A really really epic day!

Today started out with my usual routine of waking up and joining Kurt and Mary and the kids for coffee and breakfast, which was the usual oatmeal with honey. We discussed our plans for the today which was mostly going to be Kurt and I diving, and a friend of Kurt's who is a dive master had offered to come along and help me on my refresher dive. We ate breakfast, which was very delicious, the we began to get ready to get ready to leave.w e would first go drop Mary and Emme off at the Kadena Track for Mary's workout, then Kurt and I went around and ran some errands before headed back to pickup Mary.

We then headed over to the Kadena Marina, where we would rent our tanks for the dive and for my scuba gear, as it is very cheap for full gear rental, around $25.00 in total and if you return the gear before 1700 that day, you get half off. I believe therefore I paid $12.50 for all my gear, fins, scuba mask, tank, wetsuit, BCD, boots and weights. This is a smoking good deal! We then got all ready and were awaiting the arrival of Kurt's friend Shannon who would be accompanying us and had offered to give me help as she knew I had. Or done diving for a while.

We piled our dive gear into her car and we headed to the dive site, we parked by stairs and began unloading our gear, when Kurt realized that he had brought Mary's regulator and was not compatible with his BCD. So he had to go and acquire (rent) another regulator and then we finished unloading the gear. I got a safety and procedures brief from Shannon with gear tips from Kurt. Then began the arduous process of putting on the wetsuit. I had the misfortune of watching Kurt out his on the first time, so I followed suit. We ended up both putting on our wet suits backwards! I only found this out when Shannon pointed it out to me. ARGHHHH!

After I got my wetsuit on, we suited up with our tanks and headed out. The stairs were steep, and the wetsuit with tank on does not offer a lot of mobility. Once we got situated in the water, fins on, we snorkeled out to the small drop off where we would be doing my refresher dive. We went over procedures again, and then we began our descent. The water was cold, at about 70 degrees, it was about 18 degrees difference from Guam water temperatures.

The descent was slow as I wanted to be relaxed and had to adjust to the pressure underwater by equalizing. I made it down to 20 feet and we began swimming around. The water visibility was perfect and there was an abundant amount of wildlife to be seen. I saw one puffer fish, a school of many fish, two star fish and sea urchin shells! We hung out down there and went to our maximum depth of 31 feet for the dive. Once my tank hit 1500 psi,(started with 3100) we turned around and then swam around a bit before ascending to the surface and snorkeling back. When we returned to the car, I felt quite tired and decided not to do another dive.

I divested myself of my gear and wetsuit, which was as challenging to get off as to get on! We concluded that I had done really well for not having done any diving in a year. Shannon did a great job in taking care of me underwater. It was a lot of fun! We then waited for Mary and the kids, and we then returned all the gear I rented. We then returned home, where I took a shower as soon as I was able! Boy did that feel great! A nice hot shower, after an epic dive!

We then watched two movies (Twins and Gravity) had dinner of Ramen noodles! and I had a bunch of water and tea! then we are calling it quits for the day. It has been an extremely epic day here, and week. And I am only one week into my epic three week adventure!

Thank you all for reading!

Jack

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