Scuba Certification Training

This is the scene that appears outside Harry's Dive Shop.  If you click on the image you can see his contact information up close in order to contact him for diving instruction or fun!

My dive instructor Harry Blalock 

Me aboard Harry's boat off the shore at Ice Cream just before I fell backwards into the water.  Ice Cream is straight out from World Resort just beyond the reef.

View of world Resort from Ice Cream.

This is Harry's logo and I want to get one of his hats with this picture on it before I leave island as he has online apparel for his business.

Dear Friends, Family, & Readers:

I am excited to let you know that I am now open water scuba certified.  There are many questions you may have about my experience, but I will start my story at the beginning. 

            My story begins with my wife suggesting I do something for myself since I almost always let her buy things and do what she wants.  This was a gift to me from my wife, so for letting me spend $400 to become certified, thank you dear.  My first day of scuba training was very overwhelming and a lot of information was thrown at me.  After I started going through the PADI Scuba Training booklet, I began to understand some of the concepts.  I will always admit to being a slow learner and scuba was no different.  My first lesson went well, but when we left Sugar Dock (where I did my first confined dive) and I had time to relax at home I began to feel extremely sick. I decided to lie down and ended up taking a two hour nap.  After eating dinner, I decided it was time for bed and when I awoke my bed sheets were soaked with sweat!  I tried to teach that morning and didn’t last very long.  My fingertips began to feel numb and I felt dizzy. I later asked the principal to relieve me from my post so I could rest.  Later that day, I got a hold of the pastor who took me to the clinic where I discovered I was having cold chills because I had a temperature of 104 deg.!  The nurse practitioner, who prescribed my medication, told me that I must have had a clogged sinus and even though I didn’t feel sick at the time of diving the pressure in my ears pushed the bacteria into my bloodstream making me very ill.  In a way, this was my first scuba lesson.  In the training booklet it says, one should never dive while sick (I found out the hard way that sometimes you don’t always know you are sick).

            While I was sick, I had plenty of time to watch James Bond movies on Netflix. The funny thing was that the older James Bond movies include lots of scuba diving!  I began to look for the different skills I learned from reading the booklet and began to see them creep into various scenes during the movies.  Two of the most notable Sean Connery movies that have scuba (which there are more than just these two…) are Thunderball (1965) & Never Say Never Again (1983).  Ian Fleming (the creator of James Bond) was a naval intelligence officer and commander.  I imagine that the first James Bond movies were fashioned in such a way as to represent the spirit of the author and his character sketch of a man not unlike himself.  As a naval officer it could be assumed that he had a passion for scuba diving or at the very least may have had some training.  In Thunderball, there is an all out scuba/pneumatic (possibly spear) gun battle between British naval officers and the henchmen of the evil organization known only as Spectre.  In this movie we get to see different Scuba equipment used like electronic swimming assistant machines and even what divers call a “pony tank.”  A pony tank is a small tank used for extra air in the case of an emergency.  We also see plenty of diving knives, which normally are not used for self defense as is seen in the movie's underwater battle.  Ironically, even though James Bond kills some of the men with the knife he had, I was surprised that he didn’t kill all of them, sometimes he just cut their air tubes.  Underwater knives are mainly used to keep from being entangled in netting or plant matter.  In this film we also see James Bond take off his tank/ BCD while holding on to it in order to go inside a ship wreck before detonating a bomb he placed inside.  This is important because if he had let go he would have been pulled to the surface.  In the movie Never Say Never Again, we see other skills like how to purge one’s facemask of water (even if it was a bad guy who performed the skill in the movie).  James Bond was truly a suave character and many scuba divers are suave as well in that there are so many colors and accessories that go with the sport and its equipment.  I believe James Bond truly was a suave scuba diver and had the money to invest in the sport.  I found it funny how the PADI manual actually mentions such accessorizing within its explanations. 

            My second confined water dive went well.  Not too many interesting things happened during this dive…but I did find two golf balls at Sugar Dock to put into my golf bag. I accidentally pulled out a rear purge seal on the BCD I was using, which annoyed my instructor, but luckily he knew exactly what to do. Ironically, the second dive, come to think of it, was plagued by use of equipment inappropriately (by me) or the annoying o-ring that broke on my instructor’s tank that caused him to sound like a mosquito that buzzed not only on the surface but in the water as well.

            My first open water dive was perhaps the most fun for me. During this dive we dove from shore and went between an opening in the reef at Lao Lao Beach. I learned lots of important skills on the two dives we did that day.  We went to a depth of about 43 ft. and while there I practiced some skills I had learned. We then swam for fun and I was able to hold a small sea urchin that stuck to my hand like Velcro while seeing three adolescent green sea turtles up close (which was way cool).  This was also a good day because of its clear visibility and sunshine. 

            My second set of open water dives were from Harry Blalock’s (my instructor) boat with a few other local divers and Harry’s wife Kelli who decided to join us.  The first boat dive was from Naftan Pt. (not near the beach), and it was very beautiful. The second dive that day was at a place nicknamed “ice cream” by local divers.  I did not pry as to the reason for this name, but I assume it is so nicknamed because one time while at that particular dive site there were a great many eagle rays that came through and like ice cream was a real treat.  Unfortunately, the day we went there were no eagle rays and the visibility was maybe 30 ft… perhaps another time it will be better. 

            During my written test I only got two wrong on the pretest chapter reviews.  The actual test I got six questions wrong.  I feel pretty good about that number and in my head I feel as though I only got five wrong.  I say that because five of the questions I put questions marks next to (because I knew I couldn’t remember and had to guess)… the sixth problem was just me not reading the question completely when I knew the answer haha.

            Harry Blalock, a.k.a. “The Axe Murderer” is an excellent instructor who cares deeply for the profession he has chosen.  He has many websites online that people can go to in order to contact him about going on tours, receiving equipment rental, or repair service.  The following websites he created for viewing are as follows: http://saipandiver.smugmug.com/  ,   http://www.axemurderertours.com/    ,    http://harryblalock.blogspot.com/ .

            Here is a poem I decided to write about scuba diving for Harry to have as a gift should he want to put it into a frame at his shop:

SCUBA

Formations abound on a shelf of life

its color like that of various molds and fungi as

vast in its reach, but without harmful effects.

Divers enjoying an afternoon on their weekend

see glass fishing balls rise to the surface, glimmering in the sunlight,

but unable to act as a support for fishing nets as they vanish

at the surface.

Is this a dream? Soldier fish swim at the ready and

while a Moray eel has its teeth cleaned unaware that

there are observers both behind and above.

What diver cannot help but stalk the many beauties of

the sea for from Poseidon’s Maiden I was let down

gently to the ocean floor.

Scuba is my dream, my tank a vector, thirty minutes

of sleep beneath the wet blanket is more

than enough for an outing for the

pressure is great, I must again see the light

where my dream too must surface dissipating like

a glass ball.

Saipan Time (also Guam time)