So after a day in the classroom with 3 exams and mulitple knowledge reviews towards my divemasters certificate on Saturday I got to help with an open water class on Sunday. We did two hours in the swimming pole and then two open water dives. The students were brothers one 19 and the other 22. They hardly needed teaching! To them the dives were very exciting. To me I had a cold was finding it hard to equalize and it was 51F in the water which even with a drysuit was cold. I ended up with blocks of ice for feet which took a long time to unthaw. But on the positive side I was moving along in 40 feet of water when something came at me from above like a rocket – turned out to be a cormorant. Took me a bit by surprise at first I was thinking that is an odd fish and by the time my slow brain clicked the bird had taken off along the bottom. Amazing site.

I did my Nitrox course on Saturday so at the end of the month when I do my wreck diving course I will be doing the dives on enriched air. A little bit of extra oxygen isn’t a bad thing unless you get hit by oxygen toxicity which is totally counter intuitive to me. So this week I am finishing off lots of little jobs on all my Bay Area boats and packing for 3 weeks working in Florida.