I'm OK! This is our first open-water dive. Yesterday we practiced our skills in the pool for several hours, today we put it all together in the ocean. We went out on a dive boat with other divers, but our class stays together as a group. There are the three of us, plus two others: Brian, a PhD Psychology student from Hawaii, and Nadine, a corporate lawyer from Toronto. Since we're leaving on Saturday, the boys and I will take our written test tomorrow morning before the 3rd and 4th open-water dives...

Elijah's OK. He was like a pro down there, very professional. But up on the boat, a little seasick maybe....

Elijah and I are both OK. We all formed a circle at the bottom of the descent line, and our instructor Terri went around to each of us as we practiced our skills, losing and restoring the regulator, flooding (and also taking off the mask completely) and clearing the water out by blowing air through the nose to force the water out the bottom. There's another pic showing that later...

Noah's OK. I know that's Noah because he got the yellow snorkel. If not for the colored equipment, we'd all just look like silly people blowing bubbles...

Noah and I are still OK......

That's me doing my flood and clear the mask at 35 feet thing. My nose doesn't want to open to my own airway when water's up against it. A survival mechanism that makes it a challenge for me to do this skill...

Noah's still OK....

I'm still OK. You can just see the beginning of my bloodshot eyes, the result of a mask-squeeze. I forgot to equalize the space between my mask and face by blowing air in through my noze as I descended. The excess pressure broke some blood vessels in both eyes. It doesn't hurt, but looks like hell. Terri, our instructor says it'll take a week to go away....

Noah's waterlogged, and maybe shell-shocked. We all can hardly believe we're on the bottom of the ocean....

Look closely and you can make out this little pufferfish. He was darting around as we descended. He disappeared, then reappeared. You'll get reacquainted with him in a bit....

Beautiful fish and coral. It's like being in an aquarium, only they don't sprinkle food. Hopefully *we're* not the food...

And more beautiful fish and coral...

Yet another beautiful little fish, this yellow thing with very sharp features. I think we'll be having sushi tonight....

That pufferfish likes to hang out in this beautiful coral bowl. He just circles 'round and 'round...