First Ever Instructorless Scuba!

Summary: Got as deep as 50 ft, total dive time: 33 min. Started with 2200 psi, ended with 600 psi. The most interesting part was that 1000 psi was spent on the surface! 500 psi to swim out, and 500 psi to swim back. The current must be stronger than I thought.

Gathering the gear the day before, woke up bright and early at 8:05 am today (yes, on a Saturday ) to go scuba-ing. My first official dive after being certified :).

The dive itself was only 33 minutes long. But it was still pretty fun. A couple funny/interesting things happened...

1) Fell like a turtle walking to the shore...
So with all our gear set up, we proceeded to walk towards the shore with it. There were some logs here and there, and for the most part, they were easy to walk over. There was one particular one that was slightly higher than the rest. The 3 people in front of me easily went over them, so following their example, I thought it be easy as well. Monkey see, monkey do :)... But since I am slightly shorter, with the weight that I have (tank + weight system), and the decreased mobility from the dry suit... I put my leg up on the log, used it to lift myself up, then in SLOW motion, I fell sideways...TIMMMBEERRR! Hahaha... I think I had the classic running man pose (one hand up, one hand down) as I fell too. The coolest thing was because of all the gear, I did not feel anything from the fall (I was falling really really slowly, and I think the tank might have hit the ground first)...just like a turtle!

2) Drifting currents
All the previous times that I went diving, the water was pretty calm and not much swimming was really needed. A little kick here, a little kick there, and I am well on my way. Today though, there was actually a current, so actually had to kick in order to not drift away from the dive site. There wasn't any crazy currents, but enough to make me have to work out my legs a little. It did get better once we got deeper in the water though.

3) Supermaned up ~35 ft...
Started to dive, and began to see some starfish and what not. Went down to 50 ft for less than a couple minutes, then started slowly going back up a little bit. Prior to going back up, I had put more air into the dry suit so it didn't squeeze as much. But I guess with the tank having less air than before, going up 10 ft or so made a big difference in the volume of the air. So logically, I tried to release the air inside the dry suit to compensate. But the valve, like the last few times I was diving, does not seem to point at the right place properly and so the air couldn't get out of the dry suit. So with that, I began to shoot straight up ~35 ft!.. yikes! Pretty dangerous indeed. Tried at one point to kick myself back down, but then decided against it since I didn't want to get inverted - where a person would surface leg first (without a purge valve at the leg, that meant no chance of air coming out of the dry suit anyway). So I did the only thing I can do, and just fully exhale and kept my head down. Once I surfaced, I was hoping to go back down, but the air inside the drysuit just wasn't coming out. Even with the 20+ lbs of weight, I couldn't sink. So with that, I just made my way towards the shore.

I think I will try diving with a wet suit next time and brave the cold. That or I will need to find a place that rents dry suits where there's a button I can press to purge air from the dry suit, rather than a valve working based on height differential.

All in all though, it was pretty fun. I wouldn't say it was a perfectly smooth dive, but it was a good first official instructorless dive! Lots more things to work on before I will feel save going deeper into the abyss...

So the scuba adventure continues...
More Photos - Edmonds Oil Rig