Tuesday, July 7, 2015

SCUBA 2013

 The whole time Aubree was serving on the stake's youth committee, she and I had to hear about the stake SCUBA trip. She was so tired of it, because it took up most of the meetings during the summer time. We even made a bet once that every time the word SCUBA was mentioned, she'd get an extra cookie from the treats I brought every month for the youth. It got to the point where she had so many cookies, she couldn't eat them all. :) The dive master wouldn't certify anyone under the age of 16, so when she was old enough, we decided we would try it.
 It was fun when there was no pressure to perform and we were just playing around. But when it came time to certify, I had a case of the nerves and would have backed out if Aubree hadn't been going full speed forward. I tried to talk her out of it, because it caused me a lot of anxiety, but we made it through and got certified. ;)
 I didn't end up doing any dives because we didn't realize we would need dramamine for the sea sickness on the boat. That was absolutely horrible. As soon as the boat stopped moving and was rocking with the swells of the water, I was sick. They said if you got in the water, it wasn't as bad. But there were swells in the water too. You had to be 40 feet down in the water to not be affected. I wasn't too thrilled about the kelp forest you had to swim through to get to the interesting stuff either. Aubree was worried about getting tangled in it.
There was another boy who was having a difficult time, so I stayed with him, while Aubree dove with Shay and Bro Bitter. She did a great job! Captain Eric nicknamed her Purple because of her wet suit. She was also the only girl to do all the dives, so I think she earned his respect. Both Shay and I opted not to get back on the boat because the nausea still hadn't worn off. Capt. Eric let her use his hood and gloves on the afternoon dive the next day because the water is so cold. It's like having a permanent brain freeze!

By the time we got to the beach dive, there was no equipment left for me to use. Aubree and Shay had to wait about 45 minutes for Bro. Bitter to fix a piece of Shay's equipment. I stayed topside and snorkeled. I got some great pictures of the sea lions that swam around me. They were very curious...basically dogs that live in the water. It was beyond cool. Come to find out, most of the interesting sea life was where I was anyway. Aubree said there were a lot of lobster and fish 30 ft down, but nothing as interesting as my sea lions. :P
 This is Aubree going down with her dive buddy, Justin Crandall.

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