Ever since the time in ninth grade when my English teacher, who was a dive instructor somewhere warm during the summers, told me that if you held your breath while scuba diving your lungs would explode, I harbored a bone-deep aversion to the thought of diving. Years later, however, I met my then husband-to-be and found out he was a diver. After a cursory examination, it seemed to me that his lungs were in working order after all and so, in fine love-conquers-all style, I decided that I would face my fear and become a certified diver as well. Geez… the things we’ll do for love. Anyway, aside from a few cases of dizziness brought on by trying to insure I didn’t hold my breath (OK, so I’m paranoid), I passed the course with flying colors just as many people do every year in Harrisburg through the auspices of the Harrisburg Scuba Center.

Now, to go diving at any reputable place in the world (and I’m not talking about those illegal operations in Mexico and Jamaica that will take anyone as long as they have the cash), one must become certified through one of the national or international diving organizations such as the Pennsylvania Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) or the National Association of Diving Instructors (NADI). The only prerequisites for taking the class is that you must be able to tread water for a specified length of time, usually five minutes, and also swim a pre-determined distance that any reasonably strong swimmer shouldn’t find a problem.

The most basic certification is called the Open Water Diver certification. As an Open Water Diver you are certified for what would be considered purely recreational diving. There are several other classifications that require additional classes such as Nitrox Diver, which allows you to use a mixed gas tank and dive to much greater depths. There’s also Cave Diver, Rescue Diver and Instructor as well as a few others, the former three being pretty much self-explanatory.

The classes for the Open Water Diver certification consist of three parts. There’s a classroom part which is completed with a written exam and covers such things as how to figure out your pressure group (an important skill so you don’t end up giving yourself the bends, which is an excess of nitrogen in your blood that causes all sorts of nasty problems and even sometimes death), the correct sequence of steps in an emergency, and the technical aspects of diving such as the pressure changes, as well as other cool and needful stuff. The second part of the class consists of your pool skills. In the pool, you’ll learn how to put your equipment together and how to control your buoyancy in the water through means of the before-mentioned equipment. You’ll also learn such useful emergency skills such as buddy breathing, finding a regulator that’s been kicked out of your mouth, clearing your mask of water, and how to take your equipment on and off in case it becomes stuck on something while you’re swimming through a cave or shipwreck.

The final part of the training is your actual open-water certification. It requires four separate dives in which you will perform your skills in an open water situation. This part can be performed with your fellow classmates, or you can take a referral and do your check-out dive elsewhere. I chose to do my final certification in the Cayman Islands.

Once you’re certified, you’re done. You never have to be re-certified for the rest of your life although many of the diving organizations suggest a refresher course if you haven’t dived within a year or two. For those interested in becoming certified, contact the Harrisburg Scuba Center at 561-0517. Classes are held throughout the year at various locations (see sidebar for the next starting dates). The price varies per location but runs from $125-150 for the class and skillwork plus $190 for the open water certification which is generally held at Bainbridge Quarry in Bainbridge, PA.

There is diving within Pennsylvania although as far as I’m concerned, you have to be a hardy soul and a truly avid diver to take advantage of it. I’m what you’d call a ‘fair-weather diver.’ If the water temperature isn’t at least 80 degrees and the visibility at least 50 feet, I don’t want anything to do with diving. I know, I’m a diving wuss, what can I say. But, since water leaches body heat away at 2–3 times the speed of the air, I tend to very quickly become a diving-sicle, even while wearing a wet suit. And, believe me, once you’ve gone through all the trouble of lugging your equipment onto a boat, struggling into your wet suit (an amusing sight at the best of times), putting on 30 pounds of equipment, spitting in your mask to keep it from fogging and waddling your way with said equipment off the back of the boat into the water, the last thing you want to be is cold. I’ve been on enough dives where my only thoughts are “when is this dive ever going to end?” and “gods, I think my chattering teeth just bit through my mouthpiece” to earn the right to dive only when I can be assured of being warm.