Sure glad that all the problems of the trip were behind us now! I spent extra time and care putting my new camera housing together, after all this morning would be it's first official dive. To say anticipation was flowing through the veins would be an understatement. All the gear was assembled prior to breakfast.
At breakfast, I had some cold cereal, bacon, a danish, and some OJ. There did seem to be some confusion though, apparently the act of pointing to her seat is the Jamaican symbol for wanting two omelets, because Becca ended up with two cheese and ham omelets. I was perfectly content with my breakfast, but to help my dive buddy not look wasteful with her order, I forced down an omelet. Good thing that wetsuit of mine stretches!
Dive time! Our dive site for the morning was the Mixing Bowl. I've heard wonderful things about this site. I can't wait to be able to dive my own gear to the 110 ft limit, play around with my new camera, and check out this famous site. This turtle, I've decided is my first subject, we bonded, and he/she posed for me along the wall. After the wall, the Mixing Bowl has white sand bottom good for rays and smaller things. It was at this point I had a headache starting, so I decided to hand the camera over to Becca and relax for the rest of the dive. We continued the dive until we got back under the boat. I didn't think my headache was too odd, but now I started feeling a little queasy. I gave Becca the signal that I wanted to go up, but she still had three minutes to go for her safety stop. I didn't feel great, but I didn't feel horrible so I decided to hang out with her. A small barracuda decided to chill with us at our safety stop. The three minutes passed, up we went, at five feet from the surface my stomach turned upside down. I broke the surface, pulled my regulator out of my mouth and out came breakfast. Now, there's a reason they call it feeding the fish, breakfast didn't agree with me, but the fish sure loved it as they swarmed me. Granted, you never feel great when you are vomiting, but all I could think about was that barracuda rushing in to take out one of these fish and leaving me with bite marks, vomiting was the least of my worries that that moment in time. Luckily, nothing happened and my imagination was greater than a stray bite.
I got on the boat looking even more white than the day I arrived on the island, if that's possible. Of course the crew of the boat were concerned that I did something stupid and they would need to put me on oxygen. The only real treatment I needed was keeping me away from those omelets in the morning, and I learned that lesson all on my own!
I did sit out the next dive, which of course I felt fine fifteen minutes after everybody went down, but it probably was for the best anyway. Up until this point, I thought my navigating the South Haven pier would be my most embarrassing dive moment. I suppose it's still probably worse, but expelling breakfast on calm seas isn't a very proud moment either! Thanks dive buddy, I owe you for this! I suppose it doesn't matter in the end, provided when we go down, we both come back up.
No comments:
Post a Comment