Our First Ocean Dive...Oh Boy!

Today was our first ocean dive, I will not forget it! 

Jeremiah and I got up at 5:00 this morning and headed for La Jolla Shores near San Diego. The plan was to complete our first two ocean dives! Surprisingly, I was pretty calm during the hour long drive, while I geared up and even when I walked along the small decline into the waves. 

I’m not going to lie, it was a little tough getting out past the waves with all the gear on but we managed ok...Shuffling our feet to keep from stepping on Sting Rays as we fought each passing wave. We floated/swam out to about 8 feet of water, relaxed for a bit and then were told to descend! 

We completed our 5 step buddy decent (Ready to decend?, Check computers and air, Get a visual reference, Look below you, and lets go!), before I know it we were on the bottom!....CRAP

Once we were hovering over the ocean floor (you want to stay off the bottom all together to protect the environment and to not stir anything up in the water which ruins visibility) I started to get into my own head. It was like a never ending pool that I couldn’t see more than a couple feet in. I kept searching off into the distance for....who knows what. Jeremiah kept giving me the "focus here, look at us" signal. I tried to keep it together as we started performing the skill steps. I completed the first one (partially filling my mask with water and then blowing out of my nose to clear the mask), then quickly gave the hand signal to ascend to the surface...Which was NOT part of the plan LOL...Once up there I started to get it together. Here's the deal...This morning when we met our instructor at the dive shop I picked out a new mask. Yesterday I wore Jeremiah's and LOVED it so I wanted one. Jeremiah did say it was a bad idea to swap right now but I didn't listen haha. My new mask felt uncomfortable during the skill step and I just got a little panicked. After a few calm minutes with Jeremiah and the instructor, we all went back down to complete our second skill step which went a lot better then the first!

A little time went by and it was time for a break, we headed back to the shore to take the gear off and recap on what had taken place. At this point I realized that it’s really not that big of a deal, I need to just literally slow down and simply breathe. I swapped my mask for the old one, soon we were on our way back out for the second dive of the day! It went awesome...Completing a few more skills and then we went for a little stroll where we met a cool little lobster walking across the bottom...He came right up to us like he was happy to see us or something! Weird...

It’s a whole new world to me, it feels completely unnatural to breathe under water. Honestly, I did enjoy it though and I'm looking forward to our next 2 dives tomorrow! I'll let you know how it goes! Plus we can film tomorrow! 

Brittany