Test time

We’re in the final days of our Intro to Scientific Diving course, and it’s skills test time. We have to swim to and put on our fins, swim through a hoop, switch out our air tank, then take off our mask an snorkel and swim for 20 feet, put the mask back on, clear it, and rise to the surface. Doing all that in under a minute and twenty seconds is a perfect score.

Today I concentrated on knocking out the skin-diving portion of the skills test, which involves swimming underwater for the length of pool on one breath, executing a perfect surface dive (bend at the waste, head down, don’t kick until your feet are underwater), and doing a mask and snorkel retrieval from the bottom of the pool. I got it all except the mask retrieval. Diving, putting the mask on, clearing it and the snorkel before returning to the surface has proven to be my bane. I get water in my sinuses while diving, then when I open my airway to clear my mask, water drains into my mouth, which then gets pushed into the snorkel while I’m trying to clear it. It totally sucks! And hurts!

Friday, I went from home straight to the backpacking class I was teaching, and arrived back home around 2pm today.

Unpacked

Thursday, our friend John Johnson rolled into town. He’s been on a large sailing boat off the coasts of Washington, Oregon, and California since July. This all the stuff he had packed onto his motorcycle.

Ground cover

Friday, in the parking lot for our trailhead.

Walking in the woods

Saturday was overcast, but not rainy. We spent the day doing backcountry navigation and route-finding, which is pretty hard in southern Indiana.

In the pines, in the pines…

The pine forest we slept in on Saturday night, and hiked out of on Sunday.

The whiner

Jacques starts meowing at the cabinet his food is stored in around 8pm. Dinner time is 9:30pm. He’s very persistent.

Map and compass

The second classroom meeting of the backpacking course I’m teaching was held tonight. 3 hours long, we cover things like planning and preparation, map and compass, setting up tents and stoves, and the proper way to dispose of waste while in the backcountry.

Certified

I received my temporary PADI Open Water Diver certification card today. They used my old IU ID picture, in which I look like I’m about to kill someone. It’s not pretty.

I seem to be taking fewer and fewer pictures as this field class goes on. We’re basically learning from 9am through 6pm everyday, and I’m not used to that. :-)

Tomorrow we get a recreation day, and I’m going to hike into the Sierra Nevadas, up to around 12,000 feet, snow permitting. Hopefully I won’t have to talk much, or think about geology.

Good news: I was able to move my trip to Alaska up from August to July!