Scuba Diving… Find Balance with a Fine Balance

Posted on March 2, 2011 by Sheryl Checkman

Scuba diving is one way to stay in balance

I was reading the class notes in my Cornell alumni magazine the other day and I noticed a recurring theme in everyone’s updates. In addition to updates as to where they were living, news of their families and what they were doing for work, almost everyone mentioned what they did for fun. They were either playing lots of golf, hiking or biking, skiing or playing tennis, or other sport and recreational stress relievers. Everyone had a way to balance out their lives with some fun sport or exercise routine.

So I have decided to focus a series of blog posts, each to explore a different sport or activity. Today’s post focuses on one of my favs — scuba diving! The term, SCUBA, standing for self contained underwater breathing apparatus, was coined by Christian J. Lambertsen in 1952. In 1939, he invented a revolutionary underwater breathing system used by the military in World War II. He passed away on February 19 at the age of 93.

I’ve been a scuba diver since the early 1990’s. I first learned to dive a Club Med in Cancun. I took their week long Club Med leardn to scuba course. At the end of the week I was Club Med certified. This did not mean that I could go anywhere and dive. I could only dive at other Club Med resorts. In order to be able to go diving anywhere, you must have a certification card (called a C-Card) from a recognized scuba organization such as PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) or Naui (National Association of Underwater Instructors) and SSI (Scuba Schools International), BSAC (British Sub Aqua Club) and CMAS (Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques/The World Underwater Federation) to name a few of the more well known organizations.

If you have a C-Card that means that you have completed at least the most basic training needed to scuba dive. This usually involves some classroom and book work where you will learn the basics of diving physics, physiology and chemistry, as well as sessions in a pool where you will learn the motor skills and proper use of scuba equipment and the fine balance of neutral buoyancy — the seemingly weightless state in which you maintain your body in the water by controlling your breathing and the amount of air in your BC, or buoyancy compensator. In addition, there are open water dives required where you put all that you have learned into a real world test. And, finally there is a written exam to test what you have learned both in the classroom and the reading material. Once you pass both the written and open water exams, you will be given a C-card. This is your passport to dive! Without it, no reputable dive shop will rent you air or allow you to dive with them. There are many of advanced levels of certification that you can get after completing your basic, or Open Water level One course. Check with your local dive shop to sign up for a certification class. You can complete all all the course work and open water dives with your local dive shop, or if you’d prefer warmer water, you can ask for a referral letter which will allow you to do your open water dives at your next tropical vacation destination.

I found an article on learning to scuba dive that goes into more detail on finding the right Open Water course.

Here are some helpful links for dive shops and other useful information for scuba divers in the NYC area:
Scuba Network (Equipment sales & lessons)
Pan Aqua (Equipment sales & lessons)
Adventure Scuba (Equipment sales & lessons)
Empire Divers (Equipment sales & lessons)
Village Divers (Equipment sales & lessons)
Leisure Pro(Equipment sales)
Ocean Blue Divers (Dive Club)
NYUPS (New York Underwater Photographic Society)

Life is Balance Scuba diving yin yang symbol

"Neutral Buoyancy," the body position that every diver strives to attain is the tag line for this Life is Balance t-shirt.

Get this scuba design and more at Wear My Dive Art!

Now that you’ve gotten certified, lets go diving! If you’re like me, the warm clear waters of the Caribbean or South Pacific might be calling to you. There is nothing like the feeling of descending into the blue to become one with the ocean’s vast environment. I guarantee that once you are underwater, any thoughts of work or stress will disappear! Swim along side a sea turtle until he leaves you behind to dive deeper or surface for air. Come face to face with a gray reef shark cruising the reef, or watch a giant grouper sit open mouthed in a cleaning station. Or look closely and you might see a tiny juvenile drum fish, no bigger than the nail on your pinky, flutter about in a coral crevice. Each dive is different, awe-inspiring in its’ own unique way. And each will leave you wanting more. You’ll surface from your dives, share sightings with your dive buddies and fill your dive logs with lots of memories. Of course, not that you’re a scuba diver, you’ll want to show off your enthusiasm by wearing a scuba t-shirt. You can find some unique scuba designs for men, women and children at Wear My Dive Art! and make sure to sign up for our RSS, join our mailing list or bookmark Life is Balance® to be the first to know when our very own scuba design for men and women will be available for purchase!

Some of the dive destinations in the Caribbean that I’ve visited over the years include:
The Turks and Caicos Islands, The Cayman Islands, Bonaire, Curacao, Tobago, Roatan, Cozumel and The British Virgin Islands, to name a few.

There are so many dive destinations around the world and while I’ve been to many in the Caribbean and have had the privilege to dive the magnificent dive sites in The Red Sea, my bucket list had many more to yet be checked off, including Fiji, Bali, Palau & Truk Lagoon, The Maldives and The Seychelles, Australia and the Great Barrier Reef.

Where do you dream of going? I’d love to hear about your favorite dive spots or what destinations are on your wish list.

Taking a Risk

Posted on October 26, 2010 by Sheryl Checkman

This is the Yoga design. My intention is to make a big success out of this brand!

If you’ve checked out this blog before, you’ll know that I started it when I designed my Life is Balance® line of t-shirts. I went through the process of registering the trademark and then found myself an agent and waited for the licensing deals to walk through the door. At first it seemed like this was the way to go. There was interest in the brand and a manufacturer agreed to take the license and promised us great sales. Then the economy hit a low and retail stores just weren’t looking to add a new line to their already unsold stock. I sat back, a bit depressed, I’ll admit, and did nothing other than wait, hoping that my agent would call me with news of another licensee. So far that hasn’t happened.

Rather than let that keep me down, I have decided to try to get my designs out there on my own. A risk, but one I hope will pay off big. I think that Life is Balance® will speak to people like me – people who work hard and play hard too. We all have our sports and activities that balance out the hard work that we put into our careers and family. These inspirational t-shirt designs pay homage to the yin and yang of work and play. I’m hoping that I’ll find a niche where these designs will fit in. I’m about to produce 5 of my designs (out of 30+ sport/activity/lifestyle designs) to start and will be selling them at some craft shows and flea markets within the next couple of months. With the holidays coming up, these shirts will make a nice gift!

I’ll be producing both men’s and women’s styles, on nice quality, light-weight cotton jersey (3.7 oz for women and 4.3 oz for men). The styles are soft and fitted for a more fashionable look and feel. You can view all my Life is Balance® designs here.

I am anxious to get a feeling for the sports or activity designs that most appeal to you. So, if you feel so inclined to help out a designer, please post your favorites in a comment.

A Room Without a View…

Posted on July 27, 2010 by Sheryl Checkman

…or how I spent 2hrs, 45 minutes of my vacation in a Hyperbolic Chamber

This past July I finally took a much needed vacation to the Turks & Caicos Islands to go scuba diving. I had been looking forward to getting back into the water since it had been two years since my last dive vacation. I was anxious to use my new camera and underwater camera.

Everything started out great. I arrived on the island of Providenciales on schedule and after the short cab ride to Club Med I joined my friends who had already been there for a week, for lunch and then spent the rest of the afternoon on the beach…ahhh heaven!

The following morning I woke early firmly first day of diving. It felt great to jump in and once again visit with the undersea world. A couple of reef sharks showed up to welcome me back, as did a sea turtle. What more could I ask for? I noticed the abundance of Lionfish on the reef however. And, consequently, the scarcity of other reef fish.

I tried out various settings on my camera trying to figure out the best ones for shooting underwater. I guess it probably worked have better if I hadn’t just bought the camera the week before I left for my trip! Reading the manual once just didn’t prepare me for all the shooting options. After 3 days however, I was starting to get the hang of it

My fourth day of diving started out like any other dive day, except perhaps for the slight nauseous feeling that I still had since coming up the night before from the night dive. Once I got into the water however I felt fine. I usually dive with 3 other buddies. My usual buddy was off taking a specialty course so it was just three of us. At the beginning of the dive one of my buddies told me that this other guy “might” end up tagging along with us since his buddy, one of the instructors, might have to take care of a student who had trouble clearing. I should have known that this uncertain buddy situation was not a good idea. We all signaled ok and proceeded on the dive, which for me maxed at 114 ft.

We were swimming along the wall, and I was taking pictures when I noticed that two of my buddies were getting too far from me and the other guy, who I assumed was with us was way back and much deeper than me. I waited and motioned for him to come shallower. He didn’t so instead I swam towards my regular buddies to catch up.

Maybe it was the exertion of swimming to catch up and fussing with my new camera, but I seemed to be running low on air. I signaled to my buddy that I was low and that she should stay close in case I needed to breathe off her octopus. We starts to ascend to about 15-18 ft to do our safety stop while swimming towards where we thought the boat was. I tried breathing from her octopus but the hose was twisted and I couldn’t get comfortable so I decided to continue to breathe off my own tank. What I didn’t realize was that as my tank emptied, it got very light, and consequently so did I, and I ended up surfacing too fast. I remember seeing a red flashing ascent warning.

On the surface I felt fine and we proceeded to swim to the boat after signaling to the crew on board that we were ok. After a surface interval of about an hour I dove my second dive at a max depth of 58 ft for 50 minutes. Other than a bit of a current, this dive was uneventful.

About 3 hours after my last dive, I was relaxing on the beach when I noticed a pain in my right wrist when I tried to move it forward or backward. I immediately went to see Alain, the scuba doctor to see if I should be concerned. He put me on O2 for 30 minutes and gave me an aspirin. There was no change at that point so he decided that I should go to the clinic on the island where they had a chamber. The

Having left my stuff on the beach, I went back to get it and take a shower. By the time I started to walk back to get the taxi to the clinic, my wrist was feeling much better. I was on O2 during the 15 minute cab ride to the clinic and again at the clinic for another 30 minutes. Dr. Euan Menzies, the British doctor at the clinic suggested that I go into the chamber to be on the safe side, although he did suggest that it was possible that my wrist pain could be tendinitis. If after the first 10 minutes the pain went away completely, then I would stay for a US Navy TT5 which would be for 2 hours, 45 minutes. If not I’d need to stay longer. Thankfully that was all I needed.

To complicate matters, I had to share the chamber with another fellow diver who was not as lucky as I was. I only had what the doctor called “pain only” DCS, whereas my companion was affected neurologically, unable to move his arms.

The inside of the chamber was pretty tight with three of of inside (me, the other patient and a tender to look after us). In addition, due to the pressure at depth, it was also extremely hot. We had to wear oxygen masks to breathe, with “air” breaks every so often. Needless to say, this was not a comfortable experience. My yoga breathing came in handy to keep my anxiety level down.

We were brought down to 60ft and, just like we were in the water, I had to clear my ears as we went down to relieve the pressure. We stayed at 60ft for about an hour and a half (although it seemed much longer to me) and then were slowly brought up to 30ft. After a while I was told to go into the smaller outer chamber, where they would be able to slowly bring me back up to the surface, while the other chamber remained at depth. While the outer chamber was quite small and I was alone in there, sitting on the floor, it was much more comfortable than the other space. Because we were getting shallower, it was a lot cooler in there. After another half hour I was at the surface and finally released. Time spent in the chamber: 2 hours, 45 minutes. I don’t know how I could have handled any more time in there. I’m not sure if it is this way in all chambers, but I wasn’t allowed to bring in a book or ipod (no metal and nothing flamable) so it is basically just sitting or laying down, breathing oxygen through a mask and staring at the walls. Pretty boring.

Overall I will say it was a pretty surreal experience, one that I do not want to ever repeat. All I can say is after seeing the bill I am so glad to have DAN (Diver Alert Network) insurance! I still had to put a deposit on my credit card and had to put the bill though my insurance first but, once they deny it, DAN will pay. If you are a diver, DAN is something you cannot be without. Accidents can happen, even to experienced divers like myself. I was given immediate and professional care by everyone at the Menzies Medical Practice.

I spent the rest of my holiday on the surface, swimming, snorkeling, sunning and hitting a few tennis balls, but still wishing that I could join my friends under the sea. Oh well, next time…