The Dreaded Swim Test

Los Banos Pool.  The location of my crucible.  

It stands to reason that any commercial diving institution of higher learning wouldn't allow a new student to enroll without first testing their waterborne acumen in some way.  Surprisingly, many schools require little to no testing of their students ability to swim.  Some will have the compulsory "tread water for 10 minutes" or the ol' "swim for a while without drowning" but Santa Barbara City College (SBCC) does not stop there.

SBCC's Marine Diving Technology (MDT) has been an active source of commercial diver certification since the sixties and is ideally located near the beach in Santa Barbara, CA.  SB also happens to be the spiritual and historical home of deepwater commercial diving blessed as the city is with its proximity to rich deep water oil deposits.  This is the source.  They take it seriously here.  With that in mind it's no surprise that a very complete swim evaluation is required before a student can register in any "wet" classes.  Let's see what they did to me.

• Swim underwater without fins for a distance of 25 meters without surfacing and no push off
• Swim underwater without fins for a distance of 50 meters, surfacing 3 times
• Swim 350 meters in less than 10 minutes without fins
• Demonstrate swimming with snorkel and fins with and without facemask
• Skin-dive to a depth of 3 meters and recover a 4.5 kilogram weight (10 lbs.)
• Demonstrate the ability to rescue a swimmer and carry him/her 25 meters on the surface
• Demonstrate the ability to tread water for 10 minutes without swim aids: 5 minutes with hands, 3 minutes with your hands out of the water, and two minutes with your elbows out of the water 

It is apparently the US Navy's assessment for a diver to begin training.  At least it was in the sixties.  For a real swimmer/dedicated waterman/Aquaman/Namor/Navy SEAL type, this is probably no big deal.  For me, it loomed.  A quick note on my swimming history: there isn't any.  I've never been much of a swimmer and never really even went swimming as a kid (ear problems) but I knew my growing interest in the aquatic environment would eventually leave me with little choice but to figure it out.  I did what I could.  I was aware of the standards for the swim evaluation for a long time before the test and so did what I could to prepare.  I joined the local YMCA and spent a heck of a lot of time basically teaching myself to swim with much emphasis on the breath holding portions of the test.

Very much not me... but I try!  

As the day quickly arrived I came to terms with the idea that I'd prepared as much as I could and would have to let it happen.  I showed up to the test thinking I had about a 50-50 chance.  The test was proctored in a very serious fashion as one would expect.  It was carried out in a very safe and controlled environment and I guess that comforted me a little bit.

To make a long story short, I passed.  I surprised the hell out of myself.  I guess it's possible to do some things which are outside of a person's normal range when you're extremely motivated.  Ironically, the hardest part for me was an aspect I'd spent basically no time thinking about or practicing.  They had me jump into the pool to rescue my "drowning" dive buddy and swim him back to where I went in.  No big deal, right?  Wrong.  My dive buddy was a big, strong, former Navy diver.    I would describe him lovingly as "heavy" or "dense".  I damn near drowned just towing the guy 25 meters or so.

I could go on and on but I will say it was a massive relief to pass and to know my place in the program was cemented.  Now I just have to not drown for the remainder of dive school and increase my comfort in the water by about 100%.  No problem.