We are certified!

We finished our open water dives this weekend and we are PADI Open Water Certified Divers! We are really excited and ready to get more certifications in the coming months.

This weekend probably could have been better, we started out in Devil's Den which is a natural sinkhole. You have to walk underground to get to it. Visibility was less 5-10 feet and we did the majority of our skills tests there. The toughest being compass navigation, but at least it forced you to trust your compass, considering you couldn't see anything. There were tons of catfish in the spring, it's said that there is one in there that is about 4 to 4 1/2 foot long, though I didn't see it. We did see alot of catfish that were easily 2 foot long though. The outside temp on Saturday was 55 degrees, and of course the springs were 72 degrees. So in the water not so bad. Out of the water was awful. We had 3 dives there on Saturday and each one was colder with less visibility. By the time we were ready to get out, a thunderstorm showed up complete with a lightening show, which is really exciting when you are carrying around scuba tanks and you are wet. y the time we left we were ready to go! We drive to Judy's and stayed for the night.

The next morning, we woke up and the temp was in the 30's, which given the head cold I woke up with, I knew would be a problem. You aren't supposed to dive if you have a cold, because you can't equalize your air spaces (ears, mask, etc) because there is mucus build up. (Just like taking a plane ride or being at altitude). So, I loaded up on some medicine and went anyway. I only had 2 dives left to get certified, this wasn't stopping me! Plus, this day would be our drift dives down beautiful Rainbow River!

So we had breakfast and headed for the river. We got there, get geared up and the boat arrives. We go down to the boat only to find out that the captain can't find the boat keys. Which is really delaying us and we are trying desperately to get out in front of a group of about 30-40 divers so that they don't mess up our visibility. After about an hour delay, we were on our way. Our drift dives were great! No kicking, just a 1 knot current floating you down the river. Of course the Florida wildlife is great, we saw tons and tons of fish and some pretty cool little popcorn springs and bubbling springs. Our drift dives were about an hour and a half total. And, after that we were certified! Of course we still had to deal with it being so cold when we got out. We got all our gear packed up and finally headed home.

Today I am feeling pretty bad, my ears are having trouble and I have a pretty rough sinus problem. If it persists, I will visit my doctor for some remedies!

We have had a great time doing this! We can't wait to start going on some dives and getting some pictures of our new adventures! Of course James is still wanting to get Cave certified but we have to have ALOT of dives under our belt before they will even talk to us about that. We will keep you posted on our trips!