LONG day yesterday. Got up at 4:30 am and took the opportunity to call Mum back home before heading down the Anacapa Dive Center for 5:30 to meet up with the other guys. We headed down the freeway a few exits to Ventura to the boat that would host our day’s diving. As I surfed the radio dial on the way down, I stumbled upon a discussion on anti-semitism on K-DAR: Christian Radio for the Gold Coast. As the item ended and the guest caller’s comments summed up, they faded in one of these horrible American sentimental / holy backing tunes full of wistful little-house-on-the-praire strings and walking-in-memphis piano… only the tune was God Save the Queen… That was bemusing to say the least…
The coastguard checked us all out for signs of terrorism, then we pootled off to an oil platform. We rookies hung out on board while the more experienced divers went and checked stuff out. I got signs of seasickness for the first time ever. Not pleasant. No actual puking, but lots of willpower required to keep tricking myself into seeing the boat moving and the ocean moving and it all being OK.
After the oil rig we bimbled over to Anacapa Island and Goldfish Bowl Point. We made our way down the anchor line and found a sandy patch to kneel in to’do some skills’. Visibility was a little under 20 feet and as I settled to the bottom with the group I was startled by a Sea Lion, which biffed in and out of the scene in about 1/4 of a second. I think this was the dive where I had to fill my mask completely with water and clear it again. I had very little trouble with this in the pool but in the colder ocean water I had a lot of difficulty forcing myself to breathe out of my nose into the cold salty mask interior. I just stopped, gave the instructor the OK sign, and collected myself then went for it. Not perfect, but I think I scored points for taking my time instead of continuing to panic. After that, we set buoyancy and went for a short tour: I got to cuddle a sea cucumber and a Sea Hare. Lowel spotted a shark under a rock but as I went over the rock I had to fight with my buoyancy so I ended up missing it. (as you go shallower, you expand and so you become more buoyant - you’re supposed to mostly use your breathing to compensate, and have an inflatable jacket for larger adjustments. I noticed a bit late that I was floating upward, and had to fumble for the control on my jacket.)
Dive three of the day, my second, was at Cat Rock on the same island. Vis was better again, and this time we had to settle carefully in a field of spiny sea urchins to perform some more skills. This time the tour took in a lobster, which eagle-eyed instructor Lowel spotted and extracted from its lair. When he released it in mid-water, it shot backwards using its tail as a paddle. I’m still pondering the evolutionary benefit of that. It seems in the underwater world it’s better for a crustacean to be able to see what it’s running away from rather than where it’s going. This trip was where I saw my first Senorita too.
My final dive, I was all qualified, so could just float about and check stuff out. My initial attempt to hang out with a shoal of fish was halted by on of the other guys smacking into the seabed and kicking up a cloud of sand and assorted debris! Miles, who’d also qualified on the previous dive, had hired a camera and was snapping away… that was cool, but in all the excitement, the buddy system started to go a bit wobbly: the idea is that you pair off for safety and generally stay within a couple of metres of one another, but we were an odd number, plus all the posing for photos…
Woo yay! Did my first dive in the ocean today. I don’t actually remember being born, but I’m sure it wasn’t as hard as the entry off the beach. Dressed in a 7mm thick rubber suit which makes your arms and legs stick straight out, and carrying a steel cannister full of air on your back, add about 26lb of lead weights around your middle and put on ridiculous long fins to make walking even harder. Then, trek backwards through the surf looking over your shoulder (in itself impossible) breathing through a tube while the sun bakes you in your jacket. By the time I got past the surf zone into the water I was ready for a nap. Once down there, visibility was about 1 foot which almost freaked me out: For a short time I had no idea whether I was still with the party or the instructors at all… But we just hung out for 20 mins making the OK sign at one another then made our way back up the line to the surface. About half the party gave up at that point (with 3 boat dives scheduled the next day we only needed to do one beach dive) but after 20 mins hanging at the beach the rest of us went back in for another one. Vis was a little better, about 4 feet, and this time we ‘did some skills’ toward certification, i.e. partially filled and drained masks, took out regulators and replaced them…then went for a wee tour of the seabed and cuddled a few starfish and decorator crabs.
Exit was into a different world. We dived off the coast of sleepy Santa Barbara and surfaced in Beachsville, California. By the time I’d made it past all the hard bronzed bodies to the car and got changed out of my wetsuit I was all but reduced to a slavering wreck. I *think* I stopped short of doing the wolf routine from The Mask but I can’t guarantee it.
Continuing the California therme, I saw a genuine CHiPs motorbike tonight! Yay!
People have been gently nudging me to stay for longer and longer while I’ve been here. The last figure mooted was two years. Hmmm. Take a bit of thought. So far I’ve thought “yeeeeah!” “aaaargh!” “yeeeah!” “aaargh!” “eeeeer!” “ummmmm” “arrrrgh” “yeeeah!”
That’s an approximate transcription. Let’s try some pros and cons
good: the weather
bad: the time difference
good: the weather, no, really the weather!
bad: medical bills
good: the service
bad: ummm
good: the beach
bad: I won’t be living on mission ridge
good: I will be working on mission ridge
bad: all the bread tastes wrong here
good: everything’s cheap
bad: the TV
good: I get to see lots of america from relatively close up
bad: the time difference
good: the local bands
bad: the radio
good: I get out of York
bad: I won’t be getting married and settled down anytime soon
dunno: whether I can afford a “fixer-upper” house here
dunno: how much relocation help I can get out of bosch
dunno: what strategically is better for career
dunno: what I’m going to do with all my stuff