diving mishaps

[jasondbaker]

I haven't experienced any "light at the end of the tunnel" moments in diving yet. But I have encountered a variety of equipment, environment, mental, and buddy malfunctions.

I was doing a dive on the Willy in Lake Michigan last summer. We had some moderate waves to contend with so we decided to enter the water and decend as quickly as possible. I geared up and performed a giant stride. As soon as I hit the water I began to decend. I soon realized that I failed to properly tuck my mask skirt under my hood. So I'm racing down towards the ship while my mask is filling with water. I'm breathing a little harder, fighting to establish some boyancy, and screwing around with my mask skirt. By the time I got to the deck of the ship my mask was completely full and my buddy was trying to figure out what the heck I was doing. My buddy quickly helped me sort out the problem. I was humbled.

One other funny story about losing gear at Wazee. When I first got OW certified I bought myself a cool Casio DEEP dive watch. I really liked this watch. I took it out to Wazee with me during my AOW. After the last dive I took off my watch and set it on the back bumper of my Jeep.

I placed an order for a replacement watch the next day.