Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Coral Sea Arvada


I have made my second dive this year at the Coral Sea in Arvada.  The water is still too chilly for my 3mm wetsuit so I have been renting a 7mm wetsuit and 5mm hood for the dives in 64 degree and 68 degree weather.  The next time I am out should be good for the 3mm wetsuit I own.

This year, I finally invested in a regulator and dive computer.  It is amazing how nice it is too dive with newer equipment with a great assortment of features.  Last year, I had one instance where the dive computer’s battery went out.  My dive computer not only has analog air pressure and a compass but also a digital depth meter, time underwater, max depth etc.  It is definitely a device I can grow with.  The most surprising thing is how easy the regulator is to breath.  I have had no free flow conditions and the whole set up is dialed in just right.

As I become more comfortable with diving in terms of assembling my gear and maintaining buoyancy, I have been enjoying my diving much more.  I can check out the crawfish, bass, and minnows.  I can reach for golf balls and spot gnomes in the water.  I am not constantly looking for my buddy like I would a small child at Disneyland.

Hopefully I can continue to maintain one dive/month in the summer so that when I have the opportunity to go to a scuba destination, I can plan a couple of dives.  I am still a far cry from planning a dive vacation, but it has been a great skill to develop.


As my confidence improves, I would like to pursue some specialty courses like Peak Performance, Navigation, Night, Search & Recovery and Deep.  I think these would be great skills which would also lead to an Advanced Open Water Certification.

2 comments:

Philip Wang said...

Man you have a lot of water-based hobbies...kayak, triathlon and scuba! Very cool! Did you get certified at Coral Sea too?

Sanjiv Gupta said...

I got certified 10 years ago in Boulder at what used to be Scuba Joe's and did the open water dives in Cabo during my honeymoon. I just got back into it a couple of years ago since we had some beach vacations coming up.