Keep Breathing

I came into work yesterday to find a diagram of tallied shark attacks in California sitting on my keyboard. Officemate Ben had found it in the LA Times over the weekend. Last week's attack in Solana Beach was the 98th "unprovoked" attack in CA waters since 1926. Only 8 of them have been fatal tho...

I brought up the attack in my class because a portion of our book obviously mentions animal encounters. My instructor said that most incidents happen at the surface and that the chances even there are really slim...so we carry on.

I spent 10 hours Sunday learning about diving. At least four of them were in the pool. I was quite pruney upon exit. I did well with the swim test (tread water for 10 minutes and then swim 200 yards once without fins and then again with snorkel and fins). Did well = survived. Turns out I swim better/faster without fins than with them. I've never really used them before tho, so I guess I just have to get used to it.

After that we put the wet suits and gear on. That was quite the process. Scuba has SO MUCH STUFF. Like seriously. Why couldn't tennis or jogging be so visually rewarding?

We kneeled down in the shallow end to get used to the whole breathing thing. This is when my status as a mouth breather comes in handy. I surprised myself at how well I mastered the breathing and regulator malfunction tasks. I didn't, however, do as well when it came to not panicking when my mask filled with water. It was a little too reassuring that we could stand up and be breathing air. When we're 60 feet down we won't have that option. Next we attempted to scuba to the deep end. I say attempted because the pressure in my ears was so bad I couldn't continue. We learn how to equalize that pressure, but I couldn't get it to work. I need to get into the habit of starting to equalize before the pain starts and then just continuously do it.

That being said, when I fly, my ears usually pop for days afterward, so maybe I'm gonna have a tough time with mastering equalizing.

There's only four people in my class, and two of them are a couple. So my buddy is the remaining married guy (SOML) who's taking the class because his dad is into scuba and wants them to do it together. When I dive in the Caribbean, I'm going to request being buddied with a divemaster, which I think would be preferential anyway.

I really can't believe it's almost May. Like two days away. My dad (and Chad McC) celebrated bdays yesterday. Happy days to them!

Seeing Janeane Garafalo tonight, so that should be fun.

Netflix reviews:

Hannah Take the Stairs: Yay! I related to Hannah on a certain level. This movie also unexpectedly featured male and female nudity...so if you're into that...
The Big Sleep: I'm pretty sure I had seen this before because I knew everything that was gonna happen. It was weird. I just checked to see if they recently remade it, and they haven't, so I'm guessing I really did see it and just forgot.
Innocence: This is part of my "catching up with Marion Cotillard" series. I'm still not sure what this movie was all about, but it was really pretty to look at. And since it's mostly children, the French was elementary enough for me to not have to be completely reliant on the subtitles, which I enjoyed.