The Dark Place

Meredith: Are you in the dark place?
Christina: (nods)
Meredith: Yeah, me too.

It's those little tidbits that remind me of how Grey's Anatomy used to be and keep me hanging on hopefully through the crap that it's become.

I found myself in the dark place last night.

What was to be my first extended day of scuba diving in the Pacific Ocean will now be remembered as a 9 hour bout of seasickness hell that I couldn't escape. Needless to say the whole diving thing never happened.

I took a bonine and a dramamine an hour before the boat left the dock. It didn't seem to matter. During the two hour ride over to Catalina, I felt progressively worse. Everyone said I would feel better once I got in the water, so they put me in the water first thing and helped me put on my equipment. Shortly thereafter is when I started throwing up. In the water. It was less fun than it sounds.

I was then told I could go ahead and dive and that I could puke through the regulator if I needed to. That didn't sound like fun to me. I snorkeled around a little bit. Saw the tops of the kelp forest. And then puked some more.

Note: They also kept telling me that if I DID puke the fish would come a-runnin and really love me!!! Puke and we'll see more fish! Who are these people that can puke and still go on to have fun? I'm not a fun post-puker.

Note #2: Even tho they were all strangers, they were all super nice and I could tell they felt bad, but still...

I struggled with the decision to try to dive or get back on the rocking boat. Neither option at the moment seemed attractive. Fearful of the whole puking through the regulator at 60 feet thing, I chose the boat. So the rest of my day was spent heaving over the side of the boat or curled up under my hat on one of its decks. Not quite the experience I paid $135 for.

So here I am, two weeks to the day from my first day in Grand Cayman, and no scuba certification. My regular teacher (who was not with me yesterday) cancelled my follow-up dive today for fear of dehydration. She's now not available until the last weekend of June to finish my training. The make-up dives will cost me hundreds of dollars. That was one expensive day of puking let me tell you. In addition, the certification will come post Grand Cayman, and I don't really have plans to scuba otherwise.

Obviously I can Grand Cayman it up without scuba-ing. I'll enjoy snorkeling. And now I know to avoid boats.

It's just a bummer. I felt really defeated.