Underwater Astronauts

SCUBA is hard!

I thought it was going to be hard for different reasons than it is. I knew I’d have issues with the whole ‘lack of control’ bit, the being in an environment where you screw up and things are exponentially worse than when you’re in a place where even if you fell from a height and shattered a bone or 5 and on landing couldn’t draw breath you still have a more than decent chance of making it through. I knew about the secondary air supply and how to get it, or at least how to make sure you are near someone that can see you need it and make it happen. I’ve read about diving adventures gone wrong and decompression chambers in remote locations… gorgeous, warm and most beautiful locations!

What I didn’t know, and didn’t even guess at, was that your face has the channels that drive water straight into your mask and up your nose! That didn’t happen when I was snorkeling! Turns out there are multitudes of places this can happen (Google is not always your friend people), but in my specific case I THINK I’ve figured out its my lips. When you get old, or at least when a woman gets old (I honestly don’t know whether this happens to men and am NOT Googling to find out sorry) you get lines above your lips that channel straight to your nostrils when you blow (or “purge”) or pout or purse your lips… And then there are your laugh lines, which is slightly disastrous if you have the inclination to smile at people to indicate you’re okay. And it hurts! Not necessarily the first time, but after a while it’s really quite painful. And then there’s the whole swapping mouth pieces and purging and swapping back… I’m struggling with this a lot.

Anyway – to start. We all got to the pool in good time and met up for a coffee before hand, which was lovely! Kilbirnie pool has a cafe – they’re not quick but they are good and have a decent range of food. None of us really wanted to eat because we really didn’t know what was coming up. So the four of us (Duane’s kids are going to do this in the holidays – we’re doing this on my kids mutual day off – retail sucks for weekends.) went and met Elliot and Dani.

We got our gear sorted and in to our wetsuits and started in the small pool – slightly frustrating for the giant as even on his knees his head was out of the water but good for the rest of us. I was almost immediately behind – I really hate being special! But had the nose issues pretty much from the start. And Elliot immediately knew that all was not right even though I was signalling okay madly hoping that I could just move on.

Elliot and Dani were fantastic in their persistence and patience and we had a good first session really – the worst part was trying to be on your knees in the water! That’s really hard on muscles that are rarely used in actual life. I also had the problem where I couldn’t sink. I’m a champion floater but for whatever reason I could not go down. Issue when diving

Dani weighted me down muchly and off we went, it was good. Honestly don’t remember lots about the first part of being underwater except that breathing wasn’t the freaky thing I thought it would be and that trying to balance was insane. And then we were out and into the 2 & 5 metre lanes. Awesome!

We did the buddy alternate breathing thing – swapping out your regulator for your buddy’s alternate – and the taking out your regulator and blowing bubbles, swapping it for your snorkel etc and then the filling up your mask with water and emptying it while still under. Did it! Absolutely hated it! And that’s where I ended really.

By this stage my nose was becoming a real issue. Dani and Elliot got me to try several masks and some were more successful than others. In the end Elliot took the others for lessons while Dani tried to sort me out.

Honestly at this stage I was nearly in tears – of all the things I thought that would stop me diving it was not my stupid nose or the wrinkles that went into them. Or the fact that after a while I was in absolute panic mode every time I went down and my nostrils started to fill. Insane!

So I sat the rest of it out – floated on the surface with my mask and snorkel watching under water and trying VERY hard not to make eye contact so I wouldn’t smile accidentally.

It sucked.

But… I was not going to bloody give up at this stage of the freaking game!

The others had been steaming on – it was awesome 🙂 Duane had the remnants of a cold and had sinus issues, but had kept on keeping on and they were all very stoked with their time in the pool. Not sure if I mentioned this but both Elliot and Dani were VERY cool – so patient and absolutely clear in their explanations and expectations.

Elliot suggested I go see Dave and get him to help me get a mask that fits properly and that would make a huge difference. And I did. The next day went to Island Bay and got myself a mask and snorkel with Dave’s guidance and then was like yeah and how do I know it works.

So my girl and I went to the pool – a couple of times actually. And spent time underwater smiling, pouting and taking the snorkel out and putting it back in… anything we could think of to feel more comfortable with this stuff underwater. And it worked! It made such a difference – thank you chick!

Oh – and the other thing! It freaking hurts! Your whole body hurts – my theory is that you’re constantly in motion and water resistance is high and so after a couple of hours you’ve actually done a huge amount of exercise that you don’t feel until you get out of the water. Worst is shoulders and neck, though thighs are a close second 😀 And the result of that is that Duane and I have both started exercising, though in different ways. I did ask Kane if he had hurt after but apparently not. Pretty sure he’s comfortable lying to me, but I suspect his gym body is used to pain. I do know that my kids went home and had a nap straight after the pool. Duane and I went home and logged into work and bitched about how sore and absolutely tired we are…

So this is my new friend which I am using every day (so far) and actually loving.

This diving thing is a terrible idea

SCUBA

Posts & Pages

After I got back from Tonga I really had the snorkeling bug. The problem is that Wellington is COLD! Even in the summer the sea is cold – I REALLY miss the waters of Canterbury. And while in Tonga I loved the snorkeling so much but I really wanted to go deeper, well at least at that last beach – all the cool stuff was so much further down than I could see. So I hit upon SCUBA! Awesome idea!! Pretty sure it won’t hurt while I do it (hahahahahaha) as I’m so much more comfortable in the water as far as my normal pain goes and other than the obvious issues (I actually can’t breathe underwater – dammit) it seems like something that can be done fairly easily regardless of disability levels.

So I did a very quick search and found Dive Wellington which offers a PADI Open Water Dive course and was in my budget level. It also allowed a private course for 4 people or more. So I immediately roped my daughter & Not Son In Law (NSIL? No – sounds like a pro-gun cadre, will stick with long form) into my plan and searched about for a 4th… This was weirdly trickier than I expected

A lot of people are not keen on being in the water if they are either not immediately able to touch the bottom or get to the surface. I don’t know why this surprised me but it really did. I think my childhood spent swimming in Le Bons kinda made me think it was normal that you were comfortable in the sea at any level…. but maybe there is something lacking in me anyway. Though after talking to Not Son In Law later he did say he wasn’t keen on swimming at all but was really looking forward to diving, so he’s WAY weirder than I am 😀

Anyway, I asked Duane – who is a guy I love for doing stuff because it comes up and looks cool – very definitely something I love in anybody but especially in a work mate. Duane’s got 3 kids, Dane (12), Aurora (10) and Haidyn who is younger. I have spent a bit of time with Aurora because of fish and books and have got to know both girls a bit. Don’t know Dane as well but I know his dad likes him 🙂

I was reading all the guff about the PADI Open Water course and when I read that they teach people as young as 10 I thought of Aurora and thought that she would really love this – and that she would be good at it. And so I asked Duane if his kids would like to join us… yes, yes they would.

Then I got in touch with Dave at Dive Wellington.

After a bit of back and forth the deposit was paid and Dave sent us the PADI Open Water Dive course.

Just FYI Dave and I had been emailing back and forth quite a bit by this time and I now have this image in my head of him being exactly like Holly on Red Dwarf (Norman Lovatt version) or HAL from 2001… while I’m fairly confident his vision of me is something more like Hyacinth Bucket – trying to maintain control of something completely uncontrollable in the silliest possible way.

That’s fine.

Dave had said the course was about 7 hours. This was not completely accurate. Admittedly I had buffering issues with all the videos (not on the best Fibre plan) but I did the first section in a couple of hours, sat down for 12 hours straight for sections 2, 3 & 4 – using the buffering for tea and pee breaks as required – and then finished off section 5 another time in an hour and a half. THEN there is the final assessment which took about an hour. Though honestly a lot of that was REALLY making sure I’d read both the questions and answers correctly – just about every time I got a question wrong in the section assessments was because I hadn’t done that. And the other times is because numbers never work the way I think they do. My lowest pass was 90% and I got 93% on the final assessment, so this wasn’t a huge issue (75% is the pass mark), but it was stupidly stressful trying not to make stupid mistakes 😏

Our first Friday evening was a equipment try on and run through. Caitlin, Kane, Duane, Dane, Aurora and I went to Dive Wellington in Island Bay to try on wetsuits and learn how to put our gear together. (If you ever want to forget how to say a persons name get three of them together that sound the same – completely screws with your head! Duane, Dane & Kane are all now known as Ummm hand gesture him).

Will (awesome – very patient!) took us through sizing our wetsuits (depressing) and kitting us up. Duane’s kids were easy and mine ditto. Duane and I were the challenge – Duane because he’s a giant and me because I’m a rounder than ideal. Obvs. But we found suits to fit:

Caitlin pointed out that the while rest of us are super uncomfortable Kane is running around looking like action man and very pleased with himself – totally true! I kinda love that he’s so happy in a wet suit 😀 Meanwhile Dane looks like Agent Smith and I love that too. We forgot to take the photo while we were all in wetsuits dammit, but Aurora looked fabulous and Duane looked really uncomfortable – that was sorted later by getting him a wetsuit without arms, but I think that’s going to be even more uncomfortable in the sea dive bit… anyway, he’ll be cool in the pool!

We ran through putting together the BCD and breathing apparatus and how to check for leaks and contaminated air a couple of times. And we were ready for the pool! So buzzed after this session actually – it was really cool to have put some stuff together in practice that we had learnt in theory, and a MAJOR relief to know that I could get into a wetsuit! And the buzz lasted for days – it was very cool.

Next session, the pool…

Addendum to my addendum…

Alyssa Cole is awesome! I really love her work. Not so much for the romance to be honest, but the geek girlness is perfect! Actually really cool. And my favourite authors just now are all geek girls – thank goodness I am here now when there are others here now that write stuff that make me happy. Actually. Imagine being in 1819 and wanting intellectual stimulation & funny!! Well there was Jane obvs. Okay. So wouldn’t have been completely unhappy, but definitely so pleased I have the plethora of authors to sift through today.

Kianna Alexander is a wee bit more challenging for me. I’ve only started one of her books. It was neither clever or funny. And I just couldn’t get into it. Sorry. But I feel exactly the same about Debbie MacComber, though she used to be both! I miss her.

I’m going to try a few more Kianna books, will never read another Debbie btw, but I just really love the geek connection. Sorry. If you enjoy Penny Reid, you’ll enjoy Alyssa Cole. I luff them both.

My next post will be about our SCUBA adventure I promise!

It’s harder to write than I thought it would be.

It’s no use going back to yesterday because I was a different person then…

I now have a blog, which means I need to write something. Gosh knows what…. But I feel like I should put something. So. Going back to the reading thing… I’ve been reading since I was 3. I’ve read most of the ‘classics’, and often read the book du jour but had my teenager years with the best little library in the world, the Linwood library which was for all of my teens and a great deal of my early motherhood on the corner of Worcester Street and Stanmore Road in Christchurch, New Zealand – 2 doors down from my home.Very eclectic range of books, but its definite draw at that time (other than stories about Edmund Hillary and Thor Heyerdahl)

was the Mills & Boon section. It was extensive and the books were heavily annotated by those that had read them before me – a gift in fact if you were a writer that wanted to know what readers wanted… unfortunately I was a supremely self involved teenager/woman who just wanted to be entertained. Though I did read the marginalia and was so impressed by the women who’d been there before me. I read the 60’s Mills & Boon with the timid mice women who were just glad that their strong heroes weren’t beating them, the 70’s where the women were extremely smart and relieved to find someone smarter and stronger and the 80’s where the women were both smart and strong and were very happy to have heroes that were much cleverer, much stronger and also so rich (a Sheik!) that whatever she was didn’t really matter. I enjoyed the ‘new’ writers – the 90’s comediennes – Emma Goldrick, Debbie Macomber (weirdly not so funny in the ’00’s and beyond, though still prolific), the idea that woman were not only relevant but had a choice. I really think, above anything that my Mum said about the fact I could do anything was this – the idea that I could be all and do all and still be funny, happy and successful (and yes!!! Maybe even get a man!!!) was part of the reason I never really stopped trying new things. Way more to my back story obviously, but this, and the marginalia of the women that had come before me in the 60’s, 70’s & 80’s books gave me the confidence that if I tried anything and failed then it was on my own merit. My mum obviously did the same – her absolute belief (or my absolute belief that what my mum says is true) definitely showed me if you don’t try then you won’t gain.

And now – April 2019 – I read this https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/apr/04/fifty-shades-of-white-romance-novels-racism-ritas-rwa. And it has just now occurred to me, that yes – I’ve read books that have protagonists of colour, I’ve read comedies where there are Hispanics and black men (though not often women, at least in my memory) in the lead ‘roles’, but actually no, it’s very rarely that I’ve read a romance where there are any black people yet alone in the role of protagonist. Is this because I’ve been deemed to kick up a stink if there’s people that aren’t like me in this book? Is it because I can’t cope with people who aren’t like me? Not sure what that means to be honest – if you get the privilege of unreliable periods, bitchy days and agonising nights and you still have to make nice, I’m guessing you’re a woman. Just like me. And so I’ve been reading Alyssa Cole, and have asked my library to get books written by Kianna Alexander, and will continue to seek out stories written by women all over the place – because if I get my unlikely ‘you can do it’ from Mills & Boon, then honestly everybody should be able to – whether their mother believes they can or not. It’s a good message (well from the 90’s on) and you just need to disregard the fact that a male will round your life out nicely….

Addendum: if you haven’t read the Guardian story I linked above you won’t really know wtf I’m talking about. Basically it’s that Mills & Boon, who became Harlequin and I think are now something else again, don’t sell books written by Black authors in the same way as they do “mainstream” books ( books written by white authors.)

In fact books written by Black authors – whatever the subject – tend to be shelved under “Black” in book shops. In America at least.

Even if that book is about a woman falling in love with a man, getting pissed off with that man and ensuing drama. And then that man and woman getting over it and going with the happily ever after. Just like every Mills and Boon ever, Love Boat, bloody hell Thorn Birds even. Melted down to its basic, that’s nearly every story ever. But yeah. It’s written by a Black person or has people of colour as hero or heroine or both so obviously should be shelved with Neil deGrasse Tyson. (Who is also awesome FYI!) And biographies of Mohammed Ali. Which, hey why not?!

But none of these books are in the best place for their target audience to find them.

FFS

Pretty confident that isn’t done here, but I’m definitely going to be looking for “Maori” at Whitcoulls next time I’m in there.

And Black

P.S. Not sure why the autocorrect to Black when I type black, but I’m keeping it. Sorry

Travels of a Middle-Aged Polly-Ana

When I realised I was not going to be 45 much longer I realised that I had dreams to travel and experience the world, but in actual fact had never (apart from a dream trip to Brisbane for my 30th with my best friend, her daughter and mine) gone anywhere. Well apart from all over New Zealand, which I’m now thinking I should include in this wee blog too. I really have been everywhere here – except the East Cape which is still #1 on my list. I haven’t documented it well though. But will do my best to put some of it in here too. And well gosh – it’s not like I’ve stopped travelling!

But not long before my 46th birthday, while lain out on the couch like a very sick slug after a particularly long week at work I got a ping in my inbox from Air New Zealand with the most amazing Island deals. Generally I ignore these – who has time to go overseas – you need weeks for that! But no – for less than a weekday price to Invercargill you can go to Tahiti! And honestly it doesn’t take much longer to get there, even though you go through Auckland! And I could do a week in Tahiti extremely easily and get cheap accommodation! And it is warm!!! And, obviously, I was going to be old at the end of August so should go for broke now! So I booked it. Then I emailed my manager and told him I’ve just booked this. Then thought OMG what have I done!

But I was SO excited! Tahiti – honestly have spent years dreaming about this place! So, stuck to my guns. And went and got my passport renewed Forgot you need that kind of thing tbh – when all your travel is in country you kinda just use your credit card as your id. Which actually sucks, but that’s another story.

Passport was actually really easy after years of putting it off – much easier than it was in 2002, and weirdly cheaper too. So that was done. Then looked at my (really cheap) accommodation and realised that yeah nah – I’m too old for backpacker accommodation, and also it was on Bora Bora – which I really wanted to go to but it was another $500 to get there plus the $300 accommodation for 6 nights – I might as well shell out for about the same in Paape’ete. So I changed that and rented a car.

Fortunately my manager was extremely supportive and fortunately I’m not too worried about making a dick of myself – fantastic holiday! Just loved it and so very pleased I did it. And now I want to do it more 😀

To see my whole adventures click on the menu above