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!