Last weekend the kids went to a pool party for a friend at Gypsy Divers. The scuba diving school rents out time in a room and its heated pool for birthday parties and the like. I hadn’t planned to get into the pool at first but on a whim I dug up my ancient dive certification card from the training I got back in 1989.
As the kids got ready for the pool, I chatted with staff and asked if it was possible to get some gear on and try diving again. After squinting hard at the hair-covered picture on my dive card, the staff issued me a BC, regulator, and tank, and sent me into the storage room to hunt down flippers, booties (which Kelly found so attractive), and a mask. After a quick, two-minute refresher lesson on all the controls around me and a suggestion to stay near the shallow end at first, I straddled the poolside and slipped into the twelve-foot end.
As the water surrounded me and my exhaled bubbles rushed upward, my fond memories of diving came … uh, flooding back to me. I soon got my breathing rhythm and neutral buoyancy and happily drifted around the pool. What fun it was, even in a twelve-foot pool! I was free from gravity again.
My last dive of twenty years ago had ended in frustration. My ship was in the Philippines and my friend and a friend’s wife (both more experienced divers) joined me in diving around Subic Bay. We were 15 minutes into our dive, viewing the tropical life along the sea floor at 65 feet. I was enjoying my best, deepest dive ever when I looked with alarm at my air gauge: the rented gear had an air leak in it. Cursing, I floated to the surface: trading the companionship of my fellow divers for that of thousands of jellyfish bobbing in every direction. It was not a glorious end to my diving career.
After 45 minutes of floating around the pool, I had emptied the already half-empty tank. The kids were leaving the pool on their way to cake. I cleaned my gear, hung it up, and soon joined them. It wasn’t really my party, but the biggest smile in the room was still mine.