After (six years and) five days, 535 US dollars, one bum knee, a hell of a fin blister, and 381 minutes underwater, I can officially check #9 off the list!
Advanced Open Water, baby!
Those five days were incredibly challenging - physically as well as mentally - and I am pretty sure this was the hardest goal I have completed since I started making these lists six years ago. (Apologies in advance because there's a lot of cursing in this post...)
The physical challenge is probably obvious. It took a lot of swimming, a lot of carrying around really heavy equipment, and a lot of bouncing and sliding around dive boats in choppy water. I banged the hell out of my knee on a particularly choppy day which made swimming that much more difficult. (It still hurts, actually.) And despite my daily exhaustion I didn't sleep solidly each night.
But I survived, physically.
Mentally it was a whole other story. Yes, I have done crazy things like jump out of airplanes, swing 250 meters over canyons, and climb mountains. But I am not a terribly adventurous person. I don't consider myself brave, either - I'm cautious to a fault.
At first the mere idea of being 18 or 30 meters underwater for an extended period of time Freaked. Me. Out. The dive shop wasn't the most professional (equipment didn't fit or seemed to keep breaking and the instructors were all ADD twenty-somethings), which didn't help with my unease. I surprised myself at how quickly I got over all that, though. The amazing fish, beautiful coral, and grumpy grandpa moray eels helped enormously in that regard.
What I couldn't get over during the classes was the notion that I was on my own in this strange new underwater world. It's really the first significant solo activity I have done in over 450 days. I overthought all the exercises, I couldn't remember the instructors' directions, and when I did ask for help or feedback or reassurance all I got was "you'll be fine."
Um... thanks.
The first four dives actually weren't too bad - I opted for the PADI version of the Open Water course and wound up in a class by myself, so I had one-on-one instruction the entire time. He had the attention span of a gnat while giving lessons, but at least I knew that if something went wrong he would be right there. There were a few skills that a lot of people have trouble with; I did those with no problems so despite my overall nervousness he assured me I would "be fine."
Um... thanks.
When I moved on to the Advanced Open Water class via the SSI program, things changed. I had five other students with me. I had a different instructor who also had the attention span of a gnat during lessons, but this time he was focused on the girl with ear problems and the hot chick from the UK (who kept swimming into me from behind!!! SOOOO annoying!!) and the guy who kept running out of air. And we had harder skills to pass underwater.
Starting with dive #5. To practice buoyancy, we had to hover upside down for a minute or so near the bottom. I got upside down (which I did NOT enjoy one bit) and suddenly found myself flying toward the surface. For the life of me I could not get back down. I totally panicked. The instructor's frantic (almost angry) gestures for me to descend didn't help my panic, either. We were only at about 14 meters so nothing bad would have happened if I did surface, but it was overwhelming and frustrating all the same. Eventually I figured it out and joined the rest of the group.
He passed my skill.
Really??
Dive #6 entailed navigating around a dive site unsupervised with my "buddy" (aforementioned hot "stop-swimming-into-me!!" UK chick) while following given depth and time parameters.
My sixth time underwater, pretty much on my own (as she was - for lack of a nicer word - useless), with a watch and compass I just learned how to use? This was not a fucking hike or a mountain bike ride - it was 6-14 meters UNDERWATER, unsupervised. With an ADD twenty-something for a "buddy."
This did not sound like a good idea to me. Not at all.
My "buddy" had supposedly whiteboarded all of our parameters and drawn a map of the site. I glanced at everything before we jumped in but I was nervous about this dive and still freaked out from the upside-down dive so I didn't really look too closely at what she'd written down.
Also? We had no dive plan. (Hey SSI students, can you guess one of the first PADI rules? MAKE A DIVE PLAN BEFORE YOU DESCEND.) I tried to discuss a plan with her after we jumped in but she wasn't engaging at all. Not that it would have mattered - I am a terrible navigator on land and completely hopeless underwater. I basically shrugged, said, "OK, you lead," and tried not to cry. (Really. It was kind of pathetic.)
Before we all descended the instructor asked me specifically if I was okay. I hesitated - how to say "no" without sounding like a cautious old lady and tattling on my stupid "buddy," while still making the point that my life is at stake?
He asked again, this time with a definite tone of annoyance. I took a deep breath, said "yes, I'm fine," and down we went.
Thirty incredibly frustrating minutes later my "buddy" and I surfaced within sight of the boat and I left her to flail slowly back while I booked it to the ladder. (I am not proud to admit this but for the next 24 hours I had no interest in, or regard for, her well-being.)
With each fin kick back to the ladder my anger grew. How horribly irresponsible to leave two strangers still in training to navigate around on their own! What if something had happened? And what the FUCK is wrong with the youth of today? No manners, no attention span, no communication skills!!
Kick, kick, kick.
Of course, a lot of it was on me. Why didn't I take charge of the map and parameter documentation? Why didn't I say something to the instructor before we went down? Why did I care what these young stupid kids thought of me?
Kick, kick, kick.
Turned out, my "buddy" and I came up nine minutes later than we were supposed to (a parameter she forgot to write down, which I only realized after we underwater, far away from the instructor).
We passed the skill test.
Really??
The rest of the afternoon I fumed, wallowed, continued to try not to cry, and dreaded the next three dives. "Just get through tomorrow and you can dive wherever you want with a real 'buddy'," I kept telling myself.
But as Patrick and I walked around town and hung out in the dive resort's wifi area I also started to realize that something bigger was going on. A lot of my insecurity about the dive classes was insecurity in general that was fueled by my surroundings.
Physiologically speaking, I could've been a mother to four of the students in my class, several of the instructors, and countless others on the island - being on the cusp of 40 hadn't bothered me in the slightest until that very moment. The girls around me wore shiny new bikinis to class every day; I had my ratty old one I bought at Ross eight years ago. They wore skimpy shirts and short-shorts to the dives; I wore my $2 baggy farming shorts and the same baggy t-shirt all week. They talked about getting drunk; I thought about the crossword puzzle I was going to do when I got back to the room.
I felt old. I couldn't relate to any of these people and their priorities. I felt alone.
It was like high school all over again.
High school, when I doubted every move I made, every word I said, every article of clothing I wore. When the cool kids whose attention I craved ignored me or only talked to me because they wanted to copy my homework. When I wanted to be accepted even though I found those whose acceptance I craved incredibly shallow and obnoxious.
As soon as all of this occurred to me I was mostly able to snap out of my funk. And Dive #7 (our first deep dive) went fine, and Dive #8 (a wreck dive) was really awesome. And I had a nice chat with a few of the kids in my class who were impressed with our extended travels.
However. On the way back from Dives #7/8 the instructor lengthily and loudly dissed people who go through the PADI course (designed for working professional students and instructors who value structure and their students' learning styles and safety) instead of the SSI course (designed for twenty-something students and instructors with absolutely no attention span who just want to finish class as soon as possible each day so they can party).
At one point during his anti-PADI spiel I looked at him like, "HELLO, SITTING RIGHT HERE." And then I just turned my back and ignored him. Not my finest moment but when surrounded by immaturity...
Dive #9 (a night dive) was horrible for everyone - really rough water and no visibility. If not for the class requirement they would've definitely canceled the dive. But we all got through it alive.
It is customary to debrief with the instructor and group after each dive. When we finished the night dive and got back to the resort the instructor bought us a beer and with great theatrics, handed us our AOW diver cards. He started going through the motions of asking which dive was our favorite, where we planned to dive next, etc.
I half-listened for a moment, and then my tolerance for enduring those people for another second totally evaporated. I downed my beer in three gulps, stood up and said "thanks, safe travels everyone, goodbye." And I walked away to their awed comments of how I'd drank my beer so fast. Twenty years' practice, kiddos.
The next day Patrick and I did two dives with a mature group of divers and instructors.
It was incredible.
It was laid back and slow and easy. We saw tiny things and ginormous things. The candelabra-like fan coral was gorgeous. The trigger fish who normally terrorized the giant groups of students left us four alone. I did a few swim-throughs (under arches) with no freak-out moments whatsoever.
During the dive break on the boat the small groups of three or four sat in silence sipping coffee, watching the water or talking about interesting places to visit in Cambodia. There was no clusterfuck of absolute chaos in the equipment room. No divers talked about pub crawls, full moon parties, pizza, hooking up, or "uni." No Dive Masters told "dumb diver" stories, did cannonballs, or pushed other DMs off the back of the boat while we were waiting to leave the site.
It was amazing.
It made my five days of physical and mental torture completely worth it. I think I have found my dive people.
And then we finally got the fuck off that hellhole of an island.
good riddance!
It's so weird how certain situations can cause such a fast reversion to old ways of thinking. But I am so glad that my years of therapy and personal growth allowed me to snap out of it so quickly. That's really going to come in handy as I start to rebuild old high school and work connections on Facebook that I avoided for so long (so as to maximize points of contact as we head into Australia and New Zealand - yep, it's purely strategic, all those new "friends" I suddenly have might know folks down under).
But! Never mind all that - I am a Certified! Advanced! Open! Water! Diver! (said in a Keanu Point Break voice, of course). Grumpy grandpa moray eels lurking 30 meters below sea level, consider ye warned - I'm coming for you!
