I'm Flying. Thank you Archimedes!

What a rush...never will I experience the sensation of flying, I mean flying like a bird, moving at will through three demensional space, quite the same way as I do when diving. I want to go up...I look up and inhale deeply, and there I go. And when it comes time to go down...or to some other place, I simply look there and exhale deeply and I move to the new place. This is the beauty of neutral buoyancy while diving. Archimedes is my hero, as his principle of buoyancy states that "any body partially or completely submerged in a fluid is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by the body." It was once a hard concept to imagine. But now I know that it means I am weightless in the water, that is to say perfectly balanced and neither floating nor sinking in the water column. My buoyancy is affected by my breath, changing the volume of the object (me) while not significantly changing the weight of the object (unlike the Spaghetti Carbonara I had for dinner last night.) Isn't physics wonderful?

And so I fly, supported in mid water I move at will, like a condor soaring on the currents. Free, streamlined, unencumbered and ultimately happy! Sound like fun? You can learn to dive in two weekends and you will have a sense of neutral buoyancy. You will perfect your neutral buoyancy on every dive over your entire dive career as you discover new ways to use your body and your equipment to achieve perfect weightlessness. You too will be able to fly.

I love teaching new students to dive. At some point in class they discover that they are perfectly neutrally buoyant and there is an "aha!" moment when their eyes light up and the smile is evident through their mask. Of course the excitement changes their breathing pattern and position and the perfect moment is lost but for that split second they are enthralled. Let me teach you to dive at Atlantic Edge Dive Center.

Cheers...JaneS

Fish Whisperer

I think I might be a fish whisperer. Well, really I aspire to be a fish whisperer. That is to say I strive to dive in such a way as to befriend the fish. Last October, I was diving in the Bahamas and I realized that I was getting pretty good at this fish whisperer thing. One can never chase and expect to catch up to a fish...they will always be faster than the fastest diver. But, if one moves quietly, exhales gently with no sudden moves, it is possible to get right into the middle of a school. I think the fish just consider me a big ugly distant cousin who they have to entertain for a while.

I practiced this with the french grunts and the blue stripped grunts that like to school in the shade of a coral head. They are usually facing into a current and I would line myself up at the back of the pack, barely finning, as streamlined as possible. Bit by bit I would gain on the school...with each surge of the ocean I would get a little closer until finally I could see fish in front of me and fish to my left and fish to my right and if I looked down between my legs I could see fish behind me. "Yeah, I'm in!!!" I was completely surrounded by the school and everybody seemed pretty comfortable. What a high. I later tried this with a small school of menacing looking barracuda...same thing, except every once in a while I would take the regulator out of my mouth and make an exaggerated underbite so they would know I belonged.

Next I tried it with a lone southern sting ray. This guy was swimming by just above a sandy patch, I swam along side talking to him (not out loud as that makes way too many bubbles, but in my head and with every bit of body language I could muster) "It's OK buddy I just want to visit with you, settle down, you can cover up in the sand, I won't hurt you, good buddy!" And before you know it that little ray had settled himself right down into the sand and covered himself up. Just his scutes and eyes were visible and he let me approach to within inches, watching me warily but patiently letting me watch him too. We had bonded. I'm really getting the hang of this fish whisperer thing!

Thankfully I get to practice the technique as a volunteer diver at the National Aquarium in Baltimore. Every two weeks I dive with the amazing creatures in the Wings on the Water exhibit and the Atlantic Coral Reef exhibit and I talk to the fish all the time. I teach a course at the Aquarium and any certified Open Water Diver (or equivalent) can take the course through Atlantic Edge Dive Center and have the priviledge of whispering to the fishes. I'd be happy to show you how!

Cheers...JaneDiver

The Zen of Diving

I am running to keep up with the cyber age and so I will undertake this blog in the hopes that the eletronic age will not pass me by. I hope you will follow along.

I teach scuba diving. I am the Assistant Training Director at Atlantic Edge Dive Center and I have travelled the world to dive in some pretty amazing places. I will share some of these travels over time in this blog. Obviously, I love diving. If I could not see, I would still dive...I love hearing the bubbles, being neutrally buoyant and moving as abird moves in multi-dimensional space, I love that when diving I am totally consumed by the Zen of the dive. I also really enjoy teaching others to dive. Most instructors will tell you that they like sharing their passion with new divers, getting their students to get as excited about the sport, the travel, the underwater world as they are. Sure, thats a part of what I like about teaching...but honestly part of what I love is the teaching itself. I am intrigued when I have a student who is scared, or clumsy, or uncomfortable in and around water. It fascinates me to see if I can find the words to get that student to relax, to fix their kick, to trust me, and to enjoy the sensation of being underwater, breathing and blowing bubbles. Sometimes it requires every bit of creativity to get that difficult student to the point that they can enjoy the idea of diving, that they can find their Zen in the dive. Just recently I had a student in the pool whose breathing was extremely fast...I knew he was nervous and had to find a way to slow his breathing down. I asked him to lay on the bottom of the pool with me and to try to pace his breathing to mine. He did and soon he looked comfortable so I grabbed his arm, tucked it under mine and together we swam a lap around the pool. Sometimes touch underwater can make all he difference in the world. My once nervous student was happily swimming underwater looking more and more like a diver! I had managed to find a way to help him find and feel the Zen of the dive.

Cheers...JaneDiver