18 Jan AM – The New Best Way to Scuba Dive

The
New Best Way to Scuba Dive

Early
this morning the entire class traveled by boat to a dive site at a
place called Rio Bueno, which to me sounded like the undisputed best
place we could dive on this trip. At this site there is a sheer
cliff, lined with even more corals and fish than at Discovery Bay. My
project had kept me too busy to really do much diving, so I was going
to have to make this dive count. I had just put my tank on when
someone asked, “Where are his fins?” and immediately realized
that I had forgotten them. For those who don’t know you really
can’t scuba dive without fins. It was suggested that I just snorkel
right next to the boat or sink to the bottom and just walk around,
but I didn’t have nearly enough weight and by the time everyone
else had gotten into the water I was just too depressed to do
anything. When Dr. Warren handed me his fins to hold while he put his
tank on I was ready to just jump in with them. I mean what could he
have done, he couldn’t chase after me without any fins. [Dr. Warren begs to differ. I'm fast even without fins] I didn’t
because Dr. Warren most likely would have then stolen Dr. Peterson’s
fins, and with no other fins left on the boat Dr. Peterson would have
chased after Dr. Warren with the boat, which would have dragged the
anchor across the site, taking corals and all of the divers using the
anchor line as a guide with him, and I did not want to be indirectly
responsible for that. Trust me the corals have suffered enough and I
say that being dragged underwater is only fun at very slow speeds.
You get to see sea turtles on this dive, I am only slightly
exaggerating.

Eventually
O’Neal, one of the dive officer’s assistants, talked me into
jumping in with only a bathing suit and rash guard to try walking
around on the bottom. I was hesitant because you do need a very large
amount of weight to be able to do that well, but was still willing to
give it a try. After getting in the water I realized that O’Neal
didn’t actually want me to walk around on the bottom, instead he
had tied a rope to the back of his BCD and was planning to drag me
through the site to the same depth where everyone else was going. The
first few minutes in I began to think that this might actually work.
Halfway through the dive I thought that this was actually pretty
nice; I mean O’Neal was practically a guide and he was able to
point out all of the lion fish and other interesting creatures. Three
quarters of the way through I realized that I was not tired at all
and began wondering why dive places don’t offer tourists such a
service. Now keep in mind, we were the last two people to go down,
and no one knew that O’Neal was dragging me around the site.
Apparently this set up looked strange enough for other divers to make
a complete turnaround from the reef in order to look at us. I kept
making the take a picture sign until finally Dr. Peterson took this.

 
Me being dragged across the reef by O'Neal

Me being dragged along the reef by O'Neal.

– Peter

 

 

I
honestly don’t care how I got down there or how I looked,
everything I saw was absolutely amazing. I really owe this guy; I
could have really missed out on something great.

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