Memories & Experiences OW/Basic class.

[dalehall]

Wow.. You know, during my initial O/W, nothing really stands out except when my Instructor handed me my temporary c-card. That was cool. But my instructor told me he wanted me in his "adavanced" class in three weeks. So I did it. It was on that trip my first real fond memory comes: We are all at dinner talking and he was talking about each person and how they did in the class. (15 out of 17 were there for O/W) When he got to me, he said, "Dale was in my O/W class last month and after watching him on his cert dives, I told myself, 'This guy is a diver." That was very cool to hear coming from an instructor I respected.

[shinek]

March of ’79, South Coast of England in little village called Itchenor. This is part of the Chichester Harbour area and is all tidal estuaries. Mud flats for half the day and murky brown water when the tide comes in. If you’ve ever been there, you’ll know what I mean.
The plan was to explore a little of Itchenor Creek. I was told that there had been a lot of Roman settlements in the area and so we may find clay pipes or other Roman artifacts. Sounds pretty exciting so far, huh?

I got kitted up in the parking lot in the wet suit I had borrowed from a friend, I was 5’8” and he was nearer 6 foot, so it was a pretty good fit. I was using the old backpack type set up, no BCD or any of that fancy stuff, and a reg that was also borrowed with the understanding that I would buy it if it worked OK.

We entered the water down the slipway, much to the amusement of several locals who clearly thought we were completely mad. As we descended the gentle slope to a depth of about 15 or 20 feet it was obvious that this was not going to be like the Cousteau films I had seen. The water was probably about 50F (such details fade with time), the visibility was a good foot, maybe 18 inches in places (OK, maybe 3 feet, but who’s story is this?). Bottom of the creek is a fine, muddy silt and, being a tidal estuary, there is always a current of some sort and it stirs up nicely.

We cruised along, 18 inches from the bottom, looking for Roman artifacts, funnily enough, didn’t find any. I was breathing what seemed about a 50/50 air/water mixture, but wasn’t entirely sure that there was anything unusual about that. Only later, having bought the reg, did I open it up and find a split in the diaphragm. It worked a lot better once I replaced that and cleaned it up a little.

As we continued the dive, one of the straps on my backpack came loose, don’t recall if something broke or it just worked itself loose, but it was hanging off one shoulder. I stopped to try to figure out what was wrong and viz went immediately to zero as I wrestled around in the mud. Any communications at this point were being done by touch but fortunately my buddy/instructor/dive leader, I forget the official title, had a hold of me, figured out what was wrong and he managed to get it reconnected and we carried on our archaeological exploration.

Dive finished and we made our way back to the slip. Clay pipes – zero, living creatures – zero, mud – plenty!

That was my first open water dive and the thrill of being underwater, breathing (sort of), being able to see (sort of) and swim about in this new environment completely outweighed any minor issues we had faced. I scrambled up the slip with a grin like a Cheshire cat and couldn’t stop talking about it. As for my buddy that day, he may well put that down as one of his worst dives, but it was good enough to get me hooked. Here I am 29 years later, spending weekends at Athens, Texas, diving in a muddy lake, in chilly water, visibility “limited” and, hopefully, helping introduce a few more people to the wonders of diving.