Remember the newbie who said "hi"?

[Elkman]

Well, I did it (and without freezing, even).  I successfully completed the open water dives on Saturday and Sunday, and I'm now a certified Open Water Diver!  (I still need to get the card in the mail, of course, but the instructors signed off on all the paperwork.)

I'm also happy to report that the lake wasn't so cold that I turned blue.  The water temperature was about 59 degrees and about 8 feet of visibility (or less when we kicked up gunk).  Most of us wore hoods and gloves, and I didn't hear anyone complaining about being cold.  (I did notice that a hood made it a little harder to hear the instructor, though.)  I had a 7mm wetsuit, 3mm gloves, and I'm not sure how thick the hood was.

Anyway, I'm glad I have my certification now.  I'm sure I'll have a lot of fun with it.  I'm not surprised to hear about how addicting it can be to dive -- in fact, I was starting to scope out places to dive in Minnesota even before I came back from the Branson, Missouri trip.