Should I Take A Dive Refresher Course?

I was asked a question a couple of weeks ago by a friend who hasn't been able to dive for a few years due to work & family stuff about getting back to it. His question was this “what can I do to get myself ready to get back under water?”. Great question. Here's what I told him:

One you could take a refresher class. This normally amounts to taking some time in a pool getting reacquainted with the gear & sensations of diving. You get a chance to review how to put gear together & go over procedures. Many times instructors will include some classroom refresher as well. For example, many will reacquaint the diver with tables or go over dive computers.

Another way of getting back into diving after a layoff would be to plan a few very simple dives in known areas with a Dive Master or Instructor. In this way, the diver could be assured that the dives would be planned appropriately and he or she would have someone else watching out for them.

One last idea would be to get your gear together, rent or get your tanks filled & jump into the pool in your back yard. (The YMCA pool would work as well.) For some this idea gives them them chance to reacquaint themselves without supervision. I am sure that some people are quite capable of doing exactly what they need to do in order to get themselves ready for the next dive.

Of course some would ask why anyone would really need a refresher plan in the first place? After all, certification is good forever & we all know that it's kind of like riding a bike; it will all come back to you once you get started. Sounds good but after teaching for some time now, I know how easy it is to forget what you've learned or worse yet, misremember.

Let me give you an example of a person who told me they were a master diver & thought they knew everything about diving. It seems he was taught that one of the ways you can know that you are not going up too fast is to be sure that you didn't ascend faster than your bubbles. Back in the good old days, this was after all, taught as gospel. And he could absolutely not understand why we didn't teach this simple rule anymore. The problem is that it isn't safe.

Here's the way David Holt puts it. “When a diver exhales bubbles into the water, the bubbles begin to expand as they rise. As they expand they increase their buoyancy and therefore travel to the surface with increasing speed which causes them to expand faster and travel even faster towards the surface. Second, it is extremely difficult to follow bubbles, especially when there are more than a few divers, there is poor visibility, or when there is substantial current. Third, it is extremely difficult to slow your ascent rate after you have passed the bubble you were watching. By the time your realize that your gaining on your bubble, its to late - You are going to fast!”

Does that mean that every one has learned something wrong. No, not at all. In fact, most instructors are absolutely incredible. They not only teach to standards but go above & beyond to help new divers become really great divers. It's just that we can & do forget. After just a few months, details can become a little fuzzy. “How does that 1^st stage get attached again?” “How much weight do I need with this wetsuit?” “Why is this mask fogging up?” “How do I turn this computer on?”

I hope you get it. Yes, it can be just like riding a bike. The difference is that if you fall down from a bike, you may skin a knee or even break an elbow. Running out of air on scuba at 80' could be fatal. I don't know about you but my instructor said that I was responsible for me when I dive. That means that I am the only one I have to be accountable to. It also means that if I really take a good look in the mirror, I might realize that being responsible means not taking foolish risks.

If it's been a while, why not stop by the local dive shop or ask around to find an instructor who would spend a day with you helping to get you ready for that next dive trip.

4 Reasons I Love To Scuba Dive

Cheryl & I went to see a movie this weekend. It was an interesting take on a vintage comic book hero. The movie was good on many levels but like so many movies, called for a suspension of disbelief in order to really enjoy the movie. After all, it introduced technology that doesn't exist today, let alone in the 1930's. Yet it was fun to watch & for me that's the whole point of going to the movies. I want to be entertained & have a moment in time when I can forget that there's a difficult economy & life can be a draining experience. I share all that because of a question a friend of mine was asking me about the draw for scuba diving. He thought that the real reason most people went was to be entertained & while that is sort of true, it is much, much more than just being entertained. Here's what I told him:

Of course, I go to have fun & enjoy myself. My personal credo in life says that “life's too short not to enjoy every moment”, so it wouldn't make sense for me to not enjoy doing this. And diving, like riding my motorcycle, going to movies, reading & even going to church are truly fun things for me to do. There are tons of things in life that people enjoy but are not for me. It's not personal but I don't enjoy collecting stamps or playing shoot em up video games. And I guess I will never understand why anyone participates in optional stuff that they don't enjoy. Life's too short for that! But scuba diving is one of those things for me that puts a little juice in the batteries of life.

Secondly, I get to see stuff up close & personal that most people will never see at all or if they do it will be in an aquarium. Being inches away from seahorses, frogfish, eels, sea turtles, Goliath grouper & even sharks is something that you can not even begin to grasp without being there. Aquariums for me are like going to the movies & having to suspend disbelief for a time. I know that the animals that are behind the glass are real but the environment is created & manipulated. Aquariums serve humans like any other zoo in that they provide the masses with an opportunity to see live animals in a controlled setting. For me, I love to scuba to see animals where they really live & play, eat & sleep.

Thirdly, I get to meet some of the best people in the world. I've only been diving for a short time but I have gotten to know some of the nicest people you could imagine. Obviously, part of being such great people is that we share a common passion & that always makes for easy friendships. It is also true that doing fun stuff usually helps people be nicer. But once you get passed the obvious, there is a camaraderie in diving that lets strangers open up to others. On any dive trip, you will see divers lending gear to perfect strangers & offers to help you zip up from people you met just 20 minutes before. While this is not the only reason I teach scuba, it is one of the reasons I love to do so. Sure, there are jerks who choose to dive. There is nothing in life that does not attract the occasional blowhard or buffoon and diving is no exception. However, most people who scuba, love the sport and are good ambassadors of the undersea experience.

Lastly, I enjoy being a part of a very small minority of people who are exploring the 70% of the earth that's covered by water. That's right, over 70% of the planet is covered by water & very few of the inhabitants of the earth have taken any time to explore beneath the waves. It's kind of the shame actually. While I don't think that the number of scuba divers will dramatically increase in my lifetime, my hope & prayer is that many more will come & join us. You can be from any walk of life. You can be young or old when you start. You only need to be able to swim a little & want to go where few have gone before.   

Things My Dad Taught Me About Really Living

I’ve been busier than I’ve wanted to be lately.  Mostly it’s been a combination of work & play (I might make a little money with the scuba diving but it’s still play) but when you add family into the mix (did I mention the new grandbaby?) it’s been a little overwhelming.  Here’s the thing I’ve wanted to write about for a few weeks . . . doing the right thing even when it may hurt a bit to do so. 

It seems like nearly every day I am challenged with the prospect of doing what I really should do even when it just doesn’t feel good to do so.  Let me share a few examples.  First of all, no matter what day it is, I will be given an opportunity to not respond with a rude gesture or word of disgust when someone cuts me off in traffic.  It is so much easier to yell out the window or give someone the finger than to grin & nod.  On another level, people can often be rude online in ways that I am certain they would never be in person.  What it is about electronic communication anonymity that empowers people to be so nasty?  I’ve had people call me names & express truly evil intent because they can not see my face.  And of course, there are the divas…. men & women who believe they are above everyone else and are unafraid to let you know they are better than you.  I am sure everyone goes through the same kind of stuff but I wonder sometimes if God is maybe trying to teach me a lesson.  In other words, just what is the point?

Here’s what I’ve come to decide; life is about choosing the way you live; choosing the way you respond; choosing to be the kind of person you want to be.  And into that I’ve come to a few conclusions.  And it all comes down to one simple thing “life’s too short”.

After all what is the best that a man can do?  60; 70; 80; even a hundred years.  I remember being an early 20 something & thinking my grandmother was old.  Amazingly, she was just in her early 50’s at the time.  Funny how quickly 53 isn’t as old as I once thought that it was.  It also gives me rise to pay homage to some of the best things I learned from my dad who lived to the ripe old age of 62.  He didn’t get much time here but he had a huge impact on how I see life.  Here’s a few of the best things he taught me…

Life’s too short to not do what you want to do.  My dad had his first heart attack at 38 & spent quite a few years just trying to keep living.  After he had bypass surgery at 44, he set about to make certain that whatever time he had left would be full of what he wanted to do.  He wasn’t going to set around waiting to die.  In 1978, he & my mom bought their first motorcycle.  He would ultimately learn that it wasn’t big enough nor sturdy enough to do what he wanted but they took that bike & made a trip from Ohio to California & back.  Not only was this not the last motorcycle but hardly the last trip he would make on a bike.  He died just a few months away from a trip he had planned to cross Canada into Alaska.  He & mom put more than 300,000 miles on those bikes over the years.  His example is why I own a motorcycle, took up scuba diving & spent 18 days traveling with no real plan in Europe with my wife.  His example is why I’ve done mission trips to Jamaica & Haiti.  His example is why the whole family is planning to spend a couple of weeks in Africa this next year.  You can either choose to live or choose to not live.  I’d rather choose life!       

I am sure my dad never heard of Erwin McManus but dad seemed to live out something Mr. McManus said ““The tragedy of life is not dying young but growing old and never really living.”

Life’s too short to let circumstance keep me from enjoying my friends, family & loved ones.  I wish I would have understood this earlier in my life.  You see I was way too busy building a career & making money to really enjoy my wife & children like I wish I had.  Now that my grandson Noah is here I am trying to savor every moment.  My dad never missed a swim meet or golf event that I was involved in.  Oh, there were times then that I wish he would have given me a little space or been a little less conspicuous but now as I look back, I cherish those moments.  My old friend Darryl Sprunger used to tell me all of the time “you can’t make quality time happen!”  He was right.

As I’ve gotten older & the children have grown up around me, I look back at some of the really special times with my kids.  I remember getting to baptize all of them in the same lake.  I remember teaching each of them how to be a lifeguard & helping them get through their certifications.  I took each of them on a mission trip & watched them realize how good they have it here in this country.  I will always remember climbing up the mountain with Kyle when he was just 14 & how hard he laughed as in a moment of exhaustion I prayed out loud that it would be really unfair of God to let me die just 200 feet short of the top.  So many things; too little room to share them all.  To say the least, life has been full & while I have a few regrets, the biggest one is not starting sooner.

So let me now get back to how I started this whole thing.  Stuff happens all of the time & people can usually be counted on to really mess things up but I have a choice.  I can choose to complain & whine about what life has handed me or I can choose to live in spite of the challenges.  And when I say live, I mean live on purpose & with purpose.  Live as if every second matters because they do.  After all, the biggest lesson my dad taught me is that you just don’t know how long you’ll get to be here.  My dad was taken from me long before I was ready for him to be gone.  Today just might be the last day!  So make this one count.