Who knew things weighed less underwater?!

It has been FAR too long without an update! So, I say to all of my loyal readers: Sorry, Mom.

Classes ended five weeks ago in order for us to begin our dive course. The dive course is separate from classes at the university in that I am taking classes in order to get my Masters in Maritime Archaeology, but I am taking a dive course to get my commercial diving ticket. The diving ticket (or, as it's called in the United States, diving certification) is necessary for me to receive if I want to dive in Europe commercially (read: for money).

The dive course has been grueling. The first week was all theory, which means sitting and studying a whole lot of information. Including, but not limited to: decompression tables (both Norwegian Standard and US Navy), diving diseases (signs, symptoms, and treatments), equipment (regulators, cylinders, buoyancy control devices, first and second stages, etc), general seamanship knowledge (the phonetic alphabet, chart-reading, indicator buoys, emergency signals, knot-tying, etc), and diving legislation (Danish law, but a lot of which is governed by the European Union, and therefore applicable in other countries).

We spent the second week at a lake in northern Germany, diving every day for five days. No internet, no phone service,  and no one but my fellow divers (Alex, seen here fully dry-suited up, and Tori, seen here attending to Alex's flipper) and our two instructors. Every day, all day: eat, sleep, and dive.

 

Weeks three and four were spent diving at various locations in Denmark, with temperatures ranging from slightly-uncomfortably-nippy all the way to I-am-not-going-in-that-water-thank-you-very-much-it's-forty-degrees-are-you-kidding-me. Once we're in the water, usually we're given some sort of training or task, like building a frame using pipes and clamps, navigating using compasses (much harder than you'd think), performing searches and/or rescues, assembling structures with hammer and nails (that was fun: try building a chair underwater with wood. Wood that would very much like to be on the surface instead of in your hand at eighteen feet below). Using the dry suit was hard to do, as the suit (unlike neoprene) squeezes your body as you go deeper, so you have to inflate it with a bit of air as you go down. One frequently gets small "suit squeezes" if one doesn't keep one's entire suit inflated, which means one might now have small little bruises all over one's body... one might.

One of my shining moments so far was when my instructor asked me, while I was underwater (we have small speakers in the masks, so I can speak to the surface or to other divers while I'm diving and they can speak to me), to please move a sinker from one spot to another. This sinker weighs about one hundred pounds on the surface; I can barely lift it. On the surface. I stared at the sinker, while at a depth of about twenty feet, and said incredulously through the coms: "Are you kidding me? I can't lift this sinker! It's too heav-- wait. OK." And simply picked up the sinker and moved it. Haughtily. Pretending that I didn't just forget I was underwater, where things are more buoyant.

One more weekend left of studying, and then exams on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Then I leave on Thursday to go back to see Brittany and spend Christmas with her in Weiden! I'm very excited; she just informed me that it's been snowing there. I'd love to be at home in Alaska for the holidays, of course, but a white Christmas in Germany with Brittany is going to be lovely.

Once again, Mom, sorry for the inexcusable hiatus... I've been very busy constructing chairs and other useful objects underwater. You wouldn't believe how many times I hit myself in the face trying to stick a nail in my mouth, before remembering I was wearing a full-face mask.