Wednesday 28 July 2010

It’s the first day of our trip. Everyone made it to the L.A. Port on time and to Catalina Island without upchucking. Phew! But it feels like fall in Chicago on this island: the plants are drying out and not as green as I remember from April. :( And there’s a slight chill in the breeze that I recognize from living in Chicago around October/November. But it’s beautiful of course. We talked a bit more about our plans (orientation #20? #21? too many to keep track of).

Here are pics of my room, and a book, The Open Sea written by Sir Alfred Hardy. Yeah!

I am SO excited. Although no so excited to fly... yesterday my United flight 89 could have nearly made the news. Towards the end of our flight--maybe thirty minutes from landing?--the flight attendants began rushing around checking seat belts. Odd, I thought. They were trying to smile but their body language was not hiding the nervous scurrying. Then the captain came on, “this is your captain speaking. I have just turned on the fasten seatbelt sign. We are experiencing engine trouble and I decided to shut off an engine completely,” three beeps in the background, the microphone turns off, then back on, “we are anticipating a normal landing. Flight attendants please prepare for landing.” Holy mother of pearl. Call me a worry wart, but ‘anticipating a normal landing’ sounds a lot like ‘hoping for the best preparing for the worst.’ The flight attendants took turns, each of the three coming independently and at least once, to come to the emergency exit rows and prepare the people sitting their for landing. They would say things such as, “you know what to do,” “do you know what to do?” “I trust you know what to do,” and “be ready.” Wow, that makes me feel safe. NOT. One woman sitting on the side of the plane with the shut-off engine actually left her seat without any of her bags and was replaced with someone who felt calmer. The captain came on again: “This is your captain speaking again. LAX is preparing for our landing and there will be fire engines on the ground surrounding us when we land.” Now I’m freaking out. How the heck can a plane fly and land with only one engine? I’m more worried about the other engine; can it take the stress? My heart is thumping audibly in my chest. My hands were sweating and I could thing of nothing to do but hold onto my pillow. I even had my cell phone ready hidden on the my lab in the case that we had to evacuate the plane. Yikes! But we landed, slowed down, and pulled up to our gate with no problems (that I knew of). Everyone clapped once we were safely on the runway and knew our plane was not going to explode. Phew! The plane couldn’t make a left turn however (kind of like Zoolander) and so we stopped infront our gate, turned off the remaining engine, and had to wait to be towed into the gate. Not such a terrible wait, considering we were all alive and wayyy ahead of schedule.

Anywho, we had our first dive today, and I have to admit that I did not feel confident with myself before going in the water. I have not dived since April and my memory is a little fuzzy. I decided while I was still on dry land that I would take it slow and not rush or anything. The only real problem I faced is the huge hole in my wetsuit, located smack in the middle of my left butt cheek. Gorgeous. Eh, I must have a fat butt, because I didn’t really feel a terrible rush of cold water or anything. With our wetsuits on, we were all sweating bullets and hurried down to the dock-- as fast as you can hurry with a stiff wetsuit and heavy air tank/BC/regulator thing strapped to your back.

***As a side note: scuba diving is not made for people with a short torso like me. The air tank is either too high and smacking me in the head, or else too low and smacking me in the back of the legs as I walk. Oh well!

On the dock, the film crew documenting our trip made us stand in a row and yell at the camera “WE ARE USC COLLEGE!” I felt like I was reproducing the Robert Morris College commercial (yes, Kirsten, I know it is now Robert Morris University). With gear on and regulator in mouth, I took a long stride entrance into the water off of the dock. Getting in the water felt so good. Ahhhhhhhh. My group of two girls + me and Dr. Haw swam a bit away from the dock and descended. Under, we practiced taking our mask off, putting it back on and clearing it. That is not one of my stronger skills. I just hate having cold water rush onto your face and nose. :[ Then we practiced showing the “no air” sign and using your partner’s octopus (extra) regulator. I think I did well with my first partner, both of us taking turns mock drowning. But with the second girl, she had trouble getting her regulator loose. When she finally got it to me, i tried to take a big gulp of air (I was starting to panic a little), and took a big gulp of water. I tried again and more water came in. I was drowning! OMG what a terrible rush of fear. Then I stopped being stupid and cleared the regulator with the purge button and took a huge relieving gulp of air. She asked if I was ok and I just said ok quickly so that I could put my own regulator back in my mouth. Yikes.

Swimming around, I reached max. depth 50ft. Nice. :) One girl pointed up at one point and we watch a beautiful stink ray flap its long fins so perfectly through the water. It was awesome. Next to the kelp, we spotted a sea urchin. I don’t know the underwater signal for sea urchin, but I image it looks something like how Gwen can distort her fingers. Like a claw. Maybe. Idk. Surfacing, my ears hurt a bit, but I should survive. I hope.

We got out and rinsed our gear. The guy who fills the tanks back up was surprised to find that none of us had seen leopard sharks out. Apparently all week they have been hanging out in big groups around Wrigley Institute. Waiting for me, I know it.

Now I have lecture, dinner, lecture, then sweet, sweet sleep. Until tomorrow, B