Colorado Belle
05-12-2006, 12:31 AM
Ok, big disclaimer here....there was no water in my lungs so I couldn't have almost drowned. And it was NOT a near death experience cuz I didin't see the light, things didn't go into slo mo, and I didn't relive my past.
But I did run out of air while scuba diviing in the fish tank. God knows how I did it, but I did it. Kind of embarrassing now.....
First, Thursday was our last full day before leaving Friday afternoon. We decided to go to MK, but it was really crowded, so we fast passed it. I wanted to get back to the room @ 2 to rest and 'psych myself up' for my 4:00 Dive Quest tour. I had visions of going to the pool! But we dallied and got back to the room at 3. No time for resting weary feet!
I made it to the Guest Relations building with time to spare, only to learn that it was a DIFFERENT Guest Relations from the Segway tour the day before.Don't cha just hate being the last one to arrive???? Anyway, the guide told us it was gonna be awesome! And that the later group had cancelled so that we were gonna get extra time in the tank. Yippee!
We went backstage and had an informative tour of the living seas. The entire cost of the tour went to the Disney Conservation FUnd...absolutely no money to the mouse; ya gotta love it! We learned that these fishes are so well fed that....well, the food truck stops first to deposit fish at the tank and THEN goes over to the Coral Reef Restaurant...same quality fish food as fish for people food!
Our guide, Mikey, told us he was going to round up all our friends and family and give them a backstage tour too. I was sad that the president of my fan club couldn't make it...he would have had so much fun...but I was glad that I had at least one friend to come watch, so I called Pam and told her not to hurry, that we wouldn't be in the tank until 5:30. We were given shorty wetsuits and booties. Why in the World do they zip UP THE BACK? Whoever designed THAT certainly wasn't a woman! But we girls helped each other out and finally it was time to get in the tank. Disney is all about safety and we had access to the best equipment made for scuba and not only a dive master but 3 other qualified masters diving with us! We didn't have a reserve tank or an Octopus, but the dive instructors all carried pony tanks (this is important in a bit)
We were told that this was a once in a lifetime experience because we would be diving with landlubbers watching us and with us being able to watch the landlubbers. We were made honorary cast members and told that we had the same responsibilties as CM's except that we weren't getting paid. We were encouraged to interact with those landlubbers and given hints on how to drive them crazy, how to blow kisses, and how to do 'stupid people tricks' underwater.
We were all excited: not for the fish or the fake coral, not even for the close encounters with the sharks (5 I think)...but because we were going to get to be 'characters' and play to the crowds!
Disney makes the dive so easy: you walk into the tank and stand on a grate just the perfect height to slip into the equipment which was already set up completely.
I admit that I had trouble with my 'highend' flippers that were techno-adjustable. I thought they were the old fashioned kind and was shocked when as I swam out to the dive ball that I lost both of them. I was concerned because I usually need more weights to stay down if I use a BC, but the dive master said that the BC's at Disney were 'magical' and not to worry. Otay. It was only 25 feet deep...so it is pretty easy to stay down just with breath control; I rarely use a BC, cause if I put any air in it whatsoever, I can't descend. (I learned BCBC...that is, before there even were BC (buoyancy compensators). So...we had to follow the master once around (230 feet across) and through some little stunts for the videographer. Then, after we got 'together' with our landlubber fams on the video (that was cool) we were free to play. My dive partner and I headed over to the Coral Reef Restaurant windows and were having the time of our lives interacting with the kids at dinner (and some of the grown ups...I think I had one if not two marriage proposals, but then, I like my men with teeth :fresh: _
So far, so good. Blowing kisses , doing somersaults, crab walking down the windows, getting out of the way of the sharks (that was our job...no touchie the fish but the fishies can touch, bump or , in the case of the sharks, nibble on you)
I guess I didn't realize how much air I was using up every time I took out my regulator to blow kisses....I always use LESS air than other divers. Yes, we had an air gauge, and yes, I was told to keep an eye on it; but I had put in two contacts for distance vision and there be the problem. We women of a certain age tend to lose the ability to see up close whenever we correct our eyes for distance.
WIth the low light in the tank, and the distortion of my mask and the water, I couldn't see the darn needle.
So, after a long while, I figured I would go visit the 500 lb grouper just laying on the bottom of the tank. I expelled all my air from my lungs so I could hang on the bottom, and I was trying to be quiet (no bubbles) to see if he would notice me.
Nada. So when I got bored, I decided to breathe...but hey, I didn't seem to be able to get any air. Hmmmmmm. I thought about this for a few seconds and , presumably sliding back into the days of double hose regulators when you had to SUCK air out of the tank when it was above you...I rolled over onto my back to try to get some air outta my tank. Nothing. So THEN, i thought:well maybe I am low on air, so I played around with the air gage and tried to read it...couldn't see squat. By this time, a NORMAL person would have decided it was time to GO UP...you see, we were only in 25 feet of water, and most anyone can free dive that deep (and you have to in ditch and recovery if you have a DOM Navy seal diver doing your cert like I did). But nooooooo....CB looks around for someone to 'borrow' some air from. The dive master is about 30 feet away...so CB decides she will simply swim to the dive master and borrow some air. DUH!
At this point I have been without O2 for about 2 minutes, which frankly, is about my max time. Things were starting to get a wee bit uncomfortable.:help:
So I swam in a hurry over to the dive master, who's back was to me. I didnt' have anything to clink on my tank to make a noise with, so I had to kinda swim around her. By this time, I really didn't have enough air to be polite and ASK for air...no indeed. I just saw her regulator in her mouth and took ahold of it and claimed it for my own! When she saw that I had no intention of sharing, she reached for her pony and we slowly ascended. Boy, was I embarrassed! And disappointed in myself...I tend to not panic much; in this case I tended to panic so little that I was WAY out of air before I decided I had to take action. I'm disappointed that I didn't THINK that in 25 feet of water, the simplest, surest thing to do was to just ascend.
Sigh....And Poor Disney; trying so hard to make everything safe. I can't imagine what would have happened had I panicked and run amok with all those Mouseketeers looking at me! But Pam says no one had a clue that anything was wrong...It looked, she said 'Professional" :laughing:
I have since programmed my pea brain to weigh ALL options before deciding on a course of action when underwater. I guess if I were in 80+ of water, I did the right thing in looking for someone with air, but the fact is, I wasn't IN 80 feet of water and I can't figure out why my brain didn't kick in and tell me to surface.
Well...the dive is phenominal if you like to ham it up for the kids. The sharks got up close and personal. Disney did a great job with the video which we saw after our dive...but I forgot to buy it before dinner and then after, the gift shop was closed. Pam tried to get some photos but her camera didn't like the plexiglass wall.
So....YES, I heartily recommend this dive. And please, if you get all caught up in sommersaults and other air guzzling pursuits, please remember that the surface is only 25 feet or less away!!!
I felt waterlogged at dinner, and we decided that Coral Reef wasn't our best meal,but I can say that the crab cake was the biggest I've ever been served! (No guilt after swimming with the fishes; no sebastians in the whole tank)
We had an early evening as I recall...I was TIRED from being an honorary CM!
SInce I don't have any photos, I 'm going to close my trip report with a fireworks video clip...but I am going to post this FIRST since this morning I lost my whole report when I tried to access photobucket before posting my post!
Thanks for reading! Hope you don't feel shortchanged re my drowning. This is way weird, and not at all funny, but a woman DID drown the same day as I ran out of air in the CS or CR quiet pool....and she was from Colorado. Kind of makes ya wonder a little about fate....
But I did run out of air while scuba diviing in the fish tank. God knows how I did it, but I did it. Kind of embarrassing now.....
First, Thursday was our last full day before leaving Friday afternoon. We decided to go to MK, but it was really crowded, so we fast passed it. I wanted to get back to the room @ 2 to rest and 'psych myself up' for my 4:00 Dive Quest tour. I had visions of going to the pool! But we dallied and got back to the room at 3. No time for resting weary feet!
I made it to the Guest Relations building with time to spare, only to learn that it was a DIFFERENT Guest Relations from the Segway tour the day before.Don't cha just hate being the last one to arrive???? Anyway, the guide told us it was gonna be awesome! And that the later group had cancelled so that we were gonna get extra time in the tank. Yippee!
We went backstage and had an informative tour of the living seas. The entire cost of the tour went to the Disney Conservation FUnd...absolutely no money to the mouse; ya gotta love it! We learned that these fishes are so well fed that....well, the food truck stops first to deposit fish at the tank and THEN goes over to the Coral Reef Restaurant...same quality fish food as fish for people food!
Our guide, Mikey, told us he was going to round up all our friends and family and give them a backstage tour too. I was sad that the president of my fan club couldn't make it...he would have had so much fun...but I was glad that I had at least one friend to come watch, so I called Pam and told her not to hurry, that we wouldn't be in the tank until 5:30. We were given shorty wetsuits and booties. Why in the World do they zip UP THE BACK? Whoever designed THAT certainly wasn't a woman! But we girls helped each other out and finally it was time to get in the tank. Disney is all about safety and we had access to the best equipment made for scuba and not only a dive master but 3 other qualified masters diving with us! We didn't have a reserve tank or an Octopus, but the dive instructors all carried pony tanks (this is important in a bit)
We were told that this was a once in a lifetime experience because we would be diving with landlubbers watching us and with us being able to watch the landlubbers. We were made honorary cast members and told that we had the same responsibilties as CM's except that we weren't getting paid. We were encouraged to interact with those landlubbers and given hints on how to drive them crazy, how to blow kisses, and how to do 'stupid people tricks' underwater.
We were all excited: not for the fish or the fake coral, not even for the close encounters with the sharks (5 I think)...but because we were going to get to be 'characters' and play to the crowds!
Disney makes the dive so easy: you walk into the tank and stand on a grate just the perfect height to slip into the equipment which was already set up completely.
I admit that I had trouble with my 'highend' flippers that were techno-adjustable. I thought they were the old fashioned kind and was shocked when as I swam out to the dive ball that I lost both of them. I was concerned because I usually need more weights to stay down if I use a BC, but the dive master said that the BC's at Disney were 'magical' and not to worry. Otay. It was only 25 feet deep...so it is pretty easy to stay down just with breath control; I rarely use a BC, cause if I put any air in it whatsoever, I can't descend. (I learned BCBC...that is, before there even were BC (buoyancy compensators). So...we had to follow the master once around (230 feet across) and through some little stunts for the videographer. Then, after we got 'together' with our landlubber fams on the video (that was cool) we were free to play. My dive partner and I headed over to the Coral Reef Restaurant windows and were having the time of our lives interacting with the kids at dinner (and some of the grown ups...I think I had one if not two marriage proposals, but then, I like my men with teeth :fresh: _
So far, so good. Blowing kisses , doing somersaults, crab walking down the windows, getting out of the way of the sharks (that was our job...no touchie the fish but the fishies can touch, bump or , in the case of the sharks, nibble on you)
I guess I didn't realize how much air I was using up every time I took out my regulator to blow kisses....I always use LESS air than other divers. Yes, we had an air gauge, and yes, I was told to keep an eye on it; but I had put in two contacts for distance vision and there be the problem. We women of a certain age tend to lose the ability to see up close whenever we correct our eyes for distance.
WIth the low light in the tank, and the distortion of my mask and the water, I couldn't see the darn needle.
So, after a long while, I figured I would go visit the 500 lb grouper just laying on the bottom of the tank. I expelled all my air from my lungs so I could hang on the bottom, and I was trying to be quiet (no bubbles) to see if he would notice me.
Nada. So when I got bored, I decided to breathe...but hey, I didn't seem to be able to get any air. Hmmmmmm. I thought about this for a few seconds and , presumably sliding back into the days of double hose regulators when you had to SUCK air out of the tank when it was above you...I rolled over onto my back to try to get some air outta my tank. Nothing. So THEN, i thought:well maybe I am low on air, so I played around with the air gage and tried to read it...couldn't see squat. By this time, a NORMAL person would have decided it was time to GO UP...you see, we were only in 25 feet of water, and most anyone can free dive that deep (and you have to in ditch and recovery if you have a DOM Navy seal diver doing your cert like I did). But nooooooo....CB looks around for someone to 'borrow' some air from. The dive master is about 30 feet away...so CB decides she will simply swim to the dive master and borrow some air. DUH!
At this point I have been without O2 for about 2 minutes, which frankly, is about my max time. Things were starting to get a wee bit uncomfortable.:help:
So I swam in a hurry over to the dive master, who's back was to me. I didnt' have anything to clink on my tank to make a noise with, so I had to kinda swim around her. By this time, I really didn't have enough air to be polite and ASK for air...no indeed. I just saw her regulator in her mouth and took ahold of it and claimed it for my own! When she saw that I had no intention of sharing, she reached for her pony and we slowly ascended. Boy, was I embarrassed! And disappointed in myself...I tend to not panic much; in this case I tended to panic so little that I was WAY out of air before I decided I had to take action. I'm disappointed that I didn't THINK that in 25 feet of water, the simplest, surest thing to do was to just ascend.
Sigh....And Poor Disney; trying so hard to make everything safe. I can't imagine what would have happened had I panicked and run amok with all those Mouseketeers looking at me! But Pam says no one had a clue that anything was wrong...It looked, she said 'Professional" :laughing:
I have since programmed my pea brain to weigh ALL options before deciding on a course of action when underwater. I guess if I were in 80+ of water, I did the right thing in looking for someone with air, but the fact is, I wasn't IN 80 feet of water and I can't figure out why my brain didn't kick in and tell me to surface.
Well...the dive is phenominal if you like to ham it up for the kids. The sharks got up close and personal. Disney did a great job with the video which we saw after our dive...but I forgot to buy it before dinner and then after, the gift shop was closed. Pam tried to get some photos but her camera didn't like the plexiglass wall.
So....YES, I heartily recommend this dive. And please, if you get all caught up in sommersaults and other air guzzling pursuits, please remember that the surface is only 25 feet or less away!!!
I felt waterlogged at dinner, and we decided that Coral Reef wasn't our best meal,but I can say that the crab cake was the biggest I've ever been served! (No guilt after swimming with the fishes; no sebastians in the whole tank)
We had an early evening as I recall...I was TIRED from being an honorary CM!
SInce I don't have any photos, I 'm going to close my trip report with a fireworks video clip...but I am going to post this FIRST since this morning I lost my whole report when I tried to access photobucket before posting my post!
Thanks for reading! Hope you don't feel shortchanged re my drowning. This is way weird, and not at all funny, but a woman DID drown the same day as I ran out of air in the CS or CR quiet pool....and she was from Colorado. Kind of makes ya wonder a little about fate....