God, I love to dive

April fools day was no joke this year. I had promised a student that I would do my best to get him into an open water dive on April 1. Realistiaclly, I wasn't too confident that there would be any good diving as this has been one of the oddest and cold springs in recent history. Not only would this be his first open water dive but, he also was going to be wearing a dry suit and 35lbs of weight for the first time. Add his oversized winter gloves to the mix and I knew I was going to have a down right clumsy animal in the water.
Well, the sun decided to show for a bit and we headed for the water. Just as we arrived at Cedar beach the sun ducked behind some black clouds and the rain started again. We donned our dry suits suits and I gave him a tutorial on how to use it.He would be tethered to me on this dive anyway. I wasn't going to take any chances on losing him to an uncontrolled ascent. This is truly one of the joys of one on one training. As an instructor I have a lot more latitude when it comes to what I can handle with just one student.
The water was a toasty 42. Much warmer than I expected. The vis was about 15' although if the sun had come out again I think it would have been 30'. We practiced a few basic skills and he did just fine. I didn't want to try too much so I figured we would just do a nice dive. I clipped my safety line off to him and we started out. drifting over some cold rock crabs and spooking grass shrimp, we made our way along the bottom. He was really enjoying the dive. We stopped every so often and I had him do a skill.
Truthfully, I didn't want to get out of the water. It was so nice and fresh. I had been longing for this and it felt great. I really didn't think we were going to make it into the water that day and I was very tired form an all week business trip. I guess the joke was on me. and this time it was a good one. The drive home was a peaceful one and my student had a calm grin the whole way back. I think I've created another addict.