Scuba – Open Water Saga

Scuba Comic: Antarctica

To be a professional diver in Antarctica you often need to be productive in both commercial and scientific diving. Commercial diving programs in the United States can last 6-12 months and involve a lot of hard work, so you have to have put in the time and money to get the proper qualifications.

Scientific diving credentials are easier to get in theory, but the programs are selective and it can be hard to find a place that will train you. Programs are most often offered through universities, sometimes only to enrolled students.

On top of that, you need experience ice and drysuit diving. Drysuit diving courses aren’t hard to find, but ice diving is extremely location-specific! During my research I found the best places to ice dive in the US are in the Midwest.

Diving recreationally in Antarctica is expensive. You can’t just fly down for a weekend trip. If you’re in North/South America, you travel first to a city called Ushuaia in Argentina. From there, you sail to the Antarctic continent over the course of 3 days. Most people visit on a liveaboard trip, which means you “live aboard” a ship rather than staying on land in a hotel or resort. Your home base for the trip is the boat itself, but you can often join excursions on the land. In the case of Antarctica, snowshoe hikes are common land excursions.

Roundtrip airfare is expensive, and the liveaboard trips are expensive. It’s definitely a once-in-a-lifetime trip. But what a trip it would be!

Unfortunately I don’t do well in cold climates anymore, so Antarctica might not be the best place for me to visit. I wouldn’t turn it down if I impressed a rich billionaire patron, or found the perfect research opportunity, or entered a sweepstakes for an all-expenses-paid vacation though…!

So, what’s the big draw? For most people, it’s the wildlife. Emperor and Adelie penguins are the stars of the show, alongside many species of whales and seals. For others, it’s the almost alien landscape and beauty of the ice and snow. For some, it’s the remoteness and the peace that comes with it.

And for me, it’s the truly alien life hidden in the water.

Polar and deep-sea gigantism are fascinating: some things that live in extremely cold, extremely deep water have evolved to grow big. Scientists still aren’t sure why, but a leading theory is that it’s related to oceanic oxygen content. Colder water holds more oxygen, which promotes growth.

Similar animals in colder waters are normally larger than those living in warmer waters. I’ve seen this in real life and have been able to compare sizes! For example, the frigid Pacific Northwest of the United States is home to the Giant Pacific Octopus, which dwarfs the Caribbean Reef Octopus of the Yucatan Peninsula.

When you reach Antarctica, the water is so cold it encourages truly gargantuan growth. The aptly named Colossal Squid (different from the Giant Squid) is in the running for the heaviest known invertebratehe Giant Phantom Jellyfish (I made an art piece for a zine featuring this animal!) is one of the longest jellies to exist. The Giant Volcanic Sponge is even more impressive because not only does it get huge, it’s apparently extremely long lived — like over 10,000 years old. How is that even possible?! What is life like for a sponge that’s lived for millennia?

Actually seeing any of these animals is difficult because they don’t often come up to the surface. They live far below the limits of recreational, and in some cases technical, diving. But it’s very cool knowing there’s stuff out there so different and strange. I feel like just knowing about these possibilities makes the world seem like a fuller, more exciting place. Think of the possibilities! I’m getting excited just thinking about it, even if I never actually visit.

Well, a girl can dream and watch documentaries. Speaking of which, if you’re interested in the Antarctic documentary I mentioned, check out Antarctica: A Year On Ice. It follows an Antarctic crew over a year, and while it doesn’t feature any scuba, it’s well worth a watch.

Scuba Comic: Eye-To-Eye Shark Dive

I visited some friends up in Washington, and we went on a shark dive at the Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium!

The Eye-to-Eye Shark Dive is pretty cool because you don’t have to know how to scuba in order to participate. You don’t have to learn to use any equipment, and you don’t even need to swim (no fins necessary!). This meant it was perfect for my friends, as they’d never gone diving before.

Of course, since my friends had never been diving before, they were a little nervous. I thought this experience was the perfect way to ease into being underwater and experiencing scuba, because you basically stay in one spot the entire time and it’s incredibly accessible.

You get into a large cage (completely open at the top) with easy access to the deck via a ladder, if you want to end the dive early. For those who need assistance, there’s a lift to help you get in and out of the water. You wear a drysuit, so you can wear comfortable clothing underneath and stay dry, and you breathe through a regulator attached to an enormous tank on the surface. No need to strap a heavy tank to your back or fiddle around with a BCD!

You really just get to sit back, relax, and watch the sharks swim by. It’s low-stress, and you have a staff member in the water with you at all times. It’s a really well-designed activity! You’re provided everything you need.

There were 4 species of shark in the tank, but we only saw 3: the white– and black-tipped reef sharks, and the Indo-Pacific leopard shark. Another, the wobbegong, was hiding too well for us to spot.

I’ve actually seen white-tipped reef sharks on dives in Mexico. They’re very shy! The ones in the aquarium were initially very curious, swimming in front of the cage in rounds to check us out.

_{OTP is short for “One True Pairing,” sort of like your ultimate celebrity couple you love to follow}. _{Taylor Swift & Travis Kelce ain’t got nuthin’ on Peanut & Butter!}

My favorite thing about the event was actually the people. The viewing window for the people visiting the zoo/aquarium looked in at the cage, so I got to watch the looks on people’s faces as they realized there were divers in the water! The kids were generally more interested in watching the sharks, but all the parents were pointing at us and very excitedly waving. It was pretty cute.

The star of the show was definitely Ms. Peanut the leopard shark, who was doing great work contributing to the survival of her species. You can read a couple articles about her, Butter, and the zoo’s conservation program in this article, and get an update on some of their babies in this post! Hip hip hooray!

The cage had a little door that opened up for us to better see the white- and black-tipped reef sharks swimming by, but as soon as it did open, the sharks got shy and stayed away from us. Dang it! So much popular media shows sharks as being aggressive, but in my experience they’re pretty wary. Plus, the average person is way larger than a white- or black-tipped reef shark. They don’t want to mess with us!

The dive was about 45 minutes long, the average time for a shallow scuba dive. After we got out, one of my friends said they enjoyed it so much they’d be interested in learning to scuba dive for real! There’s nothing quite like sharing the love you have for something with another person. How satisfying!

The outing was a success. We got to try something new, the sharks got some enrichment, and I think we added some fun to some random zoo visitors’ day. Next time I’m in Washington, I’ll have to go see Peanut again.

Now I may not be the #1 Biggest Peanut Fan in the world, that honor probably falls to one of the zoo’s aquarists and shark-wranglers, but who else can say they have a homemade Peanut Fan Club badge? Maybe I’m her #2 Biggest Fan haha!

🦈 Looking for more information on the Eye-To-Eye Shark Dive at the Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium? Check out their webpage here!

🦈 And many thanks to my friends for joining me in the adventure! You can find them online–they’re both artists!– as Vaquero-Azul on Instagram and Chaotic-Zora on Tumblr.

Scuba Comic: Divemaster vs Master Diver

There are two separate certification levels you can get that have very similar names: Divemaster, and Master Diver. One is a professional certification, the other is kind of like a certificate of achievement. What’s the difference, and why does everyone keep mixing them up?

The thing that makes it even more confusing is, for the most part, you take the same path to get to both Divemaster and Master Diver. You start with your Open Water certification, get your Advanced Open Water certification, then get your Rescue Diver certification.

From Rescue Diver, the path splits into two options: Divemaster, and Master Diver.

The Master Diver path ends. There are no further certifications that require Master Diver as a prerequisite.

The Divemaster path continues, and is a prerequisite for all the professional certifications like Instructor.

Master Diver doesn’t teach you new skills, and there’s no dedicated course you have to take in order to receive the title. There are requirements you have to fulfill to qualify:

50 dives

Rescue Diver certified

5 specialty classes

Then you submit an application through a dive shop and get a spiffy new card!

What are specialty classes, then? Specialty classes teach an already-certified diver a specific scuba skillset, rather than teaching how to dive in general. Some are really technical and can be difficult, some are super easy and you basically just have to pay for the class to get the certificate. Some classes just teach you knowledge, others certify you to go to new depths or environments.

_{Courtesy of PADI}

Specialty classes like Coral Reef Conservation or AWARE Specialist don’t require dives, just a short classroom session. You don’t learn skills. I took both and thought they were valuable!

Classes like Emergency Oxygen Provider don’t require dives either, but they’re very hands on and teach you skills (usually first aid).

Classes like Underwater Naturalist, Boat Diver, or Night Diver require dives and teach you new skills, but don’t give you new permissions. Anyone can dive at night regardless of whether they have the Night Diver specialty certification; the class is still a good idea to take if you’ve never done a night dive before.

Classes like Cave, Deep, and Drysuit require dives– more than the average Specialty class– and give you permissions to do new types of dives. These are classes for which the type of diving carries more risk and/or you need to use specialized equipment, so you really need good training. No dive shop or guide will let you near a cave if you don’t have your Cave Diver certification.¹

Enriched Air Diver is a weird one because you aren’t required to dive for the class, but you can’t dive with enriched air unless you have the specialty class.

Since you don’t take a “Master Diver” course, this is considered a Rating rather than a Certification. However, nobody in real life calls it a Rating (except me, because I’m that nerdy about this stuff).

Divemaster is a whole course and it’s very involved. I have a couple comics on here about my Divemaster learning experience!

Here’s the thing: you can be BOTH a Divemaster AND a Master Diver. They are not mutually exclusive! If you are at least Rescue Diver certified, with 50 dives or more, and 5 Specialty classes, it doesn’t matter if you’re an Instructor or Divemaster or a Course Director, one of the highest levels where you can teach Instructors. You qualify, you can get the rating. Most Divemasters I’ve met have never applied for Master Diver though– I think they see it as a waste of time and money since they’re already professionals.

I think it’s an excellent excuse to get another spiffy card. I want to be a Divemaster and a Master Diver! Maybe I can combine the two names and call myself a Master Divemaster…

It’s a common question I see online: is getting Master Diver worth it? The general consensus is, no. I think it’s worth it, depending on what you want from scuba diving.

For example, if you’re an Open Water certified diver and you’re just interested in diving on vacation maybe 1-2 times a year, then any further certifications wouldn’t be needed. Unless of course you love diving and are interested in training more for the love of the sport.

If you’re a Rescue Diver, you’ve already got a huge requirement out of the way and you’re probably really interested in scuba. In this case, having Master Diver as a goal would be great in my opinion. Taking the 5 specialty classes and getting in more dives will make you a better, safer diver. I think it would also make you better prepared for if you wanted to become a Divemaster.

In sum, the biggest differences between Divemaster and Master Diver are the required training and what you can do with the certifications. You need to do a specific training course to become a Divemaster, and you then get to professionally guide people and potentially make money. Master Diver has requirements you fulfill on your own time, and is not a professional certification. You can be both if you’d like.

So, what do you think: would you be interested in becoming a Master Diver someday? Or maybe even… a Master Divemaster!

Courtesy of diver below

Well… they shouldn’t, but shops and guides make terrible decisions too. Don’t! Go! Cave! Diving! Without! The! Proper! Certifications!!! ↩︎

Scuba Comic: Gear!

Every once in a while I like to categorize all my art supplies so I can compare what I’m using now, to ask the stuff I used to use. I’ve started doing the same thing with my scuba gear, now that I’m shortly adding pieces to the collection. It’s cool to have a record, for memory’s sake.

I technically don’t have much, but some of the items are really bulky. My fins and drysuit in particular take up a lot of space. Eventually, I want my own BCD and regulator/first stage & second stage set. I’ve used enough different kinds, that I think I know what I want now… I feel like I’m always changing my mind though!

I think I own mostly Cressi grear, because that’s what’s really available where I’ve lived. I’ve seen some disdain for Cressi in the United States, which really annoys me. It’s a good brand! It doesn’t have the cache of ScubaPro or other “high-end” brands that people like to throw around, so I guess some people look down on it. What a shame! The brand has several distributors in Mexico so it’s really easy to find, and it’s been durable and affordable. I’ll happily use it!

Scuba Comic: The Night Dive

I didn’t have any trouble with my sinuses, just an itchy throat, so I decided to risk it. I never ended up getting a sore throat, but I’m happy I went diving when I did because once the illness really took hold I had a stuffy nose and pretty gunked-up sinuses. I squeezed in that dive just in the nick of time!

Night diving reminds me of cavern diving. It’s very dark– in most cases it’s actually darker than a cavern or cenote. Different animals come out when it’s dark, or the animals you see at day have different behaviors. There were so many octopus on the reef, which I have never seen around here during the day.

The weird stuff swimming around in the water freaked me out a little. They didn’t bite, but they were attracted to our lights and hands and kept bumping into my skin. A couple looked like they were going for my face. I have no idea what they were! Where do they go during the day, and why do they only come out at night? So many questions…

Scuba Q&A (4)

This is a continuation of a previous post which you can access HERE!

>Are the scuba / wet suits comfortable?

Not really, to be honest! A wetsuit should be snug and slightly uncomfortable, but not actually uncomfortable. It’s important to have a close fit because of the way wetsuits work:

A wetsuit is aptly named, because you get wet wearing it. Neoprene, what wetsuits are made of, is a decent insulating material. When you wear a wetsuit a layer of water gets trapped between your skin and the neoprene. your body heat warms up the water which in turn helps keep you warm. You don’t want that heated water to get out, so you want the wetsuit to be a bit tight.

Neoprene compresses under the pressure of the water as you go deeper and deeper, so an effective wetsuit is going to be a bit tighter than you might like. It should NOT be super uncomfortable, but as you start diving and the neoprene compresses it’ll become a lot more comfortable. It should under no circumstances be painful to wear, but if a wetsuit is too small you won’t be able to get it on anyway.

>Can plus sized folk learn to dive?

Yes they can, and I’ve gone diving with a lot of plus-sized people! Some of the most confident divers I’ve been around have been large men and women. I’m a skinny girl myself and I actually consider it a bit of a detriment for this particular sport!

Diving can be enjoyed by anybody. This isn’t the exact answer to this question, but it gives me the opportunity to talk about disabilities and scuba.

I have a back issue, and despite not being able to do a lot of physical activities on land, I am fully able to dive. I need help when I need to have anything on my back like a heavy tank and weights, but when I’m underwater all the weight and pressure I would normally experience from lifting/carrying on land is gone. Others with more drastic health conditions and injuries– an amputee, for example– also have great success diving. There are lots of programs out there specifically designed to teach physically disabled individuals how to dive. Being able to move around freely in the water, when you can’t on land, is absolutely amazing.

And so on that note, different people with different body types can absolutely go diving. In my experience, people who have more body fat will stay warmer than someone with less. That doesn’t seem like a big deal, but that’s a huge deal. Water sucks away body heat about 20 times faster than air does, so when you’re a skinny-minnie like me, you practically freeze in relatively warm water. I personally think being cold on a dive is one of life’s worst tortures…

People with more body mass/fat can and do maneuver underwater just as well as smaller people. When you dive, you don’t swim like you would on the surface of the water. It’s a pretty slow, relaxed activity. You don’t have to be Michael Phelps– you just have to know how to stay horizontal and kick your fins smoothly. Anyone can do that with a little instruction and practice.

If a girl with a bad back and no body fat can dive, anyone can haha! The one thing I can think of that may make things difficult is equipment sizing. A dive shop might not carry a wetsuit that’s big enough, but as time goes on more and more accommodations are made to be available for as many different people as possible. If you’re a plus-sized person and you want to dive regularly, consider investing in your own wetsuit, boots, and fins. BCDs are very adjustable so that’s rarely been a problem in my experience.

>…How do you breathe??? Is it like regular breathing on land? Is it like snorkeling where you have to be really careful not to get water in your breathing equipment? Is it a secret third thing involving an ancient ritual or something??

IT IS A SECRET ANCIENT RITUAL! Haha just kidding!

Or am I…?

This is a question I get a lot. When you dive, you have a tank of air strapped to your back. The air from the tank flows through a hose, and at the end of the hose is a mouthpiece called a regulator. The air in the tank has a lot of distance to cover before it gets to your mouth, so when you take a breath from the regulator there’s a little bit of resistance. Some people get nervous that there’s any resistance, but I’ve found that once those people get underwater they get so distracted by everything happening they forget about their fears.

You really just breathe normally from the regulator. The regulator is designed to fail open, which means that if there’s any problem, the regulator opens and keeps supplying air rather than closing and restricting the air flow.

Now, if that does happen– a free flow occurs– then the air comes out of the regulator really quickly! It’s too fast to keep in your mouth. You should have enough air in your tank to get safely to the surface, and there’s a way to tip your head against the regulator to sip the air when its free flowing.

>I’ve recently heard about dives being done at shipwrecks in the Canadian Arctic (the wrecks of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror in Nunavut), and I was wondering how divers would deal with such cold water temperatures. (Presumably they’re doing it in the summer to avoid the ice, but still, I wonder how they aren’t suffering from hypothermia.)

Alright, first off, those are some hardcore ship names. Although I feel like naming a ship Terror and Erebus is downright bad luck…

This article answers this question, but let’s break it down into layman’s terms.

In one of the questions above I explained how a wetsuit works. There’s another type of suit called a drysuit. It’s also aptly named: you stay dry wearing it. Unlike a wetsuit, no water enters. Your body is completely sealed away and protected from touching the water. There are seals on the neck, wrists, and ankles (some suits like mine incorporate waterproof socks), so only your head, hands, and sometimes feet are exposed to the elements. This keeps you much warmer than a wetsuit. Air as an insulator is much more effective than water. Plus, you can wear layers in the drysuit because they won’t get wet!

This is the suit I have! _{Image courtesy of Hollis}

In the case of the HHMS Erebus and Terror, the water is so cold divers use specially-made drysuits. These drysuits have attachment hoses that pump warm water through the suit, keeping the divers warm. That sounds like absolute luxury to me! As one diver says in the article, however, the first few minutes are miserable. Even with gloves, boots, insulation, and warm water… that ocean is not fun to be in. Sounds like it doesn’t matter what time of the year it is.

>How do you deal with the pressure? I feel like my head is going to explode when I try to freedive past 20 feet.

I do not know how free divers do it. There must be a quick way to equalize your ears. Scuba divers generally descend very slowly, so we have time to equalize.

Scuba Q&A (3)

I told my friends online, “ask me scuba questions!” and they sent me some really good ones. This is a long one, folks!

>What’s your least favorite part of prepping for a dive?

I always feel like I’m forgetting a piece of equipment. At this point, I have almost all my own gear which makes it really easy to set everything up the evening before the dive. Despite that, I still always get this nagging worry in the back of my mind every morning as I’m driving to a shop, that I’ve left something important behind. I’ve got a pretty good track record now, so I don’t know why I worry!

Honestly though, my least part of prepping is setting up the dive with the dive shop. It’s the human interaction, getting information, making plans, changing plans, asking for information and not getting it… overall it’s been fine, but people can get really weird really fast. I just want to dive, man! I don’t want any drama!

>Did you have assumptions about scuba diving that changed since you began diving yourself?

As a kid I assumed diving was only for professionals. I didn’t understand that the vast majority of people who dive are doing it recreationally! Scuba was reserved for conservationists, military, filmmakers, etc. When my dad asked if I wanted to learn to dive, I didn’t know what in the world to expect.

>I know scuba divers try to maintain neutral buoyancy, but how do you know whether or not you’re at neutral buoyancy?

First let’s define the terms:

Buoyancy: The force a liquid puts on an object in the liquid, that pushes the object up. If an object is less dense than the liquid, it will float. If the object is more dense than the liquid, it will sink. If the object has the same density as the liquid, it will neither float nor sink. Buoyancy is the tendency of an object to float or rise when in a fluid.

Buoyancy is dependent on how dense an object is, and how much water it displaces.

Positive Buoyancy: You are floating. If you’re on the surface of the water, you are staying there. If you’re underwater, you’re moving up towards the surface. You are less dense than the water.

Neutral Buoyancy: You are neither floating nor sinking. If you’re underwater, you are staying still. You are not going up or down. You are at the same density as the water.

Negative Buoyancy: You are sinking. If you’re on the surface of the water, you are going under. If you’re underwater, you’re moving down towards the bottom. You are denser than the water.

The obvious thing to first check when diving is to see if you’re floating up or sinking down. If you’re moving up, you might have air in your BCD (the flotation vest). Air makes you less buoyant. If you’re sinking, you probably don’t have enough air in your BCD. By adding and removing a little bit of air at a time from your BCD you can get to neutral buoyancy.

Many divers have a dive watch or a dive computer with a depth gauge built in, or an independent depth gauge. As you scuba and adjust your buoyancy using the BDC (adding or subtracting air), keep an eye on the depth gauge to see if you’re still floating or sinking. When you’re underwater sometimes you don’t have a reference point to see if you’re moving up/down in the water column– if you’re diving in the open ocean with no bottom in sight, you might not realize how much you’re moving around! Having a depth gauge is critical.

Being neutral while diving has a lot of advantages. You can control your position in the water better, which helps you get close to things like coral reefs or rocks. Then you can get a better look at the interesting little creatures hiding there! Being neutrally buoyant helps your trim– your position when you’re horizontal– and that helps you swim forward better in the water. That in turn makes you work less hard, which keeps your breathing slow and steady. You use less air! This is all why learning how to get to neutral buoyancy while diving is so important. It improves your overall diving and experience.

>How did you learn to swim? 🙂

I was enrolled in swimming lessons at a young age. In a way, it was a safety requirement: I grew up near the ocean, so swimming was a particularly important skill to have. Knowing even just how to tread water as a kid could help save me in case anything happened. It was also a nice thing to know how to do when on holiday! Hotel swimming pools are the best growing up. Now as an adult I’m constantly thinking, “Who’s peed in this pool…? Am I gonna pick up warts?!”

As an adult you can also sign up for swimming lessons at your local pool, and I highly recommend it. I worked as a lifeguard for a summer in college and I saw plenty of adults learning to swim. It’s kind of a scary undertaking so I’m quite proud when I see people giving it their best try!

In order to become certified as a diver, you do need to know how to swim. You don’t have to be a good swimmer, but there are a couple swim tests you have to pass. Here are the requirements for the PADI Open Water Diver course:

Swim 200 meters/yards with mask, fins, and snorkel without stopping. No time limit.
Float and tread water for 10 minutes using any method. You cannot touch the bottom or sides of the pool.

Once you’ve become a certified diver, you don’t have to perform another swim test unless you want to become a professional (Divemaster).

>What’s your favorite encounter with an animal during a dive? I’d love to hear your stories!

The latest crazy animal encounter involved a lionfish. As a warning, the following story does involve spearfishing and an animal being hunted, so if you don’t like that kind of content skip down to the next questions.

Lionfish are invasive where I live, and divers sometimes hunt them. My instructor at this time had brought his speargun with him on a training dive, and I was keeping an eye out for the fish. We ended up finding one, and the instructor speared it. I had never seen someone use a speargun in real life before and I have to admit it was fascinating, if morbid.

Lionfish are surprisingly hardy. The fish was a fighter, and even after when we thought it was dead, it renewed it’s efforts to escape! My instructor was trying to feed the lionfish to an eel we had found, and removed the lionfish from his spear to do so. The dang fish practically came back to life and started swimming towards me and the other diver next to me.

Lionfish, in addition to being invasive, are venomous! They have big, beautiful spines on their backs that can deliver a nasty venom to anything that dares try to eat it. Or… to a couple divers it’s angry at. I didn’t want to get stung by a lionfish, and I certainly couldn’t let my dive buddy get stung, so I stopped it using the only safe thing immediately available to me in the moment:

I stomped it with my fin. Whack whack whack!!!! I tried kicking it away a few times, then pinned it under my fin when it wouldn’t give up. My instructor came over and speared it again, then waved it in the eel’s face one more time. The eel finally chomped down on the lionfish, and the problem was taken care of.

I still feel bad about smacking the lionfish. Yes, they’re bad for reefs because they eat native fish and outcompete everything in the area, leading to loss of biodiversity, but I don’t think most animals are getting beaten up by a diver’s fin.

Good questions, all!

Scuba Comic: Caverns, Caves, and Cenotes– Oh My!

The sargassum stink is bad. It’s not all day, but I smell it for at least part of the day every day. And I’m a 10 minute drive from the water! A lot of tourism in this area is dependent upon the beach, and if the beaches reek of rotten eggs, people won’t visit.

Courtesy of Riviera Maya News and Events

You can see in the image above, the sargassum–when not being removed by beach workers practically 24/7– piles up in a significant amount along beaches.

What can I say! I like bats.

_{IDC stands for Instructor Development Course.}

We dove The Pit first, even though according to the handy graphic on the right, you’re supposed to begin with Level 1 and progress through harder and harder cenotes. I initially asked the dive shop if I could join an easy, beginner cenote… but when I told them my certification level and number of dives, I got the impression that they figured I’d be fine starting in a more advanced cenote. I’m happy to say they ended up being right.

I can’t believe how clear the water was. It’s so clear, you forget you’re underwater. It really feels like you’re flying through space.

I wish I could do the experience justice, but it’s hard to capture the weird beauty on paper. You kind of have to experience it!

Entering the halocline is very sudden, there’s no gradient. I blinked, and suddenly the world was pixelated. If I held my hand up about 4 inches from my face I could read my computer– otherwise, the salty water reduced everything to grainy colors and vague shapes. Having unique, or brightly-colored gear might be a good thing to invest in…! It’s not very thick though, so you aren’t in the halocline layer for long enough for it to be a true safety issue.

I was marveling at everything when I saw a huge commotion to my right– tons of divers were waving their flashlights at something near the bottom, getting everyone’s attention. There was a guy swimming right on the sulfur cloud, dragging his fin tips. What struck me as odd was that nobody went down to try and pull him up or physically get his attention.

We had been told, under No Circumstances should you touch the cloud. Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200, Do Not Touch The Cloud.

Why exactly? We were assured it isn’t a hazard to anyone (I dunno about that, but okay), but up until 6-8 years ago divers were allowed to actually pass through the cloud and descend to the bottom, or swim on/in it. The cloud ended up being agitated to the point where it rose, filing more of The Pit. This reduced visibility and made the available area much smaller. Smaller space means fewer people can dive, which means fewer people visiting, which means less money is being made. And when it comes to money, people can get very serious.

Most cenotes are on private land, and often owned by collectives of indigenous locals. Entrance fees can be their main source of income, so anything that threatens their livelihood is bad news. The Pit was closed temporarily in the hope that the sulfur cloud would eventually sink back down to its pre-agitation levels…

And thankfully, it did! Since that incident, it’s strictly forbidden to agitate the sulfur layer. Like I noted above, it’s taken so seriously there was talk of calling the police. Photos were taken of the offending individual, which were shared among the staff, so I have a feeling this guy got banned.

Divemaster Course (2)

We last talked about the Gear Exchange, and how I initially failed it.

“Instead of exchanging masks, divers remove and replace their own masks.”

The PADI Instructor Manual had the info! That’s official, baby! And with just that one little change, I felt much more calm. I successfully completed the Gear Exchange the second time through, and it was shockingly easy when I had the right mindset.

With the hard part over, it was time to work on some other tasks.

I had no instruction on how to create the Emergency Plan or the Map. There’s also not a lot of guidance online!

Ah, Rescue Scenario #7! This is an assessment for Rescue Diver too. When I did it over ten years ago, I had to pull a fellow diver onto shore. This time, I had to tow the diver to a boat. I can barely remember my Rescue Diver training, but I feel like this time the assessment was so much easier.

I’m never going to live down the fact that I couldn’t tie the damn bowline. I was doing so well, but it was like all my practice and skill disappeared the moment I got underwater. I got water in my brain or something hah! And don’t even get me started on the 5 Point Ascent/Descent…

And the struggle didn’t end there. The next part of the course felt like a complete disaster. Nothing I did was right, and anything I thought I did well wasn’t good enough. Endless issues, endless frustrations. The stress kept building until it basically turned into a negative feedback loop: the instructor would get stressed, which would make me stressed, which would make the instructor stressed, which made me stressed… you get the idea. It was miserable, to be completely honest.