Perfect Imperfection

This past Saturday the calendar had a big red circle around it (at least mentally) that said today was the day that I was to begin the final leg of achieving my SCUBA Open Water Certification. Two weeks out, my thought process had been: Eh, shouldn’t be a problem. I have no idea where this laissez-faire (you might say, stupidly arrogant) attitude came from, but I had it none-the-less. With a week to go, I considered thumbing through my SCUBA textbook, but then quickly discarded the notion. By the time Friday afternoon came around I was desperately scrambling around the internet looking for clues about what to expect. Of course my imagination kept presenting me with wonderful scenes of what might come.

Bill bobs in the murky, 43 degree water.  Despite the 7 millimeter wetsuit he’s wearing his entire body is shaking like he has late-stage Parkinson’s Disease.  He attempts to fend off the impending hypothermic death until, at the very least, his instructor finishes his description of the exercise. I mean, that’s just common courtesy.

“Yeah , I was…Marble?”

The Instructor does a sharp farmer’s blow into the water in front of him. “Yeah, that’s the nickname we gave ya cuz of the way yer head looks. Get it?”

“Oh…okay…yeah, I get it. That’s nice and offensive.”

The instructor shoots through the water towards Bill/Marble.”SCUBA ain’t for pussies, boy.” He quickly turns to the other students. “No offense to you ladies, of course.” He whips back to face Marble,”You got a problem with this first test then get your ass out of my pond, go home and hug one of your stuffed Teddy Bears for comfort! Got it?”

“Yeah, I got it.”

“Good. Then what was your question?”

“Uh, so…with the gravel in the mouth and the water up the nose…uh…what’s to keep us from drowning?”

The instructor shakes his head in disgust.”Well, if you hadn’t waited five months after you finished the classroom portion to do your Open Water you probably wouldn’t be asking that question. Would he class?”

The class responds in unison, “No sir! Stupid Marble!”

The Instructor holds up his regulator, “Let’s Dive!”

Of course that was just my imagination taking me into crazy-land for a moment. Now that I have actually completed my open water certification, and am officially a SCUBA diver for life, perhaps I should search the internet to see if anti-psychotic meds interact badly with the 79/21% gas mixture in normal SCUBA tanks?

In truth, as I laid in bed the night before I was to begin my weekend journey at Chatfield Resevoir’s aptly named “Gravel Pit”, stressing about all of the things I might have forgotten (Like would I mistake the “I’m out of air” hand signal for the “I like the taste of Twizzlers” hand signal) a calming realization hit me: If you forgot everything in 5 months, you’re  a deadman anyway. Maybe not this weekend, but somewhere down the road.

A sense of calm washed over me. For one of the first times in my life the idea of what a test was, what it really meant, became clear. This wasn’t about receiving a passing grade so that I didn’t look like a fool. This was a test to see if I actually comprehended and retained the knowledge that was given to me. If so, awesome, go have fun being a SCUBA diver! If not, better to figure it out with a team of trained professionals right in front of you, rather than faking your way through it and ending up with a bunch of Caribbean Groupers snacking on your dumb ass six months down the road.

It’s funny, but when I swat away the perpetual clouds of negativity that usually hover around my head, I can see clearly what a delicious, charmed, little life I have. Not only did I retain the classroom knowledge, and have the ability to apply it, but our instructors were wonderful. It’s refreshing to realize how much an enthusiastic fist pump can mean to you when your 25 feet down with a visibility of just under 3 inches. For me it meant a lot.

And lastly, it also meant a great deal to me that my wonderful wife, Heidi, (the one who started me on the underwater journey a year ago with a birthday present inspired by Shark Week) came along with our amazing friend, Beth, to document my little right of passage. It was her that took all these pictures and I have to say that I think she did a hell of a good job for her first time holding a DSLR in her hands.

Okay, that’s enough from me. I’ll see you under the water. Marble is out.