This past weekend I took the PADI Altitude Diver class. Timing worked out well, I was out in Tucson visiting friends and family and the local dive shop had this class on their schedule.
And, well, back home in NJ, we just don’t have mountain lakes above 1000 feet, so this is a course I really wouldn’t get a chance to take otherwise.
Dean was a great instructor. I thought the course material was pretty well put together; Dean made sure we remembered the important stuff (nothing like a pop quiz on the drive back from the dive site).
So, after the class room Friday night, we all met Dean at zero o’clock on Saturday at a local parking lot to carpool up to Lake Pleasant, outside of Phoenix.
The dives were uneventful (other than surfacing after the second dive in the middle of a driving rainstorm, ending up ducking back under the surface; it felt drier !). I have new appreciation, though for the visibility back at Dutch Springs. We were lucky to have 5 foot visibility (and yes, I did manage to just miss bumping into a tree ...). Rumor has it that folks did see a catfish; I kinda saw a shadow that was moving, but have no idea what it was ...
All in all, a great time.