Subaqua Sternal Rubs

After what has seemed like an eternity (Ok, so it was a month), I finally got back in the water to do some scuba diving. Nasty things, like more final exams are not for another week (didn't I just have those?), so I figured I'd better seize the opportunity. It was a nice morning of diving - only four divers on the boat, split between two divemasters.

The first dive was the the Bianca C, a 600ft cruise liner of 1960's vintage that I have dove a few times before. This dive was a little different though - we ended up dropping on the stern section, which broke off as a result of the fire that sunk the ship. The stern is in deep water - I got down to 137 feet (my deepest dive to date), and I only barely got to the top of the structure. I was fine with going a bit deeper, and had selected to use air instead of Nitrox for that reason (as the maximum operating depth for the house Nitrox blend would have been exceeded, possibly leading to underwater convulsions as a result of oxygen toxicity), but my dive computer thought I should be more conservative and only gave me 2 minutes of no-decompression time at 137 ft. Reluctantly, I began my slow ascent that continued pretty much for the remainder of the dive. My profile can be seen in the graph to the right. Note to worrisome parents or pseudo-parents: No alarms were recorded by the dive computer There is a resident reef shark, and an occasional bull shark that inhabit the wreck at that depth, but unfortunately neither were home. The extent of the fish life was some barracuda and other small fish at the bow of the ship (in about 90 feet of water).

The second dive was to Dr. Groom's Garden, a shallow coral garden at about 30-40 feet. I was hopeful that I might find my cell phone that I lost on a night dive a while back. While I doubt the phone would still work, all I really wanted was the SIM card so I could possibly retrieve all the phone numbers I lost. Unfortunately, no such luck. Very beautiful coral, schools of reef fish, and a turtle were among the marine life that we saw.

On the way out to the first dive site, the owner of the dive-shop encouraged me to start my divemaster course, complimenting me on how responsible I was. From now until the middle of July I have finals every other week, which means the alternate weekends are open for diving. The course is around $500 US, but as much free diving as I want after that. I have all of next term, plus the 3 weeks that I have to be here after classes are over/before they start due to my RA job. Definitely a possibility, but probably not until two weeks from now, after the next finals.

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