Veteran’s Park, Redondo Beach, CA

Dove with Instructor John, his Open Water student Lurch and two of his Advanced Students*

In With: 2500 psi
Out With: 800 psi
Max depth: 45 feet
Waves: 1 to 3 feet, surf advisory
Visibility: 1-6 feet
Water Temperature: Cold
Total Bottom Time: 35 minutes
*Student names have been changed.

I’ve been helping John with his classroom and pool for my “Training Assistant” specialty.

We told Lurch that “we have another Pedro in class, his name is Cheech.”

Lurch told us, “Good luck.”

We were in the water fairly quickly.

This was a checkout dive for all students and was suppose to be a “take the mask off and swim for two minutes” exercise for the Advanced students.

After the checkout part of the dive, they did a navigation run – North, East, South, West and back to us.

They missed us by a few yards, but that was due to the current, I think.

Lurch pointed out to me that he was at 800 psi; we turned back and went in.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff Department’s Annual Mud Run

In Memory of Deputy Jerry Ortiz

It’s not everyone who gets invited to pay $25 to run through dirt and mud, but I was one of the chosen few.

Steve, Laurie, Jake and John from American Diving, my brother Paul and me went met up at the Sheriff’s training and jail facility in Saugus.

Basically, you pay $25 to race five miles through an obstacle course of dirt and mud.

To further enhance the experience, the Deputies fire blanks (I hope they were blanks) over your head in some parts of the course.

I was told to “bring clothes that you can just throw away and an extra change of clothes for afterwards.”

This was a charity event to provide cash money to the family of fallen officers between the time they die and before their death benefits are paid.

Some participants went there competitively; most of the American Diving group was determined to get the slowest time by walking.

My brother and I decided to go at a light jog so we wouldn’t have to worry about them running out of beer before we finished.

So at the prompt of canon and machine gun fire, several hundred participants started down a long, dirt path that led in to an ankle deep mud pit and out.

It wasn’t before long I felt the gravel in my shoes.

I had duct taped my pant legs to my shoes, but I guess I didn’t cover all the holes.

Every mile or so of dirt was a mud obstacle course that got deeper and more disgusting as the course went on.

At one point, there was a mud hill that you had to climb over, jump in a pool of mud, swim to the other side and climb up the opposing muddy hill.

Towards the end of the run, we had to slide through mud on our stomachs under a wire mesh.

This particular pit smelled like swamp sludge and horse shit.

What made it extra enjoyable were the participants in front of me kicking mud in my face as they raced to the other side.

So, in about an hour and forty minutes after the beginning, my brother and I victoriously finished in “not last” place.

The rest of our group was only 20 minutes behind us.

We hosed off, threw away our clothes and changed to our extra set.

I have to say one thing about the Sheriffs – they know how to throw a party!

$1 beers, $1 hotdogs, $1 hamburgers!

The Sheriffs awarded prizes to the various categories of winners – first place male, first place female, best team time, etc.

We sat, talked and drank for a couple of hour before taking a final group shot.

We all had fun, I hope – my brother was calling this the “dumb run.”