Ocean Dive 2 (or, More Drama on the High Seas)

Whereupon Lena redeems herself a little on the whole seasickness front and survives to blog about it.

If this is starting to sound a bit Ryan-heavy to you, you are not alone. Today, Chris was my instructor, as it’s Ryan’s day off, and as he introduced himself he said, “oh, you’re the one everyone’s calling “Ryan’s scuba diver.” He was saying how Ryan had done all the work to get me up to speed, but wasn’t going to be able to certify me that day. As it happened, neither did he.

It’s been raining solidly for two days. Warm, tropical rain, but it feels a lot less warm and tropical when you’re heading out to sea in it. It then turns mean and stings you through your wetsuit, as you crash up and down in waves, hitting your tailbone every few minutes. I stared fixedly at the horizon, willing myself not to get sick. We got into the water, and I had to demonstrate a few skills at the surface, like switching from snorkel to regulator underwater. I did it relatively successfully, given how choppy the water was, and only accidentally pulled off the mouthpiece to my snorkel after I had finished. A couple of divers went down, but our line to the bottom had come loose, the water was really crazy, and our instructors decided it was safer to get us back to the boat. It ended up being fairly dramatic, as we had to get to the other side of the boat, with waves throwing us about and ropes dangling free. There was one bit where Chris was yelling “Lena!” and reaching his hand out to grab me as I let go of one rope to swim to the other, and I thought (apart from “he’s pronouncing my name wrong”) how movie-like it all seemed, and wondered vaguely if we were actually in any danger.

(I said to Ryan the next day that it probably was nothing compared to what they’re used to, but it seemed quite bad to me. And he said no, he’d heard it was pretty crazy out there.)

We got pulled back to the boat, and they hauled us in with only minor bruising after I got slammed into the ladder by a wave. Then there was more fixed staring at the horizon, as we hovered around looking for the other divers, got them on board, and then went back to shore, and I am SO very pleased to say I did not throw up.

This scuba thing is reminding me of a notecard a friend once gave me with a picture of a girl with her legs around her neck and the caption, “Yoga. Not as relaxing as I’d been led to believe.”