Muse back!
November 09, 2006 / Thursday
Floatey Toes And Glugluglug
At the moment, I have wrinkly toes from being in the water for three hours, but when I was in the water earlier I had a pretty bad case of floatey toes. We started off the session with a BWRAF check followed by a giant stride into the deep end of the pool. I went first, entered the pool with a very ungiant something, and promptly ended up on my back, fins (and toes) hopelessly floating on the water.
It took me a while to learn to get and keep them under me, and not before our instructor officially diagnosed me with Floatey Toes Syndrome. I seem to be better about keeping my feet under me now, so perhaps we won't have to resort to the ankle weight cure. I managed to make it through the the weighting check mostly upright. But then, we didn't really need to check much. I emptied my BCD and sank like a rock. Ready for the ocean, I am!
We ventured to the bottom of the 10 foot section of the pool and did a bunch of skills. The air sharing (plus later the "D'oh, you're out of air because the instructor turned your tank off.") and fin pivot (yes, someone had to hold down my floatey toes) exercises were no problem. We swam around some, then swam using our buddy's alternate air source, which was no problem either. Sipping from a free flowing regulator (near the surface, not at 10 feet), also no problem. I did, however, have major issues with clearing my fully flooded my mask and with taking my mask completely off. Nose in water with 10 feet of pressure pushing against it, not a happy feeling.
I took a few minutes after the first 10 foot session and at the end of the night to practice breathing underwater without my mask in the 4 foot section of the pool. When I was finally able to do it calmly, I fully flooded and cleared my mask a few times. Then I took the mask completely off, put it back on, and cleared it. I did that a few times too. I even remembered to clear the mask seal of hair on the final replace.
Next week, I'll probably have to show that I can do those skills at 10 feet. I'll probably have to do the no mask swim at 10 feet too. Will I eek (note that that's different from freak, which probably would have felt a lot worse than glugging a little water) like I did tonight? Fuck no. I refuse to fail at something I know I'm physically capable of doing. If I can do it at 4 feet, I can do it at 10. It's all in my head.
Get over it, head.
November 9, 2006 10:19 PM | Water
Comments
and if you can do it at 10, you can do it at 40+. Wow....how far you've come from the vivo that couldn't get across the pool!!!
Posted by: red at November 10, 2006 09:04 AM
40 sounds daunting right now, but I'm sure once I do it at 10 it'll sound less daunting. 10 seems doable, now that I've done at 4.
Maybe I need a 25 somewhere in there. ;)
Posted by: Viv at November 10, 2006 10:09 AM