(True Story)

In the last months that I lived on the west coast I found myself feeling like I had given up to easily on my life there and was running back home to the safety and security that friends and family CLOSE BY would offer. I knew In my heart that I didn’t "fail" but the thought was ever present none the less. I decided I needed to do something before I left. Something that would fill my mind with nothing but good memories on the hard trip home. Something that would overshadow these thoughts that’s were plaguing my mind. There was only one thing that I could think of that I have ALWAYS wanted to do but never had the time, and maybe not the guts too do either :). So the decision was made, I would learn to scuba dive!

With less than 2 months before I was leaving there was little time to dodle around. I found the place I would take my training at, Great Pacific Diving in Surrey, BC. So everything was set. Or so I thought. A few days prior to my training starting, and a mere 3 weeks before I was to move back. I was phoned up and told that there was not enough people in the class anymore cause 2 people quit so they wont be training at the end of that month.

My heart sank. But I wasn’t surprised by the twist that fate threw at me. The dive shop told me that there would be another class at the end of the month. . .but the problem was it would go into the next month a number of days and I was homeless come the end of the month. I began phoning around trying to find out if ANY dive shop would have a class before I left the coast. None of them did.

Feeling again like I was failing myself I decided I would not except fate this time. I would stay and take the course. Come what may I was not going to leave the coast without doing this last deed for myself. The dive Master assured me that the class would NOT be canceled this time regardless of how many people were in the class, and that was good enough for me.

The training started. Ive never experienced learning that I really enjoyed before this course. It was the most amazing feeling to be WANTING too learn about something so much. The training consisted of lots of watching of movies, doing little exams, and diving in a pool. The only hard part was the endurance testing. Swimming laps and doing the dog paddle for 10 minutes without a break. I remember thinking that "Geez if I could do all this then I wouldn’t be needing a tank strapped to my back now would I??" :) I was hyperventilating by the end but I made it. Now with the pool training done, it was time for the real open water(ocean) training. But that would take place after I was having to move out. I decided to sleep in the moving truck those few nights, it was uncomfortable as hell but with my entire life in the back of that truck I felt a need to be nearby it.

The next morning with my back aching from the "interesting" shape that I slept in that night I went to the dive shop and we all jumped on a bus to go to the dive sight. It was a sunny, gorgeous summer day. As we suited up we all quickly got VERY hot and when the dive master said to go down to the shore we didn’t hesitate. With the wet-suits on and some 50 pounds of gear on our back our body temperatures were getting pretty high and well that COLD ocean water was looking pretty appealing about now.

So on went our flippers and we walked slowly into the COLD COLD water. . . eventually I realized this was torture going in slowly and jumped under the surface to get the SHOCK over with quickly. The ocean water seeped into my wet suit slowly, the chill hit me hard, but much to my surprise the water that seeped into my wetsuit warmed up a lot quicker than I realized it would. So as quickly as my heart stopped it started up again(much to my joy!) and I found myself lounging on the surface of the ocean, like on a waterbed only much much! more relaxing. The teachers called the students over to a buoy off shore. We were told to dive down here following the line down to the bottom. But were warned not to stray far from the line cause visibility was VERY low due to the fact that not only was it low tide, but it was the lowest tide of the year.

I slowly started diving down, feet first looking for some signs of life or the bottom of the ocean whatever comes first. . ."Whats that??" Realizing what it is I give a quick kick of the flippers to the side narrowly averting falling on top of the teacher :). As we all settled on the bottom using a series of handsignals we went through a series of "tests" they were just easy things like removing your respirator and putting it back in properly, checking air levels, removing your tank underwater and putting it back on. With all that done. The students got divided up among the few teachers and we went for a bit of a follow the leader swim. Visibility was terrible, I could see like 2 feet in front of me only with all the silt in the water, in fact it was worse than that a few times. Twice there I was like "What the. . ." ~smack~ Slammed right into a rock hehe. The only way I could see my teacher was that he had on these BRIGHT yellow flippers hehe. The flippers were gaudy as hell but boy very easy to see!! With our tanks getting low now we go back to the shore to catch a quick breath and switch tanks then out we went again to tour the inlet. This time out further and down deeper. I remember felling nice and toasty warm except my face that was exposed to the ocean. . . I found it hard to keep my lips wrapped around the mouthpiece and could feel the tickle of air escaping out of the corner of my mouth and rolling up my cheeks. Our air eventually got low so we decided to surface to swim to shore. As we breached the surface a quick scan of the surroundings surprised me, we ended up some 200 feet or more off shore. We took our time paddling back to the shore, just enjoying the warmth of the day and the gentle relaxing rocking of the waves seemingly trying to lull us to sleep.

We. . . eventually made it to shore and loaded up onto the bus to head back to Surrey. We unloaded and arranged the time to meet tomorrow for our final day of diving. I drove off to a friends place to take a quick shower and hang out for a bit. The moving truck was watched during the day so I didn’t feel like I had to stick around it. I found it weird to think that my life there in BC was coming to an end, it was sad to realize it. But while BC had given me many wonderful memories, there were also many memories that I was happy to be leaving behind. But more than anything, I thought about the unknown of the future. Where-as the unknown used to frighten me I now found myself thilled by the possibilities that might come in the next chapter of my life. I left Dave's place round 7 that night. We both made promises to keep in touch but both knowing that it probably wouldn’t happen. I went to sleep, or tried to very early seeing as I had to be awake so early.

Waking up I found myself in an even more impressively twisted up position, and realizing the time I hopped in the car and raced down to the dive shop so as not to be late.

Once again we are on our way in the ol dive bus. Today though we find ourselves going north up the Sea To Sky highway. We end up in some small inlet surrounded by gorgeous houses that only the very rich could afford. We grabbed up our gear and walked down to the water, all of us obviously very impressed by the homes around us.

In the silence of the morning I could clearly hear the sound of little waves lapping against the shoreline in the distance. My heart quickened by the sound. And finally to see the ocean made me even more eager. The beach was made up of not sand but these very very small ocean weathered round pebbles that seemed to massage the feet as I walked across them. We suited up as we were given instructions about the dive spot we were at. The most important instruction being to watch our depth gauge because with the far clearer visibility here it would be easier to go too deep without knowing it. And we were told there is a very quick drop-off out there, from 70 to some 700 feet. We all got into the water and were told our first test was to use a compass, take a bearing on a buoy a distance out and swim toward it without looking up to see where you are. I took my bearing and sunk below the surface of the ocean, watching my compass as I swam slowly. . . and swam. . .~sigh~ and swim somemore. Im thinking "This doesnt seem quite right how could it take this long???". . . swam a bit more. . ."okay screw this". I stick my head up and look around. I apparently veered a. . . WEE bit off of my course and noticed I had overshot the buoy by lets just say a REAL lot :). I can hear the chuckles from everyone else and laugh to myself too about how bad a flub it was. I take my bearing again and start swimming toward the buoy. This time I not only swim toward it but actually bump into it!! :) Ahh yess SWEET vindication! It felt good, not the bump on the head mind you, the vindication!:) Next we were told to follow the teachers down to the bottom some 50 feet below. On the way down I am overjoyed to SEE! Around me. The water was SO clear, nothing like tropical waters but still very clear, at least 40 feet visibility. I landed softly on the sand covered ocean floor sending up a cloud of soot as I touched down. A crab to the left of me scurries off with its claws open in defensive posture. I look around me and see a FIELD of star fish all around, and not the little 5 finger ones we all know well, but MASSIVE ones, some like 4-5 feet across with maybe a dozen fingers. Im just amazed by all the starfish and the array of colors that they are. I feel something on my shoulder, quickly spinning my head around I realize it’s one of the teachers trying to get me to pay some attention to him :) I guess he felt neglected :) hehe. Well with my focus now on the teachers, once again, using hand signals we went through a bunch of tests. They started off easy, some review from yesterday. Then came the few hard tests. The first test was an emergency controlled assent. This test entailed the removal of our air supply and then to swim to the surface as fast as possible before you drown and making sure to exhale slowly as you surface so as not to explode your lungs from air expansion :), fun eh? Hehe. Its an example of what to do if you ran out of air at a reasonably shallow depth. To not scare you off though from trying diving, this test was actually very easy. I went vertical 50 feet to the surface in like 15 seconds, breached the surface like a whale, though i am sure i didnt look so graceful :). And I also exhaled properly as i came up too so my lungs are still in one piece :). This test worried me a bit hearing about it before but it was no big deal. Next test, while on the surface, remove my buoyancy control vest and tank and put it back on. . . easier said then done, or at least it was before I learned the trick to it. See you have a 20 some pound weight belt pulling you down, and without the vest on its really hard to stay afloat. I took me a good 6 or 7 tries till I finally figured out what the teacher was trying to tell me to do, basically you should sit on the tank and then slowly let it slide up your back getting your arm in at least one of the holes of the vest and then putting it on the rest of the way. . . .i was EXAUSTED after this test cause of all the failed attempts lucky I had a bit of a break while the other students did the test. After we were all done we sank back below the depths to the bottom. The last difficult test was one that I didn’t expect to be difficult cause I aced it in the swimming pool. The test is to remove your mask breath for a while with the mask off and without having to use your hand to plug your nose, then put the mask back on and clear the mask. Now the thing is that in the swimming pool when we did this the swimming pool had warm water, no big deal. The ocean was not so warm though. I confidently took my mask off, the instant I did the cold water of the ocean RUSHED in, I went into momentary shock as I found myself trying to remember "how do I breath??". It was like my body didn’t know how too do something that we all take for granted. I know I panicked a bit but im not sure if it was noticable to the others. I remember the seeing the teacher pointing at his respirator wondering why I wasn’t breathing(even without the mask on you can see somewhat in the ocean just to clear that up in your mind). I suddenly collected myself and grabbed my nose for just a momment to be sure I didn’t suck in any water now that I felt ready to breath again. I took in a deep breath, then another, and then preparing myself mentally to NOT breath through my nose I took my hand off my nose and breathed for some 10-20 seconds till the teacher gave me the thumbs up so I could put the mask back on. I cleared the mask and slowly breathed in and out deeply till my heart slowed down to a more normal rate. The others went through the test as I calmed myself.

Now with the tests done, we were officially Open Water Divers, and it was time now to go for a fun swim. We divided up, two students to a teacher and swam off in various directions. The teacher I was with took us west along the shore at first. Hovering over the garden of multicolored starfish that I had been admiring earlier. Swimming along I see a number of fish that I didn’t recognize swimming along paying little to no attention to us, a few dozen feet away I see a dogfish(small kinda shark) dart off to deeper waters. Trying to see where he went I nearly swam into a jellyfish swimming in the depths. Its 3 foot long tentacles flowing out behind it. Ive seen them swimming on nature shows a lot but it was so fascinating to see it for real. Catching a glimpse of a light in the corner of my eye I look round to see the teacher waving me over to a hole in the rock wall. The teacher gives me his more powerful light and points in the hole. I shine the light in and squint too see a mass of tentacles writhing around in the small cave in the rock wall. The colors of the tentacles change from a brownish color camouflaged with the walls around the octopus, then too a bright red, the speed of the color change caught me off guard, it was like the blink of an eye. The teacher tapped me on the shoulder and motioned for us to surface, I got a little caught up with everything that I had not been watching my air gage closely enough and it was getting low so we surfaced and swam to shore to swap tanks. Hesitating little, we swapped tanks and were back out in a few minutes. This time the teacher took us straight out following a rockface and staying close to the bottom. The bottom had a smooth slow slope downward we followed it passing 40-50-60 feet. . . at close to 70 feet we stayed level as the bottom slower grew darker and more distant below us and then was gone. Still following a rock wall beside us the teacher stopped suddenly and pointed down as to point out that this was the deep hole he was speaking of earlier. There we sat for a few moments hovering with nothing to reference where we were except this rock face that went straight up to a vague and barely visible light source above us, and the rock face also went down into the dark void below whos blackness seemed darker than anything I had ever seen before. The cold of the water chilled my bones, the silence was errie and in the back of my mind all I could hear was like the JAWS theme and looked down into the blackness below for any sign of Jaws coming up to get me :). Then once again realizing just how SMALL my wetsuit is in the croach area i snap outa my little drama movie that I was creating in my mind and we continued on our tour of the area. Slowly looping back around toward the beach. The bottom slowly became visible again out of the inky black darkness and rose to meet us. We followed the ocean floor up, passing through a thermal layer(layers of water with very dramatic temperature differences) around 40 feet, the mixture of cold(below the thermal) and warm(above) water creating a swirling wave effect underwater that was facinateing to see. Then we crossed the fields of starfish and my heart sank to the realization that the dive was virtually over. I breached the surface and took in a deep breath of the salty air, enjoying the last few breaths I would have of it. I VERY slowly swam into shore. And with a frown on my face stepped out of the water. We loaded up the bus and started on our way back to Surrey. We all reminised about our various experiences during our dives. The octapus that my group saw being the highlight of the conversation. Once back at the dive shop we all got our pictures taken for our ID’s, and with that done I thanked Neil Squire my teacher for all he had done and drove to where the truck with all I owned had been sitting. . . waiting to take me into the unknown of the future. I loaded my car onto the trailor, strapped it up, and that very afternoon started on my way back to Saskatchwan with conflicting emotions about what I was leaving behind and what future I was getting myself into. But there was no turning back now. Whatever fate threw at me I would take or if I didn’t like fate I would make my own as I did before I left my life behind on the coast of British Columbia. . .

By Me