird Rock and Indian Rock spending some time over Eagle Reef. This was definitely a more advanced dive spot than the previous day but also more to see. Lots of surge this day - that's where below the surface the water is going back and forth and you just have to move with it, but it makes it hard to gather in a group to demonstrate skills. Plus, it was all rocky reef with tall kelp here so it was a bit difficult to navigate among the rocks when our buoyancy skills weren't great yet. The current at the surface was pretty strong too - making it hard to demo surface skills like tired diver tow, but we persevered!
And it was so peaceful to just be down there with the fish and there were a lot of different types. If you could stay still for a bit there were so many creatures on the rocks - huge red urchins, turban snails and so much more.
I didn't yet have an underwater camera, but someone else from the class did so he took these photos.
And then we were done! We bid farewell to the island and headed back to LA.
I really hope to book another trip out to the island when I can spend my time looking at all the reef life. Now that I've got the skills down and some practice under my belt.
What a great experience! I can't say enough how glad I am that I made this happen. It wasn't easy with having to devote 2 full weekends and it was definitely outside of my comfort zone, but I'm so glad I did it. Met some great people who I hope to dive with again and learned a lot about myself and my capabilities - mostly mental ones. I would recommend learning to dive to pretty much anyone who has the means and wants to challenge themselves and see a part of this beautiful world that is not explored by most.
And now, to book my dive trip to the Great Barrier Reef!
THE RESEARCH
After doing a little bit of online research I chose Eco Dive Center. I liked how the certification was spread over 2 weekends with Saturday classroom/pool and Sunday ocean dives - more chance that weather would be good on at least one of the ocean dive days. Plus, it's close to my work so would be fairly easy to pick up and drop off equipment and they had good reviews. I'm really pleased with my choice.
I had considered just doing the classroom and pool portion here and completing the certification in Australia - mainly worrying about how cold the water is here! - but after speaking with someone at Eco I was convinced to do it all here - as he said "If you learn how to dive in Southern California where it's cold and dark wearing a hood and gloves, then you can dive anywhere!". As I would find out, the certification process isn't exactly "fun" and another friend who had been certified before made the great point that at the Great Barrier Reef I'd want to be exploring and looking at everything, not demonstrating diving skills.
BEFORE THE FIRST DIVE
The first part of the process is to get your book and study all the concepts of diving and get familiar with the gear - and there is quite a bit of it! The text was easy to understand with good illustrations and little quizzes throughout to test your understanding. I would recommend not trying to read it all at once. Some of the concepts are a bit technical and they needed to sink in a little for me (I've got a master's degree, but not in a science field so I was taken back to High School with concepts of air pressure, buoyancy, water density, etc.).
I also needed to go into the shop to buy my fins, snorkel, mask, gloves and boots. These are required to be purchased, not rented, and I felt like the person at the shop really spent time with me to make sure everything fit properly and I was comfortable with it. It's a bit hard to spend such a chunk of money on something before you even know if you're going to like it, but I figured if I hated it I could sell them - lots of divers here in SoCal - or at least use the mask and snorkel for snorkeling. I opted for fins that you can separate into 2 pieces since I'd need to fit them into my suitcase when I went to Australia - the Tusa Hyflex Switch Bungee Strap Travel Fins. I'd also bought a one-piece bathing suit to wear under the wet suit.
A few days before the first classroom/pool day I picked up my wetsuit, hood, weight belt, tank, BCD and regulator from the shop so now I had my whole kit. . .
and Man was it HEAVY! I've been keeping in pretty good shape doing Crossfit 2-3 times/week for a couple of years and I still had a hard time. I would come to learn that you only put everything on when you're just about to get into the water, and you rely on others to help you move around otherwise. It's heavy and awkward for everyone!
DAY 1 - CLASSROOM AND POOL
So the first day of class came and that's when I found out that instead of a class of 8-10 people, my class only had 4 because 2 of them were younger than 15. It was a man who had already been certified and his 2 sons. This was great and gave me a lot of extra time and attention from the instructor (the great Skip Tucker) and it was reassuring knowing that I was diving with another adult who already knew how to do it. Also, I couldn't be a wimp about things if the kids weren't!
The classroom sessions are really time to go over the skills you have read about and for the instructor to demonstrate some things and answer any questions you have. You also go over the tests for the chapters in the book to correct them together and review any answers anyone got wrong.
After the classroom session that first day we made our way to the pool in Hawthorne. That first day was hard, I'm not going to lie! First of all, we had to tread water for something like 10 minutes without touching the side. I was fine with it, but then right away we had to swim 200 meters (that was 8 laps of 25 meters each) without stopping. We could use any stroke we wanted and good thing because I got winded after only 1.5 laps of crawl. I hadn't really swam for years. I finished the rest on my back. Relieved I passed!
Next - getting a wet suit on is a workout all in itself, and I think mine was a bit small so I never really got the crotch of it pulled up enough to not have the neck strangling me, but I made do. There was also a moment of realization when, after I was suited up with BCD, weight belt, tank, etc. I dropped my fin and instinctively bent down to pick it up - but then couldn't stand up again! Lots of learning here.
The time in the shallow side of the pool was great to start to feel comfortable with the gear and just breathing under water - which is so cool! Obviously, it's a relief from the weight as well. This is when it became clear to me that certification is pretty much all about learning how not to die when you're diving. Fun stuff! So you do things like take out the regulator (i.e. the only thing keeping you alive down there!) and throw it away from you so you can practice retrieving it. You learn how to empty your mask if it fills with water and even remove the mask altogether and put it back on and clear it. You learn the hand signals for communicating underwater - telling someone else you're out of air and that you need to share theirs and how to do that. You learn how to drop your weights in case you need to ascend quickly. And lots of other things. All while keeping calm and equalizing your ears and making sure you still have enough air to get back to the boat. It's a lot! And honestly, I was a bit nervous for the following day in the open ocean - but also excited!
DAY 2 - OPEN WATER DIVES 1 AND 2
So the next morning is an early one - I think we had to be in Long Beach (a 45-minute drive for me) by 6:15, ready to go. We went out on the Sundiver Express. This boat is small and does not have an indoor area or bunks - which also made it super fast!
It was so nice to experience the sun rise over the marina. I just love boats and the water. There were maybe 20 people on the boat, most doing their certification.
So you use what you learned the previous day about setting up your gear and then it's a couple of hours out to the diving spot off Santa Catalina Island. You talk with the other divers, eat food, and just enjoy the time. That day we dove at Button Shell Beach. It's not a great spot for diving once you know what you're doing because there isn't much to see, but I think they take new divers here because it's protected and there is a flat, sandy bottom which makes it easier to do the skills training.
So, we geared up (this time I'd brought a bottle of diluted conditioner to help get my feet/legs into the wet suit and in general just had more experience in putting it on - I turn mine almost inside out because it seems like getting the ankles placed correctly affects the whole rest of things) and got into the water. There is this moment of exhilaration as you take that first giant stride before you land in the water. It wasn't even as cold as I'd feared - not with my boots, gloves, and hood. However, with the hood on you are continually needing to pull it away from your ears as you descend so you can equalize and it took me a lot longer than others to get my ears comfortable. But you can't rush it - you just descend slowing and keep trying until it happens, which it eventually did.
That first dive pretty much everything went wrong. My ears not equalizing, I was underweighted so I kept floating up (and then had to equalize again) - Skip noticed and gave me some small weights to help, my mask wasn't tight enough so water was getting in and I kept accidentally exhaling through my nose (luckily I didn't inhale through it!).
Since there were so many new divers the sandy bottom was all kicked up and visibility was awful. At one point, I was disoriented and couldn't find my diving buddies because there were so many people down there and I'd forgotten to check the color of their snorkels, fins, etc. But I found them and we gathered in a semi-circle around Skip to demonstrate the skills we'd learned in the pool the day before. On one of the skills where you remove your regulator from your mouth and replace it I forgot to clear mine before I breathed in and so I took a big breath of salt water and had to cough it out through my regulator. And it was so unpleasant, but I survived and now I know I can get through that.
These were some profound moments for me. I was uncomfortable because of all that I detailed above, but I was down there and I was breathing and there wasn't really anything I could do about any of it and I couldn't even tell anyone (the not talking thing is so weird!) so all I did was take another breath. And another one. And soon I accepted my circumstances, however uncomfortable and however unnatural it felt to me to be below the surface of the ocean, breathing. And it was a very zen experience.
I guess I could have abandoned the dive and gone back up to "fix" things, but I'd gotten so far and I knew I could hang on and I'd have another dive that day to try again. And the second dive was better. It's a steep learning curve so it's also very satisfying because you're getting better each time. I even had some moments to look around at the sea life before we came back up from the second dive. There were these bright orange fish - the Garibaldi which is the state fish of California.
DAY 3 - CLASSROOM, WRITTEN TEST AND POOL
The second day of classroom is similar to the first but you're working through the more advanced chapters and taking the final written test which you need to pass in order to continue. Luckily, we had been paying attention and we all passed and then we were off to the pool again.
This pool day included the more advanced skills like breathing out of a regulator that has free-flowing air (meaning something is wrong with it), and the controlled emergency swimming ascent (CESA) as well as others. The one that was really hard for me was manually inflating the BCD - for this you have to breathe in through your regulator and then exhale into the BCD manual inflate tube. It was hard for me to get a seal around the tube and hold the valve open only when I was exhaling but I eventually got it. In general, I found it hard to control my buoyancy - I was either sinking or floating - hard to stay still.
 |
| I'm on the right here |
DAY 4 - OPEN WATER DIVES 3, 4 & 5
Once again we were to be at the boat at 6:15 on Sunday - this time with Pacific Star in San Pedro. We were greeted with a beautiful sunrise this day.
This was a larger boat than last time with bunks below and an indoor area for meals. It also took more time for us to get out to the island, but it was great to hang out with the dolphins on the way.
Views of the island from the boat were beautiful - I felt like I was back in Hawaii or some other far away place but was right here in SoCal.
This day we mostly dove between Bird Rock and Indian Rock spending some time over Eagle Reef. This was definitely a more advanced dive spot than the previous day but also more to see. Lots of surge this day - that's where below the surface the water is going back and forth and you just have to move with it, but it makes it hard to gather in a group to demonstrate skills. Plus, it was all rocky reef with tall kelp here so it was a bit difficult to navigate among the rocks when our buoyancy skills weren't great yet. The current at the surface was pretty strong too - making it hard to demo surface skills like tired diver tow, but we persevered!
And it was so peaceful to just be down there with the fish and there were a lot of different types. If you could stay still for a bit there were so many creatures on the rocks - huge red urchins, turban snails and so much more.
I didn't yet have an underwater camera, but someone else from the class did so he took these photos.
 |
| I'm on the right |
 |
| I'm on the right and that orange in the foreground is a Garibaldi |
And then we were done! We bid farewell to the island and headed back to LA.
I really hope to book another trip out to the island when I can spend my time looking at all the reef life. Now that I've got the skills down and some practice under my belt.
What a great experience! I can't say enough how glad I am that I made this happen. It wasn't easy with having to devote 2 full weekends and it was definitely outside of my comfort zone, but I'm so glad I did it. Met some great people who I hope to dive with again and learned a lot about myself and my capabilities - mostly mental ones. I would recommend learning to dive to pretty much anyone who has the means and wants to challenge themselves and see a part of this beautiful world that is not explored by most.
And now, to book my dive trip to the Great Barrier Reef!
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