Breathing underwater with scuba
OU students learn to swim with the fish
By Jeremy Bookmyer, Staff Writer
February 13, 2008 | 3 p.m.
Once in a while a college class comes along that is truly different from the rest. Here at Ohio University that class is scuba, where students can learn to breathe underwater and swim with the fishes.
Every Wednesday at 9:30 p.m. the pool in the Aquatic Center clears out as a rack of heavy metal tanks rolls in. Steve Sammons, his experienced crew of assistants and 20 or more OU students are granted sole access to the pool from 9:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m., where they get their chance to gear up and learn to breathe underwater.
Scuba here at OU is a relatively unknown class. "
I find that I get a lot of students who have friends who have taken the class…there is a lot of word-of-mouth,” Sammons said.
Wednesday nights for the scuba class are spent in a two-hour lecture on safety, physiology, maintenance and biology followed by another two hours of careful application of the skills learned in class.
Even though scuba is a one-credit class, students should expect to put in a full class load. “
I think one credit hour is tough," Sammons said. "They do more than one hour of work.”
At the end of the class, any student that passes will be certified either a YMCA or NAUI Open Water Diver.
Unique and exciting
The draw to scuba may be that it is not like any other class offered on campus.
“Scuba is unique and challenging. The experience is unlike any other,” said senior Cory Paul, head of the scuba shop.
Jenna Schauer, a junior and teaching assistant to the class, said, “I think the sense of adventure and doing something new and different draws a lot of people to scuba, too. It’s a whole new experience.”
Breathing underwater
Wednesday, Jan. 30, was the first time the class attendees wore their gear into the water. After 30 minutes of warming up, the students were gathered together and assigned their scuba (self-contained underwater breathing apparatus) tanks and suits. It was week four of the quarter and finally time for the students to try the techniques they had been learning for the past several weeks.
Instructors demonstrated the proper way to put the wet suits and scuba tanks together, noting that there can be several thousand pounds of pressure in one of the tanks alone and that they must be handled with care. After the demonstration, the students were given their own tanks and sent to assemble their gear under the watchful eye of their instructors. Once in the water, the students were taught to handle their regulators, so they don’t release oxygen into the water and send them down to the bottom for their first experience breathing under water.
After the excitement passed, and everyone had their turn under water, the real work for the night began.
The next exercise was not as easy. The students were challenged to swim most of the length of the pool without their tank, take a breath from another tank waiting at the wall and return. Despite the lack of oxygen, spirits were high. The last several minutes of the class were free time for the students to test their gear and enjoy their new skills.
Eventually, the students will learn to inflate their suits to remain underwater, experiencing the closest thing to zero gravity one can experience here on earth.
Bailing out and swimming with the manatees
During the last few weeks of the quarter, the pool work in scuba goes from simply breathing underwater to honing skills and testing panic response. After several weeks of learning surface skills and dealing with gear the students are presented with a new challenge: bailing out.
The instructors watch as the students grasp their tanks, regulators and their gear in their hands and take the plunge to the bottom of the 13.5-feet-deep pool. Once down on the bottom, they must turn on their tanks, breathe normally and assemble all of their gear before coming back up.
The scuba class travels to either Devil’s Den, Fla., during the last few weeks of the quarter for a weekend of diving and manatee snorkeling trip or to the Circleville Twin Quarries for a two-day diving trip. During the trip, students will do the required dives to earn them their certifications. This last trip has an additional, varying cost.
The instructors
Head Instructor Steve Sammons has been involved in scuba at OU for more than 25 years. He was certified in 1983 and took over teaching the class when former instructor Joe Deem stepped down in 1998.
Unlike many commercial scuba training classes, Sammons focuses on taking time to get the students comfortable with the water and diving.
“Every so often I will get a student who has already been qualified to dive but is not comfortable with the instructions they received,” he said.
Sammons and the rest of the scuba crew at OU believe that, while it is possible for someone to receive the right instructions in only a weekend, it is better to get a longer feel for diving. There is hardly enough time to learn not to panic when diving only one time.
“The course is intensive and methodical in its lectures and pool labs," Paul said. "The amount of instruction students receive surpasses many other comparable programs,” Paul said.
Workload
It is important to note that the class is given on a pass/fail basis, and failure to complete either the written or lab part of the class will result in not receiving a diving certification.
Sammons said that "...there is usually only one student per quarter who does not pass the class…we don’t try to trick students.”
The instructors go to great lengths to make sure that their students do well in the class.
Getting the class
Unfortunately, as some students trying to get into scuba may find, the class fills up quickly, but there may still be hope.
“If the class is full, please attend the first class," Sammons said. "There are always people that fail to show up to the class, and we will fill these spots."
Scuba can be found in the course catalog under PED (Recreation and Sports Sciences – Physical Education Activity) 143. It is offered once every quarter and takes 40 students. The cost of the class is $160 with some additional costs for individual gear and checkout dives. More information can be found on the scuba Web site here.