Ethan’s first underwater breath

Because we’re going to places that have really good diving, like Palau, on the RTW trip, my dad decided to put himself into dive lessons, and to drag me along, too. Between lessons, we have to read a chapter out of a book, and take a quiz. I was scared to take the lessons, because the book covered a lot of emergencies that can happen. I thought I was going to drown, but I luckily didn’t. *Knocks on wood*.

It’s more comfortable underwater!

Diving lessons turned out to be really fun. There were four people other than me and my dad. The first thing that we did was to put our gear together. Our instructor gave us our BCDs (The thing on your back that makes you float or sink) and cylinders, but we brought everything else. After we put our gear together, we got into the water (A 9 foot deep pool). To practice at first, we went into the shallow (3’ 6”) part.

My first breaths underwater using a regulator were really cool. At first, it feels like you can’t breathe, and then you start breathing and everything is fine. We practiced different skills, like finding and clearing our regulators, and pulling off, putting back on, and clearing our mask underwater. After that, we had free time, where we were all floating around in a pool, tossing a neutrally buoyant toy. Tossing the toy was like catch, but the toy just keeps going in the direction that you threw it in, and never comes down (unless it reaches the surface, and turns around). In the water, you can move where ever you want instead of being stuck to the ground the whole time, which made the game a lot easier. After we did that, we got out of the pool, took our gear apart, and headed home.

After the first lesson, we had other lessons that followed the same plan (Get our gear together, learn skills, free time, take our gear apart), but the skills were different. I am definitely looking forward to my certification dives!