Birthday Weekend and a Certification

I'm Scuba certified!

I don't have any cool pictures to show you from the actual dive.  My underwater camera is only good to 30 feet.  I thought that was plenty when I bought it, because I was planning to use it for snorkeling, and I was confident that I would never free dive to 30 feet while snorkeling.

For our final dive, we just had a few more things to pass off.  We had to simulate an emergency ascent from 20 feet (You pretend you're out of air and ascend to the top while exhaling the whole way, so that your lungs don't explode.)  We also had to take off our mask and put it back on at 20 feet.

Then he let us have about 25 minutes to dive doing whatever we want.  He said that was our final exam.  He was watching us and he told us the biggest thing he's watching is to make sure that we're aware of our buddy and things like how much air our buddy has left.

Robyn and I explored all of the fun things that are down in the depths at the Crater.  There is a wagon wheel at about 35 feet.  There's a ring you can swim through around 40 feet.

Our certification allows us to go to 60 feet, but when our instructor signaled that our time was up, Robyn and I had only worked our way down to 48 feet.  So that's the deepest I've ever been.

But it was soooo cool!  I'm so excited to do some real dives!  We told our instructor that we're going to the Caribbean next summer, but we want to do some local dives with him first.  He said he's doing a trip to Sand Hollow reservoir in a few months.  Maybe by then I'll have a camera that can go diving.

Anyway, since Robyn's birthday was last week, we decided to have a little romantic getaway at the Homestead Resort (where the Crater is located) to celebrate.  Basically, we'll use anything as an excuse to take a trip.

So here are a few of the highlights of our short little getaway.

It was pretty darn cold, but I got Robyn to bundle up and go exploring with me in the snow.  (That's how much she loves me.)  Isn't she so cute all bundled up?

These were the lights on the front porch of our suite.  It thought the icicles were epic.  Part of me wanted to break them off and pretend they were swords.  But the part that wanted to leave them and let them grow prevailed.

There is a little Mexican place in Midway that I love.  We tried to go there for dinner, but I guess in small towns restaurants just close when their owners need a vacation.

Everything was totally frozen except for this little duck pond.  I'm pretty sure it had to be heated because there was no ice in it at all and there was steam rising from it.  It was like a little duck spa.

Hidden under the snow lurked an evil that never sleeps.  That's right, there was a golf course.

These little ice tepees had little fountains on top of them spraying a fine mist so that over time it formed this coolness.  

This is what Robyn does on vacation.  It was super fun to get cozy next to the fire after being outside in the cold.

It was a pretty fabulous weekend.  Robyn's birthday and Scuba certification worked together well to give us a solid excuse to have a getaway.  It will be a long time before we take another trip.  It's nearly a full 2 weeks before we fly to California for Christmas.

The Underwater World

If you've been following along, you know that I've been taking a class to become Scuba certified.  We spent time in a classroom, then time in a pool, and finally I had my first opportunity to to go for a real legitimate dive.  (In more than 7 feet of water.)

Our class uses the Crater in Midway, UT for our open water dives.  If you don't know what that is, it's an underground hot spring where they have dug into and built a space where people can come and float in the warm water or dive down deeper with Scuba equipment.  (Robyn and I went floating there for our Anniversary last year.)

The water is about 65 feet deep, which is perfect for Scuba certification because you only get certified to go 60 feet deep.  They say they don't want anyone touching the bottom anyway because there is so much silt that touching the bottom ruins visibility for a long time.

They've also setup the Crater as an ideal place to learn to Scuba dive.  In the video I linked above, we are floating next to some red buoys.  At the time we had no idea what they were, but they are attached to platforms beneath the water.   For our first descent, our instructor had us hold onto those ropes and lower ourselves down to a platform at about 20 feet in depth.

I was super nervous.  We had learned all the important skills, how to regulate the pressure in our ears, how to clear water out of our masks, how to share air with our buddy, etc.  But I was afraid because in the pool if anything went wrong, you could just stand up and you were in an environment with air.  Not so in the Crater.  One of the rules of diving is that you can't go up faster than 1 foot per second.  That means at 20 feet of depth, it should take you 20 seconds to get to the top.  That's a long time if you're having a panic attack.

Our instructor told us that if we panic we can go to the top, but he's going to grab us and force us to go at a safe pace.  He said, "Just don't forget you have a regulator in your mouth.  You can breathe underwater."

So all that made me nervous, but it turned out my fears were unfounded.  Diving deeper is no different than diving in a pool, except that it is more awesome.

On the platform at 20 feet he had us pass off many of the same skills we'd already passed off in the pool.  We had to take off our mask and put it back on.  We had to pretend we were out of air and ascend while sharing air with our buddy.  We had to lose our regulator and retrieve it.  By now these skills were old hat.

But then he let us swim around a bit.  I'm not gonna lie.  It was the coolest thing ever.  I honestly thought that diving at the Crater would be boring, because there are no fish and not a lot to see.  Well, it is kind of barren, but there's something magical about being in the underwater world.

First I looked down.  I could see divers down below me.  I was amazed how good the visibility was.  I could see way below me.  I watched the other divers exploring around, and then I started to notice there air coming up around me.

Most of the time, there would be lots of little bubbles, but every once in a while you'd get one giant bubble.  It was fun to watch that bubble slowly ascend and then pass me.  They looked like little jelly fish.

After a few of them went by me, I decided it was important to try to pop them.  Yes, I played the exact same game that fascinated the 3 year olds in our Sunbeam class last year: "Pop the bubbles".  It was neat to poke the jellyfish and watch it turn into 100 tiny jellyfish.

After I had had of enough looking down, I started to look up.  There were people floating in the surface, kicking their legs and moving around.  I realized they couldn't see me at all.  It occurred to me that this is what a shark sees.  It was eerie to realize that when you're on the surface, everything below you has a perfect view of you while you can't see below you at all.

It was so amazing to realize how much volume there is in just 65 feet of water.  The Crater is only maybe 25 feet across, it's not a huge area.  But looking at it 3-dimension-ally, it suddenly became a giant cylinder with near endless space.

After we had been down a while, it was time to ascend.  We ascended by holding the ropes again.  It's nice to have the ropes to be able to control the ascent.  It's hard to tell how fast you're ascending or descending without a frame of reference.  That's something I'll have to get used to when we're in the ocean.

The weirdest thing about the ascent was feeling the air escaping my ears.  As you ascend, the water pressure is decreasing and so the air in all your body cavities is expanding.  I'm not gonna lie, it was a strange sensation.

When we got to the surface, our instructor assured us that diving in the ocean is way more awesome, and don't be discouraged if that was boring.  I told him that experiencing an underwater world was absolutely amazing.  His response was that he had dove in the Crater over 3800 times.  The magic of just being underwater wasn't really there for him anymore.

But it was still magical for me.  I'm excited to be certified so soon.  Then, it will be time to do some real diving.

Fourth Anniversary

Robyn and I just had our fourth anniversary.  Four years doesn't seem like a very long time, but somehow I can't really remember what life was like without her.

We wanted to take some kind of short trip for our anniversary.  Robyn got two days off for fall break, so we didn't have tons of time.  We decided that the time we did have should be spent relaxing and not travelling.  Thus, we decided to go to the far off land of Midway.  (The little town on the other side of the mountains from us, not the little island halfway between Hawaii and Japan.)

We drove through the Alpine Loop, on the way there.  It is a little area that connects two canyons and takes you to some excellent vantage points to oversee the many colors of the trees as they change for autumn.

Many of the trees had already dropped their leaves, but I love the golden color sprinkled throughout.
Also, you should note that Robyn's classic pose remains the same, even though it is autumn.

On the way we saw this sign.  I like to take pictures like this, so that you can all know of the dangers we faced.

We didn't get through the entire loop, however.  We saw a sign that directed us to Midway.  So, we took a "shortcut".  It did turn out to be less miles, but I don't think we saved any time.  It turns out that you can go a lot faster on paved roads.  I kept worrying that the road would end at some private property or something, and we'd have to go all the way back and around.  But we did successfully get there, even though it was a bumpy ride.

We stayed in an awesome little resort called The Zermatt.  The Swiss style allowed us to pretend we were in Switzerland. (Which is our second favorite place on Earth behind Hawaii.)  Upon arriving, the first thing I noticed was that this accordion playing bear must have had debts with Jabba the Hutt.

We got up to our room, and it was super nice.  There was a fancy bed with billions of pillows.  (You should know of my love for pillows.  Some places are severely lacking, but this place was not.)  It even had a nice balcony type deck that we could go outside and enjoy the view.  Of course, the moment we went out on to our little deck, Robyn noticed this bug:

"That bug is ruining my relaxation!" - Robyn

I took her back inside, where she was safe from being touched by nature.

During our stay at the resort, our primary job was to relax.  But we did a few other things while we were there.

We played wizard's chess.

 finishing off the king after a checkmate

We went on some walks around the area.

We had to brave all sorts of dangers.

We went to the Crater, which is an underground hot spring that you can swim/float in.

We look super precious

This child kept looking down from the hole above us.  I kept waving at him and Robyn kept being embarrassed that I was waving.

We also got massages.  This is not pictured because A)We didn't bring our cameras to the spa and B)The massages involved nudity, which would be awkward.

But most importantly, we ate lots of good food.  This is not pictured because Robyn would be embarrassed to have me admit how many pictures I took of food over our short little vacation.

It was a short, but very relaxing trip.  Happy Anniversary my love! (If you are not my love, you don't have to read that last sentence.  But you are welcome to, if you like.)