Certified diver!

Guys guys guys! I did a thing!

I'M A CERTIFIED SCUBA DIVER! 

This weekend I did my checkout dives for my SCUBA class.  On Saturday, we went to Blue Grotto for our first day of dives.  It's a freshwater spring that's a common dive resort.  The actual diving and practicing of skills was totally fine, the main not fun thing for me was the temperature.  The water there is 72 degrees, which sounds fine but is actually freezing.  I was wearing a full body wetsuit and I was still shaking and super cold when I was in the water.  Coolest thing I did on Saturday was hang out underwater upside down. That was awesome.   

View of the spring and the deck where we put on our gear

The spring!

So official

Andrea and me

On Sunday we drove down to West Palm Beach for an ocean dive with Little Deeper Charters.  Until the two dives we did in the ocean, I only kind of understood why people were so hooked on diving and why it was so fun.  After those two dives, I get it.  You literally go down to the bottom of the water, check out all the coral and fish and other animals that live there, and you don't have to surface to breathe.  Like, what?  Obviously I knew this before I actually went diving, but I didn't fully understand what it was like/how cool it would be until Sunday.  Things we saw: a ton of reef fish, a sea turtle, two nurse sharks, several lionfish (we even caught one of them--I mentioned before how terrible they are for Atlantic ecosystems, so divers often catch them to remove them from the reefs), and a very large lobster.  It was a super long day because West Palm Beach is pretty far from where I live, so with driving and being out on the boat and getting dinner before coming back, I didn't get home until midnight.  But overall it was amazing.  I loved being underwater for so long and seeing everything that lives down there, and I'm excited for a lifetime of getting to explore different marine environments with SCUBA. I'm not sure if I posted it on here before, but getting to do this class was a Christmas gift from my grandparents last year, so I want to say a huge thank you to them. Love you both, this has been incredible. 

Where we went out from

The group (me with other students and our instructors)

There were some pictures taken underwater, which I'm hoping I'll have access to soon.  If I do, I'll post them!

I need to share some fun stories from work from the last week or so, but I'm going to end this here. 

Hope everyone's doing well at home and hopefully enjoying some cooler weather!