It was 2009 when my husband, Myles came to me and asked if I wanted to become a certified scuba diver for our upcoming trip to Cancun.  I think I answered the question before he got all of the words out.

Of course I wanted to…I was hooked since my resort certification in the Bahamas! So he searched for dive centers near our home and found Lehigh Valley Dive Center.

The dive center had a list of instructors of which we chose Steve Wilson. Steve is a nice guy and a great instructor. We learned everything we needed to know and had fun throughout the course.

While learning to dive there is some book work to do and a video to watch before you can even get into the water. There is a lot of science involved in scuba diving, but so worth the study time.

You have to learn to breathe through the regulator, remove and replace your dive mask while under water, buoyancy, how long you can stay under water at each depth, just to mention a few. I won’t explain everything because I am not a dive instructor, but would like to become one some day .

Once we did the pre water work, Steve told us where we would be doing our training. First we had to practice in a swimming pool and learn a few things before entering the open waters. We have a friend that just had a swimming pool installed at his home and he was more than happy to let us use it for our lessons.

We met Steve at our friend’s home and began our lessons. Since I had already done these exercises before I felt like a pro. The tasks were very easy for me to accomplish. Myles on the other hand…not so much.

Each time Myles put his dive mask on and went under water he held his breath and kept his eyes closed and then would stand up and say he couldn’t do it.

After the 3^rd or 4^th time, Steve finally said to him, “You know what your problem is?” Myles asked, “What?” Steve said, “You’re mind is playing tricks on you.  You’re not supposed to breath down there! Just relax. You have air, just breath through your mouth.”

Myles put his mask back on, regulator in his mouth and under the water we go. Steve and I watched Myles as he sat on the pool floor. We could tell he was thinking about his next move. All of the sudden Myles eyes popped wide open…I bust out laughing, which is not a good idea under water. Even though you can breathe with the regulator in your mouth it is hard to catch your breath while laughing. We all stood up again still laughing.

Now that Myles was able to continue we proceeded with our lessons. We completed our exercises and Steve and I swam to the shallow end of the pool and stood up. We talked for a minute or two and then realized Myles was still swimming around.

We saw Myles picking up leaves and other debris that had sank to the bottom. We couldn’t get him out of the water now. He was enjoying the fact that he could breathe under water.

The next part of our training had to be done in a quarry near our home. The quarry near our home is called Dutch Springs Aquatic Park.