Beach Bum's Amphibious Kids

Way back in the ancient 1980's your truly was flush with money stationed at Fort Carson, Colorado while serving in the United States Army. At the time I was living in the barracks and when my fellow peacetime soldiers and I were not on some field exercise preparing for the Soviet invasion of western Europe we were looking for something to do. While I had more than my share of embarrassing escapades involving the fairer sex I did try and participate in a  few constructive activities. One of them was getting a PADI open water SCUBA certification, yes after living most of my life on the coast of South Carolina it took me moving to the middle of the North American continent to learn to scuba dive.  Life being what it is after leaving the active army, and no longer flush with money, I fell out of scuba diving but now with the kiddies getting a little older I'm looking to get back into it. Today both Darth Spoilboy and the newly minted Sith Lord Darth Wiggles took a "Discover SCUBA" class at a local pool. The above picture is Spoilboy with his gear on and getting ready to follow the instructor underwater. He is the one actually old enough for a formal certification and in a few months both of us will be in the open water class, for me it will be a refresher but I have not dived since 1992. I am so stoked right now I cannot describe it.      

As I mentioned Wiggles is quickly coming of age and I went ahead and awarded her the Sith title of Darth Wiggles. Her recent behavior has been "questionable" with me about ready a few times to go screaming off into the night over how frustrating she can be at the age of eight, God help me when she becomes a teenager. I actually believe she enjoyed the scuba class a little more than Spoilboy but she has to wait one more year before she can even begin to take lessons and even then she will be greatly restricted as to when and where she can dive.

I was actually rather surprised at how well both performed in the small class, Wiggles had some trouble with water entering her mask but cleared it underwater without any help, now that was rather spooky but she has always been a fish having learned to swim underwater before on the surface.  Spoilboy has a strong gag reflex like me but had no problem with keeping the regulator in his mouth. His one problem were the fins provided by the local scuba shop, they were a bit small for him. Needless to say I am already looking forward to some scuba trips down to Key West and other places, its going to be a blast!