My son Tom will be glad to hear that his Muther has something new to write about in the blog. Not just laundry, groceries, weather, seasickness and parties, now I can also write about diving. For the rest of you, not to worry, laundry and groceries will still make up the bulk of these reports.

I went back to school last week -- three days of poring over the book, doing quizzes, watching the dive DVD, hours with JP and Clair at Lumbadive going over the material and learning how to use dive tables (there ought to be the same sort of table for pressure groups for working people who have to go to meetings: more than one meeting in 6 hours? Sorry, I have to consult my table to check my pressure group. Whups, my maximum meeting time is 8 minutes...).

And then there was the Confined Water stuff, usually done in a pool, but here in Carriacou, the pool is just off the beach. After you've learned how to put all the gear together, you get in the water, velcro, snap and plug yourself together (with a LOT of help from JP, Bongo and David) and then, voila, drop to your knees and breathe underwater. Sounds like great fun, and it was, but there was also the dreaded "Skills" to be learned and practiced, and some of those were a lot like going to the dentist. Like you're sloshing around in 5 feet of water, low visibility (lots of sand being kicked up by yours truly, just trying to stay in one general spot in the surge), and hey, presto, take off your mask (remember NOT to breathe through your nose) swim around a bit, then put your mask back on, take a deep breath (through your MOUTH!), and then blow the air out through your NOSE to clear your mask. I had to try that one a few times my dears, and there was more than a bit of salt water sloshing through the old sinuses. But JP is endlessly patient and an excellent teacher, and I figured it out before I got too full of water. Got all that sorted? Now do a swim test and write the exam. Enjoy the celebratory beer that JP has just passed to you, go home, get a good rest. Tomorrow we go diving. (Spend the night rolling around full of trepidation.)

Buoyancy. Hard to spell, hard to control. I tend to rise like an overfilled neoprene balloon. With lots of practice, I got to the point where I had some control, but when we did the open water dives, I still had a tendency to shoot for the surface as soon as I let go of the anchor line. I finally figured out how to vent air properly, and now I just need lots more practice in keeping neutral buoyancy while I'm underwater. Anyway, that's all just details, because the dive sites were Fan-Tastic. All around you there's a million things happening. Once I got over the idea that okay, I've been down here several minutes, it must be time to surface and go home, I got more relaxed and started really enjoying myself.

The first openwater dive couldn't have been more exciting. Pouring rain on the surface, but as soon as we got in the water, it didn't matter. Beautiful coral, hundreds of different fish, a big moray hiding in a hole, and then we cruised over an octopus eating pen shells. JP ran his hand through the water over the octopus, and it instantly turned white and contracted, then went back to its normal colour. (And if I was a soft and squishy octopus, you wouldn't catch me eating giant pen shells, which bust up into shards like so much splintery glass. Very ill advised.) We swam along a little further, and there was a turtle nestled into a bunch of coral and vegetation. Bugger, I thought, it's dead. JP takes my hand and makes me touch it on its back, and it wakes up, has one look at us, and flies off to finish the nap somewhere else. It's so hard not to talk underwater -- muffled versions of "wow" kept burbling out through my regulator.

Two open water dives on Friday, and another two on Saturday. By Saturday, JP didn't have to (literally) hold my hand the whole time underwater (except when I'd overinflate and make an unintential bolt for the surface, and once again when we stopped to watch an enormous barracuda). The first dive on Saturday, JP, David and I got to the bottom, and I looked over at David, and thought, hmm, that's not good. David, you're pale green. Really very green. I look at my own hands, and yup, I'm green too. Remember the dive book -- you lose colour on the way down, reds and yellows first. So we were three green people swimming around in the coral and the schools of fish. Coral, in dozens of shapes and colours. A huge wall of rock and coral and wavey things and fish, fish and more fish. We saw another turtle, another biggie moray, a spotted drum (which was outstanding), a peacock flounder, huge rock beauty angelfish, parrotfish, tangs, the cutest trunkfish, lots of big puffers, and a bunch of lobsters. There were about six or eight lobsters, all quite small, snuggled bum-in under a rock, staring at us with their little beady eyes, waving their tentacles, gawking at us like we were gawking at them. They looked hilarious.

We didn't see any sharks (yay) and the morays and the barracuda kept to themselves, and the electric ray was likewise uninterested.

So I did it. I'm now a certified Open Water Diver. A huge thanks to JP, Clair and Bongo at Lumbadive. JP is a great teacher, and I highly recommend Lumbadive if you need to add some excitement to your life! (www.lumbadive.com)

Two days later, and I'm just starting to relax back into cruising mode. Haven't read a book, done laundry or scrubbed anything for days and days. I promise the next update will be all about cleaning products and some fun recipes for using up aging vegetables.