My Scuba Diving Adventure
Written by Erik

All pictures by Johan Hedlund

Hi! 🙂

During the summer break I did many exciting things but if you asked me my favorite and most exciting thing that I did over the summer break was get my scuba diving license.  It took a lot of work but I finally got it after four week of training and lots of snack breaks.

My dad has been a scuba diver since he was 17.  The age limit then was 18 but he lied and snuck into a class with one of his friends, Richard.  They had some pretty crazy stories to tell me.  Anyway my father wanted me to get my scuba diving license.  I didn’t want to at first because I thought it would be very hard (and it was) but I decided to go.

The instructor was a almost old man.  I think he might have been in his 60s or 70s.  His name was George Campbell.  The class was at his house but the good part is that he lives under a minute away from my house.  My instuctor has been friends with my dad for many years.  George had been a physics teacher at the New Paltz high school.  “Mr. Campbell” has been diving for years and years and he has been a scuba instructor since 1956.  He isn’t only an instructor but he also takes people out on dives, not to teach them but just to do it for fun.  He is a very nice and funny man.  George also had two nice boys help him.  Their names were Eric (who goes to my school) and Chris, a police man.

The first day of scuba, on a Saturday, was a piece of cake.  All we did was learn about bubbles building up in our body when you scuba or what percentage of air is that.  Stuff like that.  Toward the end of the class George made us (there were three students in the class including me) get our bathing suits on and jump in the pool.  He wanted to see first if we could swim well so he made us take 8 laps in his very thin but deep pool.  That may sound easy when his pool is like 10 feet long but trust me it was so tiring.  Then to add to my tiredness he made us hold our breath while swimming across his pool.  Again easier said than done.  Then we had to tread water for I think 5 or 8 minutes.  I was so exhausted!

The second day we learned how to put on and take off our scuba equipment.  How to set it up and how to take it down.  We got to go in the pool with our scuba gear on.  We learned how to go down and up and how fast we should go down or up.  His pool was 10 feet deep so we couldn’t get DCS.  DCS is a medical illness that we learned about the day before.  We also learned the day before that you can get a stroke in 4 feet of water.  Anyway we practiced many beginner things like what to do if you mask gets kicked of or your regulator gets kicked out of you mouth.

The Saturday we did the same exact thing only we learned a little more advanced moves like going through tubes under water or take off and putting back on you equipment in water and much more like that.

Me going through a tube

 

 

The next day was the last day of the training until our open water dive.  We were all so excited.  All we really did was review what we had done both classes.  For the final hour of class George brought out some of his really cool scuba stuff like an under water fan thing that makes you go so fast under water with out doing anything.  That was really fun.  We also wore a really cool scuba mask.  George told us that if you wore that full face mask you could talk to other people under water!  Unfortunately there was not another one of those masks but it was still very cool.  It was a very fun day!

Me in full face mask

 

On the day of my first “open water dive” I was super excited.  To get our certification we needed to dive 4 times in a real lake or even an ocean.  My first two were on the same day in Mohonk Lake.  We got ready and went in the lake.  The best part was that for the first 15 minutes of the open water dive we did skills then for the rest of the time we free dived.  We saw many cool fish.  Most were silver and black.  Then we got out, had lunch and then went back in again for our 2nd dive of the day.  This time we went to the left.  The first dive we went to the right.  That time we saw less fish but a lot more garbage like beer bottles and cans.  We also saw many salamander-like creatures.  They might have been salamanders.  One of my diving buddy’s, Adan, caught one in his hand but then let it go.  It was very fun.

The next dive was in Minnawaska Lake.  That dive was not fun because we couldn’t see anything when we went under water.  We did skills still though and we free dived for about 10 minutes.  We decided to get out and have and early lunch.  Then it was time for the second dive.  What we did instead of diving was work on navigation under water.  That was pretty fun and scary because you had know idea where you were going so you really had to trust you compass.  It was a very fun day.

That was also the day we got our certification.  That was very exciting.  I got two certifications, A NAUI and a PADI that are both are world known.  They both are dive groups that George works for that train young scuba divers.

It was a very exciting journey and adventure that I will never forget