SECOND DAY OF DIVING AND COMPLETING OUR SKILLS

We woke up bright and early and OH EM GEE I was so sore. My leg/foot ached, my lower back ached, the left side of my neck ached, my shoulders ached when I raised them above my head. I was a hot mess. Even Sakari said she was a little sore. I had to get up and get moving to get my body used to the day ahead of us.

We headed down for our free hot breakfast and then back up to the room to finish packing and then checked out of the hotel and headed to the quarry one last time.

People were up getting coffee at the quarry and I was guzzling my Diet Pepsi. Then we were filling our tanks once again. Yep, there goes another $21.40. Ok, time for our before dive meeting to let us know what we were doing today. I guess since the storms rolled in yesterday, we had a few skills we still needs to do/discuss on the agenda today. Usually the 4th dive is just that....a dive that you get to enjoy because your skills are already completed.

So, they showed us how to use the compass under water. We practiced on land first and picked an object, dialed the compass in and headed off and back. Ok, simple enough. We would have a couple of other skills that we would do at the top of the water after the dive. He also wanted us to improve on our buoyancy today and we would be doing several skills for that. He told us when we go along try to stop somewhere and just float suspended using our breathing and stay in one place. Yesterday was stay moving all the time and don't stop. Today stop and float. Ok, got it.

Time to put our equipment together and Big White Rabbits Are Fluffy and back into the water we went. This time we were aloud to take our camera and GoPro. Sakari decided she wanted to have the GoPro instead of the camera. I guess there really wasn't anything interesting enough down there for macro pictures like she normally does.

Down we went and hopefully we would get some decent pictures. It was cloudy out today...but no rain.

Football helmet:

I see you seeing me!

Heading into the Enchanted Forest. I found this area to be somewhat neat. Winding our way around all the trees. It looked gloomy and the weird thing was it was FOGGY. You could see the "fog" floating in the area and it was so cool to see. (Although it isn't really fog but I was later told by the dive shop that it was the silt that had been kicked up and as it settles back down it creates the look of fog drifting by so slow you can't tell it's falling). Just such a cool thing to see.

All the little clams stuck on the trees with their tongues sticking out cleaning the water. You could only see it if you were up close enough and I can only see it when I zoom in on picture.

See their little black tongues sticking out?

I was trying to get a picture of Sakari with the fog behind her. It didn't turn out the best but it starts down below to the right and goes up behind her and off the left of her face. It was just mesmerizing me.

A really large catfish swimming above us:

We had fish friends swimming with us again today.

Honestly, I think they liked the camera and GoPro because they would come right up to it...I'm sure looking for a handout and wondering if it was food we were holding out in front of us.

Fish feeding frenzy happening over there:

Another Gargoyle:

Time for a little bit of fun and practicing our buoyancy around the tires.

Sakari clapping for me

A Bluegill had decided to take up residency and built her nest inside this suspended tire. She was not letting anyone anywhere near it.

Our DM found a crab leg and showed us. Now where's the actual crab? That's what I want to see!

Time to practice buoyancy a little more...the DM took out a string and tied it to a line down to one of the platforms. Then he handed it off to Sakari. She is not very good at tying her shoes and never has been. She still makes the bunny ears like you do when you are first taught to tie shoes. She usually does it a few times to get it right and tight. So, here she goes. She tied the knot on the line and backed away. She thought she was done. LOL Nope, tie the rest of it he signaled to her. She eventually got it but man the struggle was real, especially in the water. Now it was my turn. I was tying it and somehow wasn't actually paying attention to the line and bonked my head into it. LOL I guess I failed that test? 🤷‍♀️

We stopped at the platform and did our compass swim. They told us kick 10 full kicks using both feet, using the compass, then come back using the compass to guide you.

We swam around some more and headed back. The only thing we had left were to do a few things at the surface.

Now I do want to mention something we seen on the first dive. It was one of their local Paddlefish. Have you ever seen a Paddlefish? They look like some prehistoric monster when they open their mouths and they are huge. People have been diving in this quarry for years and years and never ran across any of them (they have several) and we managed to see one on our first dive over by the wall. Most new divers don't get to see them at all because they usually hang over in the area where it is deeper. I was amazed at how big it was....BUT....at the time I didn't realize it was the Paddlefish I was looking at. I kept nudging Sakari to look (although she had already seen it) and I couldn't get over the size of it. I would only learn it was the Paddlefish after the dive was over. (It did not have it's mouth open feeding, they are filter feeders, which is probably why I wasn't paying attention to the front of it but still not sure how I missed that half if it was a snout).

Here is a picture (not mine) of the Paddlefish in the Quarry:

It almost looks like a shark from a distance but with a very long nose.

One thing we did not get to see are the Sturgeon they have in there. They hang out only over on the deep end but they are massive and one of them is 7 feet long!!! (Not my picture but they look like some prehistoric creepy creature as well).

This is what a 7' one looks like from above (resembles an alligator if you ask me-not my picture)

They also have some rather large Koi fish living in the quarry, which we did not get to see. They hang out in a shallow area on the other side of the quarry that we didn't go to.

The other thing I forgot to take a picture of while I was down there was the Christmas tree. It was probably around 20' tall or more. I only seen one bulb left on it though. LOL

We were at the end of our 4th dive and back at the surface. It was pretty dark and gloomy again and rain was expected.

The only thing we had left to do was to discuss the Inflatable Signal Tube (Buoy marker we usually swim with when diving on most of our swims in the Caribbean) and to also do a Remove and Replace all of our gear at the surface. We removed it and sat on it and floated while we talked about the last dive. Then we put it back on and it was time to get out.

I tried really hard to do some over under pictures before getting out but it just wasn't happening.

We got out and took our equipment apart and loaded it up in our vehicle then went back to the camp to discuss our final and last dive. We were then showed how to fill out our dive books and I would log our last dive of this trip.

Now, when I did the program yesterday on my watch, it allowed me to "try it out" for 24 hours. Prior to coming today, I tried to buy the "one day" program just for today and was having a lot of issues with my password. So, I was unable to use it for diving...or so I thought. At least for what I needed, all of my information was on my watch but it just said "snorkeling" instead of a dive. Oh well. That was a lot of snorkeling and staying under for a long time if so.

Here are my results from the 4th dive:

Dive time: 57 minutes 38 seconds

Max temp: unknown

Min temp: 63 degrees

Max Depth 29 ft

Average Depth unknown

So while it doesn't give me everything, it gave me enough. Would you look at that map! 😜

Right when we thought we were done, the DM told us to come over to the grassy area and kneel down that he had something for us. As we kneeled he gave a speech while holding up a fin. "Kneel down, face me. No, you are crooked. Be together, shoulder to shoulder. Face me. Be in a military line." Then "By the power vested in me and the professional association of diving instructors and our lord Poseidon, protector of the deep, I now declare you PADI Open Water Divers" then he takes his fin and touches us on each shoulder and says "And I charge you with the protection of mother ocean and all animals that she abides there".

We cheered and walked away feeling good, accomplished, proud, thankful, tired, cold, and sleepy. Yep, that about summed it up. We were so glad it was over with and we'd never have to do this again. Now it is time to continue to dive and perfect our skills as we continue on our diving journey in the future.

We were so thankful that the place had hot showers. It felt so good. A quick shower and we decided to grab some of their awesome freshly made fruit drinks from the stand before getting on the road home. These things were so awesome and tasty! Sakari had already tried the Pomegranate Paddlefish yesterday (which is Pomegranate, Cinnamon Brown Sugar and Lemonade). It was pretty tart but yet good.

Today we were going to get two different drinks so we could both try something new. I would get the Pineapple Express (Lemonade, Pineapple and Caramel) and Sakari would get the Gilbo Sunrise (Starfruit Energy and Lemonade). They both were pretty awesome.

Now it was time to head home in the pouring rain, which led to a torrential downpour along the way. And that energy Starfruit...yea, it actually put Sakari to sleep and she slept all the way home.

Home Sweet Home where I would take a real shower with shampoo and body wash, unpack, throw our wet clothes and towels in the washer and off to sleep...for probably around 14 hours until the next day. I woke up still so sore and it took me 2 days to get back to normal. WHEW!

Just a little video of the last day and dive #4. It didn't go well. Sakari had the GoPro and most of the video's were her having it on and dangling it underneath her, which I'm sure she thought it was turned off...which means when she seen something she wanted to video, she probably hit the button thinking she was turning it on and actually turning it off. Oops! Also at some time along the way the button to turn it on was stuck. We tried multiple times and it just wouldn't push at all. Bummer. Enjoy!

So to sum things up, getting certified is SUPER EXPENSIVE! It doesn't just involve paying for the class as we learned.

$1380 Classes

$843 Equipment

$70 Check off

$171.20 Quarry Entry

$42.80 Tank Fill

$21.40 Tank Fill

$2,528.40 TOTAL

If you want to add in the cost of getting there, which was a necessity as well

$253 Hotel

$65 Gas

$2846.40 GRAND TOTAL FOR BOTH OF US!!

Whew! Super expensive for sure. I could have went on vacation for this amount. That didn't include eating expenses or anything we did while we were there since it wasn't actually "part" of getting certified. But, I would say it was one expensive weekend/adventure.

Now the question remains, was it worth it in the end? How much will we have to pay now to dive, rent the equipment and have someone go out with us? Will we actually be saving money? That is yet to be determined because I'm honestly not convinced yet.