Perforated Eardrum

.....is not the name of my new band. It is the disastrous result of my attempt at scuba diving certification. This endeavor began with an extremely interesting few classrom sessions, continued with an introduction into the world of Finding Nemo, and ended in temporary hearing loss and "ear discharge".

While spending time on Koh Tao in Thailand, I decided I would (horrible pun alert) take the plunge and sign up for a scuba certification course. I signed up with the Phoenix Divers group, after a solid sales pitch from an American who worked there and saw me inspecting a brochure. The class is four days long, with the first day solely in the classroom, the second day split between the classroom and a pool, and the third and fourth days spent in the ocean diving.

I was anticipating the classroom time to be fairly boring but important, but it was nothing of the sort. I was never a huge fan of physics and science in general in high school, but the direct real world application of physics to scuba diving was fascinating. If nothing else, I finally have a solid understanding of why one's ears pop on a flight, after a lengthy discussion on water and air pressure. The physics perfectly translated in the ocean as how heavily you breath and fill your lungs with air notably affects how you rise and fall in the water due to the changes in your density.

Unfortunately, the real world application of the physics became all too real for me. The 45 minute dive was spectacular, the feeling of suspended weightlessness in the water is unlike anything I've felt before and swimming along with schools of fish and seeing all the life of the coral reef up close was spectacular. The second dive, well, that was where the disaster took place.

While we've all learned the lesson to listen carefully to the teacher, I had about five minutes of waiting at the beginning at the surface of the water while other students were taking "skills tests" you need for certification. I decided to kinda screw around to the side and practice one of the skills, "filling the mask", that involves allowing water into your mask and blowing it out with your nose. It happened fairly quickly, but I basically descended too quickly into the water with a mask filled with water, and BAM, I felt a shooting pop through my right ear.

After a few seconds of total disorientation, which was admittedly kind of cool in a crazy way, as with no center of gravity and surrounded by water I literally had no sense of direction or space for a few seconds, I surfaced. I went over to the teacher and said "um..something might be wrong". I told him what happened and as an examination, he took me underwater and had me "equalize" (which is basically holding your nose and blowing, like on a plane to clear your ears). It definitely wasnt a good sign that small bubbles were coming out of my ear, but he reassured me it was the most common of diving issues but I couldnt finish the course.

Even with the subsequent "ear discharge" (which is not a fun or pretty occurrence) and annoying slight temporary hearing loss, that is thankfully coming to an end, I still fully intend to finish the scuba course and get my license. I long to get back to the world of Nemo.