Spontaneous Scuba Diving

At about 10:45 this morning I was at the park for play group with the kids. Greg called me on the cell and told me he found out that one of the instructors was taking a few people up to the Homestead Crater in Midway to certify for their Advanced Open Water Scuba Diving certification--- and if we could be there by 4pm we could certify too.

I gave my siblings a quick call & between Alan & Andrew got the boys taken care of for the afternoon & evening. I whipped up a lasagna for them for dinner, packed up the gear, and after a quick stop at Ted's for air tanks and some more equipment we were off!

I love diving at the crater. It's 96 degrees and so calm and relaxing.. the resort uses it as a mineral bath for a spa treatment & after diving in it, I feel like I've had a spa treatment too. We did our 'deep' water dive (it only goes down to 65 ft--- but any dive is fun!) & our 'night' dive, although with the time change, it wasn't as dark as usual, but dark enough to practice our hand signals with flash lights down there.

On our way home we stopped in Heber at the Dairy Keen for well deserved bacon cheese burgers, fries, onion rings, & a burnt almond fudge & brownie shake-- YUM!

While we were at the crater we got details on the rest of the group's plan for driving to Wendover, UT for the rest of their certification dives at Blue Lake (another hot-springs 'lake' that gets to about, oh, I don't know, 75 degrees this time of year?).

March 20, 2007 - Blue Lake Wendover, UT

Mel agreed to watch the boys for us all day, so we woke the up early and drove them up to Bountiful before heading to Wendover. We made great time & read our text chapters in the car on the way there. The lake was so beautiful! We geared up and jumped in.

Greg and I used the Diver Propulsion Vehicles for our first dive. DPVs are supposed to be a 'tool' for scuba divers to be able to cover more area since there are air and time limits-- but they are SO FUN! It's like having a mini hand-held jet ski to pull you around under water. We also did our underwater 'navigation' dive to practice using our compasses & following headings underwater. Oh-- Blue Lake is neat because art students have placed sculptures down there to find. The visibility isn't very good, but we were able to find the toilet (sculpture, that is).

One of my favorite parts of the dive was when i turned around to see Greg using a telephone that for some strange reason was attached to the platform down at 20 feet. It took me by surprise to see him making a 'phone call' when he was supposed to be looking at fish. And there were definately fish, but I don't know exactly what they were. We saw huge ones though that made Greg wish he'd brought his fishing pole. I was surprised to see lots of big bright yellow fish too.

Our last dive was the 'altitude' dive - which just means you're diving at an altitude above sea level-- but that would be all dives done in UT. We just have to learn how to correctly account for nitrogen levels & 'theoretical depth at altitude'.

It was a long long day, but so fun. I honestly think it wiped me out for the rest of the week. But, now I have my Advanced Open Water Certification, which just means I'm certified to do a few more different kinds of dives. Greg is going to be taking the Rescue Diver course next-- which I think would be a really really good course to take, but I don't know if the boys will let us both get away for that much. They weren't thrilled about our 2 days away. But I might at least be able to get in on the CPR courses.. I've done them a few times, but I still don't feel confident to actually perform it. ("Annie, Annie, are you okay?" How about that, Miss King, for a flash to the past?")