h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The only diving I have done was in 93 off the Barrier Reef at Cairns in Oz. It was an introductory dive and was quite amazing. The only problem was that I had been snorkeling, and by the time I was ready to dive, my wetsuit had dried out in the sun, so I was freezing cold.
Touching the sea cucumber was ace, felt just like velvet! memories

A wetsuit doesn't perform exactly as advertised. SInce it is a permeable material, it still allows water to be exchanged with your environment. When you move at a joint, you squeeze water out, which will be replaced by new water when you straighten out that joint. At the temperatures you dove, I would have used a drysuit.

Colonel Sellers, looking to cash in his frequent diver miles.

I would have liked a drysuit too, if it was allowed. Unfortunately, this was a checkout dive and we had to use a wetsuit. That last dive was actually reasonably comfortable. Unfortunately, my dive partner got cold and we had to end it early.

Sounds typical. The certification dives I performed were the worst experiences of my diving history... proof of the old adage "those who can't, teach." The very first one was conducted at Waikiki beach, which is absolutely unsuited for diving... too much wave action, sandy bottom, no protected cove, etc. I couldn't see anyone I couldn't reach out and touch, and this was my very first experience using the equipment, since we didn't do any pool dives. The disorientation assosciated with breathing underwater for the first time was much less alarming than doing so in a dangerous environment. The instructor's choice for the second dive was no better, and his advice was even worse. There was quite a lot of wave action at that particular beach (and I have found this to always be the case, and so I have never actually dove there) and it was strong enough to wash a diver ashore. This idiot decided that, for safety's sake, everyone should swim out with their BC's filled to avoid accidental drowning. This put us completely at the mercy of the waves, and after we all washed ashore, the dive was scrubbed. My partner and I pointed out that we could have made it if we had gone out with our BC's empty, as this would have allowed us to swim under the waves, but he would have none of it. It is a tactic that we successfully employed many times since postulating it that day.

*floating in, in her usual v.e.l.manner*

Hi B17, GL, Colonel! ..and Lil?

I've only been snorkeling, but since it was right above a coral reef in Red Sea at low tide, it was quite an experience. We were only a LITTLE troubled at discovering there was a shark observatory in the same bay...

Can you use contact lenses scuba-diving?

*heading for fridge to pour herself a Y of champagne*

They actually had you diving in open water without any pool experience? Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me. As you said, the first-time experience of breathing underwater is disorienting enough without the other distractions you were subjected to. It's been a long time since I did my certification, but I thought there was a large pool-component to the program, before you were ever allowed in open water. In fact, the open water dive weekend that I talked about was the culmination of the certification proceedure. Part of the certification was a requirement to be able to swim so many pool lengths in a particular time period, but I suppose you could do the same distance in open water. The certification authority was NAUI.

Lets see, clay pit near Peterbourough, England. Water temp 19C, visibility 5M max (in the good bits, down to about 2m or less in places). It was quite strange swimming along and all of a sudden the back end of a double decker bus which had been sunk there apeared.
Well it can only get better from here is what I'm thinking anyway

(will do some more diving then get a drysuit as it gets cold in the UK waters).

Titania: a point I probably should have covered in my article entitled "Scuba Equipment." First of all, the water magnifies everything, so people who are nearsighted can see perfectly underwater. But if you have astigmatism or some other condition that isn't helped by this, you'll have to take steps. Generally speaking, contacts are a bad idea, because you could lose them if your mask came off or became flooded. You can have corrective lenses made for your mask, but I expect this sort of thing would be rather expensive.

GL: The people I certified with were called NASE, and they had much looser protocols, which included allowing unexperienced people to dive in open water. I actually appreciated the faster learning curve for myself, since I pick things up rather quickly, but I would have steered clear of them for someone else and referred them to NAUI or PADI. It's a moot point now, however, as NASE is no longer in operation. In fact, the place I rented gear at in Hawaii quit taking their certification cards, but only continued accepting mine and my partner's because we had been regulars already before NASE closed up shop. If we hadn't managed to kill ourselves yet, we weren't going to, and they knew how thorough we were about checking out our gear.

Part of our certification also involved a demonstration of surface swimming skills, and, as you said, they could and were performed in open water. The instructor required this demonstration before we were allowed to don our gear at the site of our first dive.

I have a prescription lenses in my mask as I'm very short sighted. The cost of each lens came to about the same as the mask itself, tripling the price. (mask cost 36GBP, total cost 110GBP). After trying it in the water for the first time, wow it was amazing, being able to see properly underwater for the first time in years, that was such a good feeling, let alone doing basic breathing excersises underwater as well.

Phil, so you'd say it's worth the money?

*curls up in sofa, with Y, starts cuddling RL Springie*

Phil, your description brings to mind Hugh Grant in Notting Hill, sitting in the cinema with his prescription scuba mask on, due to the fact he had lost his glasses
And on that note friends, i must leave you for the time being.
Yet another week of little h2g2 stretches ahead.
Ciao.

G'night all!

*disentangling Springies nails from her long hair, drifting off in her usual v.e.l.manner*

*turns a deaf ear to people wearing wet suits when diving*

As an H.R.A.S.C. Lifeguard I should really warn of the dangers of sharks at this juncture but I can be bothered just now.

*A man wearing a "Jesus" mask walks across the river and into Lil's* Leaves Styx's newly knitted, waterproof, backpack*

*Wonders how someone can make a 'Jesus mask", seeing as no one knows what he looked like*

Think of a 30-year-old Yasser Arafat. They both come from the same part of Palestine.

That's still no guarantee that the mask would bear more than slight resemblances to him. Granted, the artists may have been lucky, but the odds are slightly against them.

*Sips some phlog and looks out the window*

*wakes up with a start in the corner*

Sigh. Did l miss Loony? l think he owes me money...
Ah well. l'll get him to pick up my tab at the Cafe...

Hey, Affy, what exactly is phlog? l always thought it was more a verb than a beverage...

*emerges from studio, groggily*

We had hellacious tropical storms all afternoon and early evening here, so I haven't been onlie. I have, however, been working on Billy, and at least the stuff I'm doing is saving satisfactorily! But it's nearly midnight already.

Sure hope nobody asks me to restore a photograph of Jesus.

*notices backpack* Ah, look at this! Where to leave it so he'll see it, though? *places backpack by Styx's feather nest*