Today I took my 15 yr old daughter out for her first scuba lesson. We have never tried in the pool, but this was a shallow spot under the Blue Heron Bridge and she is a good snorkeler. We got in shallow water and she had the accelerated lessons.. 3 minutes to clear the mask. I minute to breath w/o mask. 2 minutes to learn to buddy breathe with no mask and a quick discussion and demo of the buttons on the BC.
Weve also talked about Pressure varies inversely to volume, air spaces, equalization etc. She is wearing her brothers BP/W, and wetsuit and weight belt. He is snorkeling above us pulling the dive flag.
Visibility is excellent maybe 40 feet and there are a lot of moon jellies. They are mostly on the top 2-3 feet, but some are deeper. We head out and are maybe 100 yrds from the beach and see lots of pretty fish. She has better eyes and is pointing out tiny flounder, a pipe fish etc. I decide it is time to practice scuba removal and do a little snorkeling,.
So I drop my tank on the bottom and we go up and she inflates BC and removes and I dump the BC and set her rig on the bottom, near my tank.
We snorkel for a few minutes but the jelly fish make it no fun. We are getting stung a little and it takes a lot of concentration to dodge them. Little invisible tentacles are drifting and stinging as well. Neither of us have hoods on.
So I snorkel to the bottom in like 18 feet and get her tank and bring it up and she puts it on, I let her descend as I watch from the surface and then swim down and grab my tank. In the few moments as I flip the tank over my head (and my attention is diverted from her) .. .. she takes one.. a large jelly drifting in the current completely covers her face and wraps up in her hair. My son saw it from the surface and he dove down and ripped it off her face. I pop my tank on and she is rubbing her neck and frantically gives the thumbs up. Obviously, I should have paid better attention.
I have explained to her a bunch during lecture time that the instinct to run to the surface is perfectly natural and is expected, but we do not do that and we have also talked about how it is natural to take a big breath, hold it in and shoot for the top.
We have also had significant talks about how the thumbs up means we go up, and I will NOT try to keep her or anyone down
Except now is NOT the time to go up. The surface is covered with jellyfish (they seem to drift by in clouds, where they are clumped together). I weigh my options and figure it is better to take her to the surface than try to deny her the ability to ascend. So we go up.
We get to the surface, I inflate her BC and she is crying and puts the mask on her forehead. Her neck is bad, there are already raised welts in large areas and the skin is discolored. DAMN! I am NOT in control of the situation. There is no immediate exit or anyone that can help. She is upset and close to panic. I quickly explain that we will get stung more if we try to swim back on the surface and it will be much better to use the tanks and swim on the bottom. She agrees and we drop down to the bottom and swim back without a problem.
We got some vinegar sprayed on her from the lifeguard and the welts went down pretty fast.
Kinda a bummer of a dive, but it was really an excellent training dive. We got a demonstration about the instinct to run for the surface, a demonstration that if she gives me the thumbs up, I will take her up and also a VERY good lesson that the surface may NOT be the best place to be. She learned that she can cry all she wants in her mask and regulator and she will survive. She learned that she can continue to dive while in pain and upset. We spent a good bit of time talking about all this stuff. I wish I had paid a little more attention to her and the jellyfish.
Bummer my gopro was dead.
