Veteran’s Park, Redondo Beach, CA

I dove as a safety diver with Instructor John’s Open Water class.*

In With: 2600 psi
Out With: 2000 psi
Max depth: 40 feet
Waves: 1-3 feet
Visibility: 5-10 feet
Water Temperature: Cold at 40 feet
Total Bottom Time: 15 minutes or so
*The names of students have been changed.

John canceled the July 31st trip to Catalina due to an illness.

Young Hottie, Green Horn, Pedro and three other students from another class were in attendance.

We did the traditional “get wet and feel the bottom” and skin dive routine.

Class moved fairly quickly.

On this dive, Pedro canceled the dive because he had “sand in the latches of his fins.”

John swam over and jokingly asked if I had sabotaged his fins.

I submerged first, everyone else followed except for one of the new students.

The student had some kind of a sinus problem; his eyes were as big as golf balls, so John sent him back in.

With everyone down, I took up the back, John lead.

New divers!

They breathe heavy, crawl on the bottom and bicycle kick; I must have done the same thing when I was learning.

One of the new students developed an ear problem – as he told me later – at forty feet and started to ascend; his buddy followed him, and I followed them.

He tried to submerge again, but couldn’t make it.

Rejoining John and his group at this point would have been a long shot.

We floated towards the stairs and started to exit just as the rest of our group was doing the same several yards away from us.

John accidentally dropped his weight belt helping Young Hottie out of the surf.