Month: November 2008

Those who have met me in person know that I am partly deaf. I was born that way, and when you don’t know what you’re missing, you get along OK. I seemed to cope with it, getting through life more or less fine. I never really felt left out, or overly frustrated by it – although those around me probably did. Getting hearing aids at the age of 20 made a massive difference – I didn’t absolutely have to be looking at someone when they spoke to me, although it still helped.

This year I’ve done some diving – 10 dives now – and people will of course think hey diving’s perfect if you’re deaf – you can’t talk underwater anyway! There is of course some truth in that. And of course you know about issues with equalisation when descend/ascend, and clearing your ears.

But what you don’t always know about is the aftereffects of the combination of water and pressure on your ears, and consequently your hearing. That water getting forced in there doesn’t really do it any favours, and so after diving you leave your hearing aids out, to let them dry out a bit. Not having your aids in, and having water in there makes you rather deaf – lucky it was good friends on the boat with me. It’s easier with voices that you’re familiar with. It does make you wary of joining conversations though, as you’re not sure if you’re missing things, or misinterpreting them.

We did a lot of diving that weekend at the Poor Knights, and it seemed to be too much, too deep, too soon for me. My ears were sore for a couple of days, and I felt a little more deaf than usual. Ronelle put me onto Vosol – a couple of drops in each ear in the evening. That helped a bit, but it’s not a cool look sitting around with toilet paper in your ears…Things weren’t quite right by the weekend though, so rather than exacerbate the problem, my advisor said I was better to give it a rest. So I’m going to have to wait until this weekend to try again – not too deep this time though.

On a completely different note – There is No Depression in New Zealand. I went out to Sale St Bar last night to catch up with some old university friends. The place was pretty busy, for a Wednesday night. It’s a big place, so that means quite a few people there. That place must be absolutely heaving on a Friday night, all the people who want to be seen out for a good time.

My friend Ronelle is back in the country for a very limited time, in transit from South Africa to South America. She is now a qualified dive instructor, and encouraged me to complete the PADI Advanced Open Water course, on a liveaboard trip to the Poor Knights. I had completed the first Open Water course in Thailand earlier this year, but had not been out diving since. This was a good excuse to do some more diving, complete the course, see the highly rated Poor Knights, and most importantly, catch up with Ronelle and Tara.

We drove up on Friday night, slept on the boat in the marina, then headed out on Saturday morning. Hanging around being monkeys seemed to be part of the pre-dive warmup:

A busy weekend followed, with four dives on Saturday, and two more on Sunday. I was only diving in a 5mm wetsuit, and with water temperatures around 15°, I was getting pretty cold and tired, so I sat out the third and last dive on the Sunday. We had some good dives though, doing things like navigation, going deep (26m), night diving (perhaps not my cup of tea), and probably my favourite, the naturalist. Basically for that you just went and looked at the fish, plants and animals. That’s more like what diving should be. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t suitable for doing a wreck dive on the way home, and indeed the trip back was a bit more interesting, but it was still good on the sheltered side of the islands.

I didn’t get home until 11pm on Sunday night, and was pretty well stuffed at work on Monday. No worries though, it was a really good weekend. Special mention to my Dive Master Tara, for looking after me, and getting me home safely. I’m not sure that drinking with your students the night before a deep dive is recommended practice though…

I don’t know how much more diving I’ll be able to fit in, as I’ve got lots of other things to do with my weekends, and I don’t know where I’d store the gear around my apartment, but I will be going out again this weekend, a bit closer to home, at Goat Island. Hopefully get a feed of scallops too.

And finally, here’s something you don’t do every day: get your ex girlfriend to help you write an ad for an Internet dating site. Hopefully I don’t come across as many odd sorts as she did. We’ll see how it works out. With a bit of luck, I’ll at least make a few new friends.