Insomniacs R Us
May. 29th, 2007 01:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seldearEvery now and then, I get bouts of insomnia. No particular reason that I can determine, I just can't sleep.
Although, right now, one reason for my sleeplessness might be because the jacuzzi in the next room is on and humming. Permanently. I don't know why. I can't turn it off because my hosts have asked me not to. And I'm not very fond of earplugs. Plus, I was too hot and couldn't sleep, so I just finished the first of Tamora Pierce's Song Of The Lioness quartet - about Alanna of Trebond. Entertaining young adult fiction, simple, straightforwards, and uncomplicated.
I wish I could write that simply. For some reason, my brain feels a need to complicate things.
I didn't do any writing tonight at all. Partly because I was off at bible study for most of the night, but partly...well, I don't know. I just couldn't. Or wouldn't. It probably didn't help that I left my USB disk at work with my current project on it.
I'm really tired. Bordering on exhausted. And I'm losing hours of sleep - a few hours one night, a few hours the next...and I never catch up.
Emotionally, I'm fairly certain things are headed downwards. Just...cues pointing in that direction. The lack of sleep probably doesn't help this.
diving
The entire package for the day was three dives. A short 'training dive' in the morning with my instructor, then two dives out in the bay - again with the instructor. I think I'm beginning to understand the structure of the diving world. Until you have a basic PADI certification, you have to go out with someone who's registered to take a beginner out. Once you get the basic certification, you can go diving with someone else who also has the basic certification - a 'buddy'.
Since I'm not PADI certified, I have to go out with an instructor - like![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sharim or Tim - the instructor on the weekend.
The first 'training dive', during which I was instructed in the basics of diving, was easy enough. We went down off the local beach at Huskisson, perfect conditions, bright sun, whole schools of fish swimming about the water, plenty to look at. The exercise was mostly to get me accustomed to the gear, moving about in the water, and breathing through the rig.
I think the most disconcerting thing about diving for me is the breathing. Not the actual act of breathing, but the noise it makes. It's a bit like having Darth Vader as your constant companion - it's never silent. One isn't supposed to hold one's breath when scuba diving, but I always want to, just to escape the noise. I dunno, maybe it's a reminder that the ocean only tolerates humanity in its bourne, never actually welcomes us.
Visually, there's plenty to look at, though. The training dive took us along underwater 'roads' of white sand with waving green grass-like fronds lining either side, and the rocky/sandy sides sloping up to the surface. My instructor mostly stayed behind me, keeping an eye on my gauges and working the device that inflates/deflates the floatation controls. (I can't remember the lingo.)
That was the training dive in the morning, and I got lunchtime off and came back in time to catch the dive boat going out into Jervis Bay in the afternoon. We actually went outside the mouth of the bay for our first diving location - a little south of the bay mouth, just at the heads of the next little bay down. My instructor and I were the last ones off the boat and the last ones on the boat, and we swum around for about 45 minutes.
According to my instructor, I'm a freak of nature because I hardly breathe. My oxygen usage was unusually low - in fact, looking at the gauge on the way up from the dive, I thought that we were saving the other half of the tank for the next dive. It wasn't until we were back on the surface that T informed me I was a freak for not using more oxygen. :)
During the first big dive, I was sufficiently occupied by the play of water and light, the way the huuuge rocks were angled and the many many fishies to ignore the fact that Darth Vader Was With Me Always and that I was essentially surrounded by water and couldn't just pop up for a breath of air. And there were some really big, rather cool fishies. Whole schools were just hanging about beneath the surface of the water - I think they're used to fishing boats as well, and tend to assume that boatness means foodness so we'll just wait for the food...hey, waitaminute, what are these big, lumbering things that we have to swim around? ARGH!
Anyway, a lot of fish, including one which I named an Indian fish, because it was reddish brown and had black and white markings on it, rather like an Indian Brave wearing war-paint. Apparently it's probably a rass. Everything's a rass down there, or so I was informed. Except for the at-least-two-foot-long blue groper that we spotted. But that was the second dive.
The second big dive was short. I only managed about 10 minutes before I got a bad case of the panics and we had to swim back. The depressing part is that if I'd managed to hold out, then I would have gotten to see The Wall, which runs out down to about 27 metres, although we probably wouldn't have gone beyond 15 metres. Still...there were apparently holes you could swim through in the wall! And it really was a wall! But I just couldn't take the water and the breathing and the rig any longer, so I signalled that we had to go back. I felt bad, but I just couldn't take it. On the other hand, just floating on the surface of the water, rig and all, felt great.
I love just floating on the surface of the sea.
I'd like to go back to that dive spot, check out the wall again. And actually go a little deeper this time and not panic. I think I'd just had enough at that point. It amounted to a whole day of diving for me in the end, and this was only my second time diving. Just half a day would have been fine and dandy.
Maybe next time.
Okay, after all that rambling, I turned off the jacuzzi in order to give me some peace. I'll turn it back on in the morning, but right now, I want some sleep.
--
And happy birthday tostarfinn and saramund!
*smooches*
Although, right now, one reason for my sleeplessness might be because the jacuzzi in the next room is on and humming. Permanently. I don't know why. I can't turn it off because my hosts have asked me not to. And I'm not very fond of earplugs. Plus, I was too hot and couldn't sleep, so I just finished the first of Tamora Pierce's Song Of The Lioness quartet - about Alanna of Trebond. Entertaining young adult fiction, simple, straightforwards, and uncomplicated.
I wish I could write that simply. For some reason, my brain feels a need to complicate things.
I didn't do any writing tonight at all. Partly because I was off at bible study for most of the night, but partly...well, I don't know. I just couldn't. Or wouldn't. It probably didn't help that I left my USB disk at work with my current project on it.
I'm really tired. Bordering on exhausted. And I'm losing hours of sleep - a few hours one night, a few hours the next...and I never catch up.
Emotionally, I'm fairly certain things are headed downwards. Just...cues pointing in that direction. The lack of sleep probably doesn't help this.
diving
The entire package for the day was three dives. A short 'training dive' in the morning with my instructor, then two dives out in the bay - again with the instructor. I think I'm beginning to understand the structure of the diving world. Until you have a basic PADI certification, you have to go out with someone who's registered to take a beginner out. Once you get the basic certification, you can go diving with someone else who also has the basic certification - a 'buddy'.
Since I'm not PADI certified, I have to go out with an instructor - like
sharim or Tim - the instructor on the weekend.The first 'training dive', during which I was instructed in the basics of diving, was easy enough. We went down off the local beach at Huskisson, perfect conditions, bright sun, whole schools of fish swimming about the water, plenty to look at. The exercise was mostly to get me accustomed to the gear, moving about in the water, and breathing through the rig.
I think the most disconcerting thing about diving for me is the breathing. Not the actual act of breathing, but the noise it makes. It's a bit like having Darth Vader as your constant companion - it's never silent. One isn't supposed to hold one's breath when scuba diving, but I always want to, just to escape the noise. I dunno, maybe it's a reminder that the ocean only tolerates humanity in its bourne, never actually welcomes us.
Visually, there's plenty to look at, though. The training dive took us along underwater 'roads' of white sand with waving green grass-like fronds lining either side, and the rocky/sandy sides sloping up to the surface. My instructor mostly stayed behind me, keeping an eye on my gauges and working the device that inflates/deflates the floatation controls. (I can't remember the lingo.)
That was the training dive in the morning, and I got lunchtime off and came back in time to catch the dive boat going out into Jervis Bay in the afternoon. We actually went outside the mouth of the bay for our first diving location - a little south of the bay mouth, just at the heads of the next little bay down. My instructor and I were the last ones off the boat and the last ones on the boat, and we swum around for about 45 minutes.
According to my instructor, I'm a freak of nature because I hardly breathe. My oxygen usage was unusually low - in fact, looking at the gauge on the way up from the dive, I thought that we were saving the other half of the tank for the next dive. It wasn't until we were back on the surface that T informed me I was a freak for not using more oxygen. :)
During the first big dive, I was sufficiently occupied by the play of water and light, the way the huuuge rocks were angled and the many many fishies to ignore the fact that Darth Vader Was With Me Always and that I was essentially surrounded by water and couldn't just pop up for a breath of air. And there were some really big, rather cool fishies. Whole schools were just hanging about beneath the surface of the water - I think they're used to fishing boats as well, and tend to assume that boatness means foodness so we'll just wait for the food...hey, waitaminute, what are these big, lumbering things that we have to swim around? ARGH!
Anyway, a lot of fish, including one which I named an Indian fish, because it was reddish brown and had black and white markings on it, rather like an Indian Brave wearing war-paint. Apparently it's probably a rass. Everything's a rass down there, or so I was informed. Except for the at-least-two-foot-long blue groper that we spotted. But that was the second dive.
The second big dive was short. I only managed about 10 minutes before I got a bad case of the panics and we had to swim back. The depressing part is that if I'd managed to hold out, then I would have gotten to see The Wall, which runs out down to about 27 metres, although we probably wouldn't have gone beyond 15 metres. Still...there were apparently holes you could swim through in the wall! And it really was a wall! But I just couldn't take the water and the breathing and the rig any longer, so I signalled that we had to go back. I felt bad, but I just couldn't take it. On the other hand, just floating on the surface of the water, rig and all, felt great.
I love just floating on the surface of the sea.
I'd like to go back to that dive spot, check out the wall again. And actually go a little deeper this time and not panic. I think I'd just had enough at that point. It amounted to a whole day of diving for me in the end, and this was only my second time diving. Just half a day would have been fine and dandy.
Maybe next time.
Okay, after all that rambling, I turned off the jacuzzi in order to give me some peace. I'll turn it back on in the morning, but right now, I want some sleep.
--
And happy birthday to
starfinn and saramund!*smooches*
