Following diving rules

Diving was a new experience for Louie and I in our fifties. Our son, Patrick, invited us to take instruction because he wanted to learn to dive, and thought we could spend some time together traveling and diving. We literally jumped into the pool and got certified before he did. I was concerned about Louie on our certification dives in the cold Pacific Ocean off the coast of Long Beach, CA. We had spent a lot of time at Lake Powell riding waverunners with several couples as friends. We tried to splash each other and sometimes carving a fast, sharp turn to spray another couple, ended up with Louie and I in the drink. She used to warn me, "Don't turn us over"! Lake Powell is muddy brown run-off water, and I thought maybe she was a little frightened by the unseen lurking beneath. When we were told to jump off the boat into the bottomless, briny deep, on our first open water dive, there was no hesitation. Louie went in like it was the backyard pool. No big deal.

Later, I voiced my puzzlement to her that I thought she might be apprehensive jumping off a dive boat in the deep, bottomless ocean with no visible shoreline because of her previous concern at Lake Powell. She said, "Nope. I just didn't want to get my hair wet." So much for female trepidation.

There are a lot of crazy people that just like getting wet. I've met a number of them and they're often on crowded dive boats. Diving is somewhat like flying; there are old pilots, and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots. There are old divers that go by the book, and bold divers that fly by the seat of their pants, and sometimes suffer the consequences. More than a few famous, experienced divers break a rule and end up in the chamber, or worse. Me, I love the buddy system and I want to come up every time to share the experience and go back and do it again and again. Following the rules in the sea-down-under increases the chance to become an old diver.