~~~ Part 7 ~~~
Tony and John were describing some of their more common dive sightings: a large variety of fishes, shrimp, crabs, conch, hard corals, sea fans, sponges, urchins. Often lobsters or sea turtles, depending on the site, sometimes a nurse shark sleeping, or a group of reef squid, or an octopus hiding in its den, or a large spotted eagle ray gliding over a sandy patch.
Elizabeth was rubbing small circles on Henry's back. He had seemed like his usual calm self when they were getting ready this morning and on the drive to the dock, but he had tensed up at the mention of eels, and looked like he was having real misgivings upon hearing about John's eel bite. She could hardly blame him, having found his anecdote cringe-worthy herself. Still, she knew all too well that they were both often in far more dangerous situations than scuba diving.
She nudged Henry with her elbow, and when he turned to face her, asked softly, "How're you doing babe?"
"I'm okay. Although," he started, with just a hint of a wry grin creeping onto his features, "if I were on their tourist board, I'd have stuck with the Amerindian name 'Malliouhana'. It might still mean 'eel' or 'sea serpent', but it's at least less obvious."
Elizabeth laughed. "Darned Europeans, having to leave their mark on everything." She paused, "You know you can stay on the boat while I dive. You don't have to get certified, or you can always get certified later if you decide you want to," she said in a rush.
"Babe, I'm a Marine. I can do this."
"Just because you're a fighter pilot doesn't mean you have to be a frogman too," Elizabeth pointed out sensibly.
"I know," said Henry. "And I'm not trying to prove anything. I really am okay," he reassured her calmly. He gave her the dive signal for "okay" to reinforce his point. She took a moment to study his body language. He was definitely telling the truth. She nodded and signed "okay" back.
"Hey, did I ever tell you what Ali's roommate Lucinda said after I mentioned I was a Marine?" Henry asked.
Elizabeth chuckled. "She thought you were a ... what was it? Sea lion trainer?"
"Dolphin trainer," Henry corrected. "That sure would have been a different career."
"Oh, I don't know, the Navy uses dolphins. You could have been a dolphin trainer...," Elizabeth paused and arched her eyebrows "and a fighter pilot, and a religion professor and author, and a White House advisor, and..."
"Well, when you put it that way, I guess I could have been a dolphin trainer," Henry conceded. "After all, dolphins might be more attentive to lectures on Aquinas than some of my UVA undergrads. But can you imagine my dad's reaction if I'd told him I was going to be a dolphin trainer?"
Elizabeth burst out laughing. Before they could let their minds wander too far, thinking about careers past and maybe future - President of the United States? First Gentleman? - Tony pulled out a laminated card, and they returned their attention to him and the task at hand.
The card illustrated scuba hand signals for things like "descend", "problem", "follow", "ascend", and "safety stop". Tony demonstrated each signal and then had Henry repeat it. He also went over numbers to communicate the remaining air pressure of the tank, as well as signals for "half tank" (1500 PSI) and "low on air", and then the signals for a bunch of animals Tony might point out. Elizabeth had forgotten most of the signals for animals, as it had been years since she had been diving, but she remembered her favorite animal sign: seahorse, signaled by mimicking grabbing ahold of reins and riding a horse.
Once they had finished going over signals, Elizabeth slipped off her cover-up and wiggled her way into a 3mm short wetsuit, leaving it unzipped so she wouldn't completely overheat before she got in the water. With an ocean temperature of 84ºF, Henry was diving in just the swim trunks and rash guard that he was already wearing. Henry and Elizabeth retrieved their boots, fins, and masks, applied defogger (baby shampoo) and rinsed their masks, and made sure their snorkels were well-attached (on the left side of their masks since their regulators would be on their right).
After putting on their boots, they moved out of the shaded area of the boat and over to the dive bench where the tanks were secured. They stowed their fins within reach under the bench, and Tony and John started setting up their own gear. Tony talked his way through it, showing Henry, as he would need to assemble his own gear to get certified. John offered Elizabeth the choice of putting together her own gear or doing it for her, which he said he did for customers far more often than not. Since Henry had to do his own, she figured it was only fair that she do hers as well, and anyway, it would be a good refresher.
Setup consisted of inspecting and attaching the tank, vest-like BCD, and regulator stages and hoses. First they each looked over their respective tanks, paying particular attention to the tank valve and O-ring to make sure they were in good condition. (Divers, it seemed, were not inclined to repeat the Challenger explosion.) Then they hooked their BCDs on over their tanks. Tony and John helped them find a good height so they wouldn't hit either the back of their head or their tailbone on the tank while swimming. They each pulled their safety strap tight and buckled it, visually inspected to check that their BCD was centered relative to the tank valve, and then confirmed that the tank was securely attached by carefully lifting their tank by the BCD.
Next was attaching the regulator first stage and its tangle of hoses to the tank. When wearing the gear, the mouthpieces, also known as the (primary and alternate) second stages, would need to end up on their right side, and the pressure gauge and inflator hose on their left. Henry and Elizabeth unscrewed the dust caps from their first stages, and slid their first stages over their tanks' yoke valves and hand-tightened the yoke screws. Their instructors checked to make sure that their hoses were lined up correctly. Elizabeth and Henry clipped their inflator hose connectors to the corresponding connectors on their vests so they would be able to use the air from their tanks to inflate their BCDs. They secured the length of their hoses to their BCDs to keep them streamlined and attached their alternate mouthpieces in place so that they could be quickly located and retrieved for practice or if needed in an emergency.
Finally, they each turned their pressure gauge away from them and slowly turned the knob on their tank to open the tank valve. After opening their valves all the way, they checked their pressure gauges to verify that their valves were open and that they had the expected 3000 PSI or thereabouts, indicating that their tanks were full. John noted that some divers like to turn the valve back about a quarter-turn as a way to be able to quickly distinguish between open and closed, but that it's safer to always have the tank all the way open, or all the way closed when not in use, and to confirm with both the pressure gauge while actually taking a few breaths through the mouthpiece before getting in the water. They tested the inflator and deflator buttons, making sure to know which was which, and partially inflated their BCDs and listened to check for leaks. Tony also showed them how to inflate their BCDs manually if needed. They checked both their primary and alternate mouthpieces: for each, they pushed in the purge valve to clear the mouthpiece, smelled to check for air contamination, and then took a breath through the mouthpiece to test, while looking at their pressure gauge to make sure it remained near 3000 PSI, confirming that their tank really was open and full.
Their BCDs used integrated weights, so after John and Tony estimated how much weight they would need, they pulled the weight pouches out of each side of their BCDs and filled them with the provided lead weights before sliding the pouches back into their pockets until they snapped into place with a click. They also tested releasing and reattaching the weight pouches. John and Tony distributed smaller weights directly in "trim pockets" on the back of their BCDs, explaining that doing so would help them remain more horizontal in the water, and thereby reduce drag allowing them to move more efficiently. (It would also prevent them from ascending quite as quickly in the very unlikely event that they lost or needed to remove some of their weights.) They described the "weight check" that they would do at the surface of the water before descending and told Henry and Elizabeth that both guides would be carrying extra weights in case they turned out to need additional weight, especially towards the end of their dives as their tanks became lighter. Tony and John inspected the gear to make sure everything was set up correctly and gave them a few tips. They also had Henry and Elizabeth check each other's gear, as they would if they were each other's dive buddies.
Tony handed them dive computers, which Henry and Elizabeth strapped on their wrists like watches. He explained that the computers would give them more precise and easier to read depth measurements than the analog pressure gauges, and additionally time how long they had been in the water, dynamically calculate how much longer they could theoretically remain at a certain depth without absorbing too much nitrogen, warn if they were ascending too quickly, and trigger automatic timers for their safety stops and surface intervals. Since dive computer track the exact depth profile of the entire dive, they could also compute the time needed for their safety stop far more accurately than the conservative estimate of 3-5 minutes at 15 feet for any dive below 30 feet.
"Okay, I think you're ready for the site debrief," John began. "As you can see, we're not far from Sandy Island." He pointed at the nearby island. "We'll see a lot of fishes, sea fans, probably some stingrays as we swim over the sand. Once we get to the coral area, look for lobsters, crabs, maybe an octopus in the crevices of the corals. Those are all critters that hide. This is going to be a shallow dive for both of you, no more than 35-40 feet at maximum depth, and we'll be shallower than that most of the time we're in the water."
He continued, "We'll come up after 45 minutes to an hour, or sooner depending on your air consumption. We'll periodically ask you how much air you have, and if you can, proactively signal when you're down to half a tank - that's 1500 PSI. We want to end our dives with at least 500 PSI left once you are back at the surface. We'll do a safety stop of 3 minutes at a depth of 15 feet at the anchor line, which you can hold onto. Then we'll surface and swim to the back of the boat. If it's choppy, you might find it easier to swim just below the surface, but we'll still surface first so Leroy can see us. When you get to the back on the boat, hold on to the rope and wait for Leroy or one of us to tell you to do so before you take off your fins and approach the ladder, where you'll hand up your fins and then climb back aboard. The tanks and gear are heavy, so if you'd prefer to take off your BCD before you climb up the ladder, just let us know, and we'll demo inflating and removing the BCD and then help you with yours."
"We'll enter the water off the back of the boat one at a time. Wait at the surface, but out of the way of the entrance area, until we're all in the water. Elizabeth, we'll do a weight check and then head down along the anchor line and over to the reef in front of the boat." Elizabeth nodded her confirmation and zipped up her wetsuit.
"Henry," Tony took over, "we'll do some skills at the surface. Same as you did on your pool dives: I'll demonstrate and you watch, and then you repeat. Then we'll descend slowly, and you'll get the real experience of being underwater. We'll practice more skills, and then we'll have some time to look around and explore while you get more familiar with the equipment. We'll mostly use hand signals to communicate, but I'll bring an underwater slate as well, so if you have any questions," here he signed a question mark, "we can use it to write. Any questions before we gear up?"
"No questions," said Henry. "Let's do this."
He and Elizabeth sat down in front of their respective tanks. They put on their fins and masks, testing that the masks fit, but then removed their masks and hung them on their necks so they wouldn't immediately fog up. Then with the help of their instructors, they put their BCDs on, one arm/elbow at a time, making sure not to catch the strap on their bulky dive computers. They each loosely velcroed the BCD's cumberbund/waist panel, tightened the shoulder straps, adjusted and buckled the waist and chest straps, and inflated their BCDs.
Tony unlatched their tanks from the racks, where they had been secured to prevent them from falling over while the boat was in motion. One at a time, and with their instructors spotting them, Elizabeth and Henry stood up, somewhat awkwardly, as they were weighted down by their gear and wearing fins. Holding onto the railing and with their guides spotting them, they shuffled penguin-style the short distance to the platform at the back of the boat, the boat rocking not so much from the ocean, which was fairly calm, but from the change in weight distribution on the boat as they moved.
Tony asked Henry which of the two common types of entry, giant stride and back roll, he would prefer for his first dive; he chose the giant stride, and would then enter his second dive with a back roll. They put on their masks and inserted their mouthpieces, and the instructors demonstrated where to place their hands to keep their masks and regulator mouthpieces from dislodging and to keep from getting whacked with their gauges and other dangling parts on entry.
John went first, taking a big step off the boat and landing with a splash, with his head floating well above the water, and signaling that he was okay by holding one arm up and arching it over his head to touch the top of his head with his fingers. Once John had moved out of the way, Elizabeth followed him off the edge of the boat. Then Henry went, with a shout of "Semper Fi!", and finally Tony hit the water. At long last, they were really doing this!