Frogman

Trying to work out your no-decompression dive table when you're dead tired is an aquired taste. As a public safety diver, you'll need to work out your tables at any time, usually its two in the morning, snowing, and you have to walk to the dive site up hill, barefoot over broken glass. Well you get the idea. Anytime, anywhere.
So, after a slew of mock tables, we all gather around the table to take our final exam. The test was a review of the most important diving lessons we learned. Every fact drilled into our heads was on the test. Including no-decompression tables. Great for a guy who just barely past high school math.
We filled out our international information cards, in about a week or so after our open water drills we'll be mailed a photo ID giving our rank and an international serial number. If I want (or need, if my dive unit is ever loaned to a foreign police service, yes it does happen) to dive anywhere in the world, I can.
After all the paper work we suited up for our pool final. Previously in the week we had done a drill called the Bermuda triangle, notrious for washing out dive candidates. Three instructors arranged themselves in a triangle about forty five feet away from each other. Each stayed underwater with his gear on and held out their emergency regulator. The idea is for a candidate to swim from each instructor, underwater sans scuba gear and not surface. All the while we have to exhale so as not to damage our lungs. From the first instructor to the first corner wasn't so bad, I managed to arrive with just enough air left in my lungs to clear the regulator with one good blow. After a few breaths I moved on to the next corner, my air was lagging about halfway through but I toughed it out and nearly bowled the poor guy over in my effor to grab his reg. The trip to the final corner, known among washouts as "The Bitch" was the worst. About halfway through the swim I was totally out of air. Now at this point, most candidates surface and fail the drill. They have the oppurtunity to re-test twice and then thats all she wrote. There was no way in hell I was going to be that close and blow it, or in the case of my lack of air, not blow it. So I powered on, I've been free diving before, it happens. I could feel myself cramping up, my body wanted to spasm me to the surface, suck in lungfulls of air. My brain won though, I drove until I had the regulator in my mouth and took the sweetest breath I've ever known.
Actually, I sucked down about 800 pounds of air in a little over ten seconds. Thats usually about ten minutes worth of air. I was taking so much air the instructor tore the reg away and pushed me to the surface. I passed the Triangle on my first run out.
The pool final was somewhat different. We had passed all of the really hard stuff. I breathed with or without a mask. I held my reg fully open and sipped little bits of air in ten feet of water. Tonight we had to doff all of our gear while still breathing and then re don it. Under ten feet of water.
The procedure is a lot like re donning a ScottPack, something I was trained to do for the fire department. It is, however, slightly different underwater. All of your movements are exagerated. The purpose of this drill was basically to see who would panic.
I stripped off my weight belt and slapped into my right hand. My left undid my BC and slid the entire unit around in front of me so I was looking at the back of my tank. I breathed steadily the whole time, it was nerve wracking but not all that bad. Again my dumbass Coast Guard self training was coming in hand. (Apparently having a screw loose is a good thing.) So with the whole righ infront of me, I scoop it upside down over my head and let the vest openings slide over my arms, I slap the tank into place where I want it and tighten the belts. Game over right?
My primary regulator hose was slid under the vest, I had missed the instructor stealthily move it into compromise. So I spit it out and blow my air bubbles, going for my emergency reg. He moved that one too. Now is when the panic starts. I felt it building in my throat, bile threatening to escape. Calmly I blew out my bubbles and redoffed the whole unit. When I grabbed my regulator, I was treated to the second sweetest breath. Re donning my gear was not as bad when the hoses weren't moved and the instructor gave me a little underwater clap and the OK sign.
Our instructors had done all this before. Some of them had even experienced it in real life. Chris, our head teacher had been diving since he was a boy. He'd lived all over the world and made a name for himself as a wreck/salvage diver in Asian waters. Once while exploring a sunken Japenese destroyer at 100 feet, he doffed his gear to squeeze through a kneeknocker door. The gear got free, tearing the regulator from his mouth and plumetted four decks below. So now, without air, 100 feet under, he had to search for his tank. Lungs bursting, he found it wedged under what was left of an old bunk room. Everything they were teaching us had real life applications that could save our lives.
After everyone completed their panic and gear drills we were all sent to sit on the deep end of the pool, up against the wall. Both instructors gave us the OK sign and a round of underwater applause. Then they swam over to each of us and shook our hands. Firm handshakes underwater. Since we couldn't talk to each other it was all in the handshake and the eyes. You could see they were proud of us and feel it in their grips. Its strange but that was a very moving experience. These guys who made their living underwater (one instructor had nearly thirty years of international experience) were welcoming us into their elite club.
With four open water dives, scheduled to be at Fort Wetherill, my old stomping grounds I'm now a diver. Dropping down under the waves without air is a hell of a rush and I can only imagine what it will be like when I get down their with enough time to play around.