My gangsta,

I haven’t been writing much lately for these two critical reasons:

  1. I am the absolute worst at pretty much everything
  2. I have been taking the courses to attain a NAUI SCUBA certification

If you have suffered through this blog before today then you are probably thinking, “This dude is already Aquaman.  I’ve seen his aquatic pics (not the ones when he isn’t wearing pants, thankfully).  Why is he taking a SCUBA course?  And why does he keep typing SCUBA in all caps?”

You are correct in that my aquatic game is mad tight.  I mean, look at this…

cage-diving-greg-skomal
I’m breathing on a respirator that is attached to the boat.  Thus, it is not SCUBA.  The photo was taken by Greg f’n Skomal!

This too…

squid-sharks-rays
I’m full on free diving here.  Am I wearing pants?  Are you?  Also, I ate that squid myself.  Suck on that, cartilaginous fishes!

And this…

caribbean-reef-sharks
Man, I’m not even in the water at this point.  I took this from the back of the boat.  If I was SCUBA certified I would be in the mix with them getting some of that good chum!

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My angle on this SCUBA game is that since I’m not certified I can’t SCUBA dive (you have to be certified to SCUBA dive, you see).  My lack of certification has already f’d me once in Bimini when I couldn’t partake in a great hammerhead shark dive.  That isn’t going to happen again.  My kind of grade-AAA certified adventure boy can’t even SCUBA??

Do you know how badly I would like to dive with great hammerheads?  Badly is the answer to that rhetorical question.  Photo credit to Gregory Sweeney as you can obviously see

So, here I am doing the NAUI courses.  I just completed the online test (there are separate pool tests and an open water dive test), which I am going to tell you a little bit about should you ever go the NAUI certification route (there are other organizations that do certifications).

The NAUI online course is 9 modules long.  The course itself has educational content embedded in it, quizzes for each component of the modules, and a final online test that you have to pass before you can do your open water test.

About the final exam, it is 83 questions long and covers content from the 9 modules.  Spoilers:  the module quizzes make up the bulk of the final exam questions.  If you learn those you should be good for the final exam.

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If you don’t like reading the course work online there is a physical book version.

naui-intro-cover-book
The book, at least the one that I have, seems to be slightly different than the online class.  Not radically so, but slightly so

I read the book as well as the online content.  I’ll tell you that the book has WAY more information and takes much longer to get through.  Personally, I want to know the information so I took my time with the book.

If you are studying from the book pay attention to this icon:

maui-hand-and-pencil
This icon appears in sections of book that might be on the final exam.  You will want to pay special attention to these sections.  Oh, and for those of you that don’t know what that hand is holding is a pencil.  They used to look like that.

The book has some fun content in it.  Well, maybe unintentionally fun, but I’m a 12 year old boy so I chuckled.

naui-swimmer-lungs
Those are her lungs.  Took me several rounds of laughing at her decompressed boobs to grasp that.
naui-knives-sharks
Everything I knew as a child is a lie!

With my online work and pool course completed I’m lined up for the open water test in a quarry in Altoona, PA.  I’ll write an article about that experience as well.

As for you, my supple reader, if you do go the NAUI route and have questions about the process drop me a comment or holler at me on all of the social media platforms @idecosupereco.com.

Oh, and why was I typing SCUBA in all caps?  Because it is an acronym for Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus.  There, now there is a thing you know.  Go look smart in front of your parole officer!

In gratitude,

Your gangsta

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