Scuba Diving at Bird Island

Yesterday we took a trip out to Bird Island. It was about a two and half hour boat ride which didn't really feel that long because I was busy getting all of my scuba gear together. I was expecting the work out of getting into a 7mm wetsuit to be difficult because I haven’t had much success with it on dry land. Surprisingly enough it was pretty easy, easy as a 7mm can be. Getting into the water went smoothly the first time. (We will get to the second time a little later) Once down is was pretty amazing to see what lied beneath the surface. The sea lion really weren't afraid of us. They would swim up to you and sniff you and swim away quickly. We were able to also see different variety of sea cucumbers, fish, sea urchins, and other various sea life. It was the longer of the two dives lasting about thirty five to forty five minutes.

Oh the second dive, not as easy as the first. The entrance was completely different. The big stride off of the boat was the same, but in the first dive you come back to the surface and signal to the boat that you are ok. This dive we took the big step off and kept descending towards the ocean floor. When I took my step off, everything seemed ok at first. I was equalizing my ears (getting them associated to the new pressure) and I signal that I was ok to my other dive buddies. Of course after I signal I am ok, I realize that I am not. I tried to pop my ears to get them to equalize and my left ear wouldn't pop. I tried slightly harder and then stopped realizing that any more pressure and it were likely it would rupture my ear drum. I tried to inform my scuba buddies, but because I had already signaled I was ok, they starting to swim farther down. With the pressure on my ear starting to cause pain I panicked. I knew that I had to get higher up, but when I got to the surface I didn't know if the boat would still be there (they were going to pick us up in a different spot). So I quickly swam to the surface and the pressure was off of my ears. Looking around I could see the boat in the distance, luckily they were still looking for divers that had resurfaced. The next challenge presented itself; I was at the surface by myself. My two options were 1. Go back down and attempt to find my scuba buddies or 2. Wait for the boat to pick me up. When I saw the boat I figured my dive time was over and there was no way in the high heavens was I going back down to look for my buddies. For all I know they swam to a completely different spot. Luckily Super Glenn came to the rescue….he isn't an actual super hero, but he qualified as one yesterday. He noticed that I was missing and came to find me.

Once the situation was explained to him, he asked if I want to try again. It really surprised me because at that point I assumed I was done for the day. I said yes, wanting to see what else was down there. We descended slower which I think helped my ears. I was able to equalize perfectly. Once down there we didn't see as many sea lions, but I was able to see greater variety of sea life. The one thing that really stood out was the starfish. Some of them were huge, being bigger than my hand. We also saw much bigger sea urchins than the first dive. As I swam around, I could see the smaller creatures crawl into their hiding spots and larger creatures swim away. We were diving roughly thirty minutes.

I can’t really say which dive I like more. I think I like each of them for different reasons. I really enjoyed the day and managed not to get too red from the sun. The only spot was small and it was at the top of my back. I do hope that my underwater pictures do turn out, but I will have to wait until I am home to get them developed.