0.00505 Leagues Under The Sea
By Arav Ramchandran
I do a backflip off the SCUBA boat, the regulator clamped into my mouth, and my hand over my weight belt. A split second later, I’m submerged under the tropical water of Honduras. My Buoyancy Control Device reacts with the water pressure, shooting me up to the surface. The water clears and I slowly swim towards my buddy. My buddy signals to descend. I signal back the same thing. We raise and release air from our BCDs, and then descend into the depths of the ocean.
10 feet under, 40 feet under, 70 feet under and finally, we halt our descent at 80 feet. We check our no stop times and then start exploring the surrounding reef. 10 minutes in, something hits me. My regulator pops off, and water rushes into my SCUBA goggles. In a split second I lose my vision and air supply. How did I get here?!
“Mom, let's get this straight. You want to go SCUBA diving?!” I exclaimed.
“Yup! This summer in Honduras we are going to go SCUBA diving,” replied Mom.
“Will we learn how to SCUBA dive there or…”
“No, we have a lot of work to do. You need to study and get pool trained before you get to begin your training in the ocean,” said Mom.
Okay, let me give you some context. PADI is the Professional Association of Diving Instructors, and this organization is what certifies you to dive in thousands of places, all over the world. To get certified, you have to do over 8 hours of studying and exams, a pool test, and finally, 4 ocean test dives. Let me tell you how this went for me.
I opened the PADI course article and started reading: To signal out of the air, put your open hand under your neck and move your hand side to side. Once a buddy is alerted, signal share air by moving your hand back and forth towards your buddy. Your buddy must then offer you their secondary regulator. After inserting the secondary regulator, clear the regulator, and then signal for ascent. As you ascen…
“Mom! This thing is sooo freaking long!!!”
“Do you or do you not want to go SCUBA diving?” replied my mom.
And so it went on. I learned about hand positions, emergency and wind protocols, flag types, equipment types, water types,, etc. I spent over 8 hours studying and taking exams. I learned so much information and it all led up to the pool test.
We drove to a Novato dive shop. This was where we would be taking our pool test. We walked into an air conditioned shop area, with items varying from goggles to air tanks. The nerves started kicking in. My mom walked up to a glass desk where a middle-aged man sat staring, glassy eyed, into a computer monitor.
“Hello, we are here for a PADI pool test,” said my mom.
The man replied, “Oh yes, the instructor will be out shortly. While you wait, if you could please finish this paperwork.”
As my mom and her friend filled out the paperwork, we wandered around the shop, exploring the various equipment and tools. About 5 minutes in, we heard a squeaky sound coming from a doorway next to the front desk. We turned and saw a old man, soaking wet in a full wetsuit. He had teeth with a yellow tint and hair dyed green from the ocean water.
His voice sounded raspy as he said, “Hello, I will be your PADI dive instructor for today. Come with me.”
We followed him into a small rundown room with white walls stained brown. There, he gave us each a quiz. We spent about 30 minutes doing the quiz, to confirm we have done our studying and that we are knowledgeable about SCUBA diving before we get into the water. After taking the quiz, we found the equipment that fit our physique and brought it outside onto a deck, so we could learn how to put it together. After setting up our equipment, we entered the pool which was about 13 ft deep. For the next 5 hours, we learned several SCUBA diving skills and techniques. The experience was absolutely serene. It felt unreal to breathe underwater. At times, we would spend 30 minutes or more underwater before going to the surface. It was like having a super power. We completed our pool test and got certified to do our open ocean tests.
Fast forward a few weeks… we landed in the tropical land of Honduras, ready to take on the open ocean. After landing, we took a taxi to our hotel and then explored the tropical and scenic surrounding area while awaiting our SCUBA diving extravaganza that would take place the following day.
We woke up at a sensible time and changed into our swimsuits. After getting ready, we headed to go eat at a local breakfast restaurant, and then walked on the beach towards the dive location. We arrived at the dive shop, Sun Divers, and met up with a lovely dive guide, Yvonne, who would be our teacher for the next 3 or 4 days. We signed a few waivers and found equipment that fit us, including wet suits and tempered glass goggles. Then, Yvonne walked us through our tank and equipment set up. After we set up, we loaded our gear onto the dive boat and our boat driver took us out into the open ocean towards our dive location.
We arrived at our dive location, a generous body of water protected by the Honduras coast. The humid Honduras wind hit us while Yvonne taught us how to backflip off the boat. Then, she walked us through the plan for the dive. She told us we would work on several diving techniques for about 30 minutes, and then we would get to explore the surrounding reefs. This first dive did not disappoint, despite the fact that our deepest depth was only 15 feet, which is a depth I can easily free dive without equipment. On both this dive and a subsequent dive, we got to see hundreds of fish, along with a few sea turtles and a striped eel.
The following day, our confidence was boosted. We were ready for the various techniques Yvonne would walk us through. We hopped on the dive boat and navigated to a new dive location that allowed us to go to a depth of 40 ft. We flipped off the boat at our first dive location and finished our skills tests quickly. This allowed us to spend the majority of the time exploring the incredible Honduran reefs. The only hard part of this dive was the fact that we had to put our equipment on in the water, rather than putting it on in the boat and then entering the water. Thankfully, we only had to do this once to learn how to put our equipment on in the water. The majority of Honduras dives don’t require an in-water setup.
Our second dive of the day, on the other hand, was not a walk in the park. We encountered the hardest technique of the entire trip: the emergency ascent. You only use this method when you are out of air and your buddy is not in sight. The technique is the act of slowly swimming towards the surface while constantly breathing out. This technique is most effective because it allows you to get to the surface relatively quickly without causing damage to your internal organs. Our dive guide took us down 20 feet and turned off our air supply, and then had us swim up towards the surface at a speed of 1 foot per second, to prevent lung combustion while constantly breathing out so our internal organs can adjust to the change in pressure. Though I completed this technique on the first try, it still was quite challenging, even for someone like me who can hold their breath for over 2 minutes. After completing this challenging technique, we explored the surrounding reefs and went 80 ft below the ocean surface! Seeing turtles and fish interact at this depth was truly surreal.
We exited the boat feeling amazing and enjoyed a lovely afternoon in Honduras. We returned to the dive shop that evening to get our pictures taken. After we finished our 4th dive, we officially got PADI certified! To celebrate, we signed up for two more dives. What was special about these dives was the fact that we didn’t have to do any techniques. They were purely for enjoyment.
We spent the next day exploring Honduras on land, but the following day was when the diving fun restarted. Bright and early the next day, we woke up and walked to Sun Divers, where we met up with our beloved dive guide and boarded the boat for our second-to-last dive of the trip.
We arrived at the dive location and made our way to the boat exit.
I do a backflip off the SCUBA boat, the regulator clamped into my mouth, and my hand over my weight belt. A split second later, I’m submerged under the tropical water of Honduras. My Buoyancy Control Device reacts with the water pressure, shooting me up to the surface. The water clears and I slowly swim towards my buddy. My buddy signals to descend. I signal back the same thing. We raise and release air from our BCDs, and then descend into the depths of the ocean.
10 feet under, 40 feet under, 70 feet under and finally, we halt our descent at 80 feet. We check our no stop times and then start exploring the surrounding reef. 10 minutes in, something hits me. My regulator pops off, and water rushes into my SCUBA goggles. In a split second I lose my vision and air supply. How did I get here?!
The thought leaves my head and my training kicks in. I re-find my neutral buoyancy, and then sweep my arm around collecting my regulator that was out of sight. After placing my regulator into my mouth and clearing it, I take a moment to calm down, and then push the top of my goggles into my temple while blowing out. The water clears, and I open my eyes. After signaling okay to my buddy, we continue the dive.
The rest of the dive was amazing, and it was by far the best dive yet. We saw hundreds of tiny ground eels along with a giant moray eel, multiple sea turtles, and eagle rays. It was a great dive and my little moment made it feel even more worth it. I exited the water feeling so much more confident about myself and my abilities.
This entire experience has had so many ups and downs and many could not be stated in this short passage. I know it sounds cliché, but I learned how to push myself to the limit and that I can do anything if I put in enough time and effort. I know I have heard those statements so many times but it took me losing the ability to breath 80 feet under the water to believe anything is truly possible.
Diving is a part of my identity, it has allowed me to see another side of the world, a world filled with as much life, detail and character as the outside-world. It has opened my eyes to how endless the world is and as an avid traveler it has pushed me to the nooks and crannies of the ocean as well as land. I am a diver!
