The Dolphins, the Shark, and the Evil Sea Monkeys : Finis
Posted By Todd Storey on 15 October 2006
One Less Rock Star
"Where's Martin?" somebody asked and Kirk replied "Oh, he had to fly to Tennessee for a magazine photo shoot. Men's Journal, some Athletes of the Year issue."
"Is he coming back?"
"No."
"One rock star gone",one of my classmates commented. I was a bit bummed that I hadn't gotten to actually dive with Martin, but it was time to focus on today's training.
Back to Work
The ocean was a bit calmer this day. No squalls had rolled through so we weren't all thrashed around in God's washing machine as much as the day before. Paul was on our line today, and I was now part of a three-buddy team, due to my missing buddy.
Today's glitch list included not only my problematic left ear but a leaking mask as well. Eventually I got the mask situation under control, getting only a slight bit of water up my nose on each dive. An interesting sensation I was still enjoying hours afterwards! I surfaced once yelling "Friggin' mask!", tore it off and threw it into the float. I think Paul sensed I was a bit frazzled - can't imagine how. The plate had been dropped to 80'/25m, and I'd managed to reach the astounding depth of 33'/10m.
The Nuts and Bolts of It
This day was just not going as planned.
I was also having trouble getting a good, strong kick down with my fins. Too used to flutter kicking with scuba fins only. I'd been strictly dolphin kicking in my long blades during the months leading up to the course, doing dynamic in the health club and community pools at home. Now I was being told to flutter kick, and it just wasn't working. While everyone else was moving into double kick cycle counts and double depth, I was still struggling to get just one single kick cycle down. Kick cycles have always been a bane of my existence, since my beginning scuba days, and now they were coming back to haunt me in fins that they had no business bothering me in. So again, I was left to focus on technique and forget about any new depths.
We all rescued Paul a few times. After seeing his simulated blackouts, I'm convinced that he really likes to overact. [Editor's Note: This does not neccesarily represent the views of Deeper Blue or its parent company.]
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