FIRST OPEN WATER DIVE!

Saturday, January 17th Cameron and I decided to take a trip to Brookings, OR for my first open water dive. We arrived all excited and ready to go. The ocean was absolutely gorgeous - the weather was 65 degrees and beautiful. The only drawback was the size of the beautiful 6 foot waves. Cameron opted for safety and we decided to go to the Smith River instead.

Upon arriving at the Smith River I knew I was in for a "treat". We got all dressed up in our SCUBA gear (literally inching toward the water due to the weight of the gear) and slowly became buoyant in the water. It wasn't long before I realized that even with all of that protective wetsuit gear, it was FREEZING!

Cameron encouraged me to float face down with my regulator in my mouth for awhile to get used to the temperature. My lips immediately turned blue. It was so cold that my head began to ache from a "reverse ice cream headache".

While the rest of my body was relatively warm, my mouth and forehead were suffering. Fishing boats kept going by looking at us as if we were nuts.

After a prolonged 20 minutes (and 500 psi of air later) I was sitting on the bank defrosting. Cameron came back about 5 minutes later and we decided that getting lunch sounded like a much better idea. We headed to our favorite hole in the wall seafood restaurant and enjoyed a warm chowder bowl (yummy). It was great to spend some time together with Cameron and while our dive was shorter than expected we had a great time.