My First Scuba Diving Vacation
Everybody who dives has to have a first diving experience. Mine was about twenty years ago of the Big Island of Hawaii with a group of my friends. None of us were certified. How could we be, since it was our first time? If we had been certified, at least we could have said we had previously dived to the bottom of some community pool back on the mainland.
Tourist diving is a big industry in Hawaii, but it would not be nearly as substantial as it is, if all tourists who went diving were required to be certified. I must say that I hope the young guys on the boat who worked for the dive company were certified, but I simply do not know. In some senses, you leave a lot to chance when you go on a novice diving trip in Hawaii, the Caribbean, or any other tropical tourist destination. I guess the best assurance you have is that the news is not filled with a large number of diving tourist deaths.
Well, as usual, the first day I went diving it was beautiful. My girlfriend, Tina, and another couple, Steven and Tabatha, paid our fees and climbed aboard the diving boat with about four other couples. There was a crew of four and three of them would be diving with us. We had received some elementary instruction in the parking lot next to the dock, so we had a glimmer of what was ahead.
First, it makes sense to talk about our preparation in terms of equipment. Since none of us had ever dived, we did not have or own any SCUBA gear. However, we had done some pretty extensive snorkeling around the Big Island and Maui in several previous trips. Therefore, we each owned a decent mask, snorkel, and pair of diving fins. All of us had purchased this snorkeling equipment back in Northern California were we had grown up. However, we had bought our snorkeling equipment before flying to Hawaii and had never used it in Northern California. While people dive in Northern California, those who do it are a special breed. There is no casual snorkeling around San Francisco and Santa Cruz. The water is cold, a good wet suit is an absolute necessity, and water entry from the beaches can be treacherous because of the surf.
So, the first couple of times we vacationed in Hawaii, we went snorkeling of the beaches of Maui and the Big Island. The water was warm and the underwater scenery was simply gorgeous. I frankly doubt whether anybody or at least relatively few people who have never dived decide to dive off a boat in Hawaii, without first getting hooked on the idea by snorkeling around the shoreline. The idea of going under water with SCUBA equipment and no experience would make any sensible person think once, twice, three times and more. However, once you have snorkeled you get much more confidence about the waters around Hawaii and you see that a lot of the interesting stuff is just too deep to get close enough to see. Thus, I think the idea of diving is just a logical progression for many who snorkel first.
So we had bought our snorkeling equipment on earlier trips, but we had decided to buy decent quality snorkeling gear that would last. My friend Steven was half-blind without his glasses and he needed a diving mask that had prescription lenses. If you did not know such masks existed, well they do. Steven was very eager to try his out on our first trip to Hawaii. The first day we went out, Steven was very pleased with being able to see clearly underwater while snorkeling, but his rather expensive prescription mask was leaking water. While you might think that it leaked because of gaps between the prescription diving lenses and the rest of the mask, he quickly realized that this had nothing to do with the problem. For ten years, Steven had had a pretty heavy mustache that he had begun in collect and took some pride in wearing.
After messing with a leaky facemask for about two hours that morning, Steven knew he had a trade-off to deal with – have uninhibited fun snorkeling or ditch the mustache. He thought about greasing up his mustache with petroleum jelly to get a better before snorkeling again, but he decided there and then that he was not that attached to his mustache, even though he had had it for ten years. Most men care little about their appearance. After his shave, Steven looked a bit different to me, but Tina and Tabatha just seemed to go on and on about how much different he looked. Go figure.
