perto nuevo anyone?

so i went on a scuba diving trip this weekend. lobster season began on friday night, so sport divers were in the water all weekend in search of lobster to eat. what i learned though, is that diving for lobsters in the daytime is not very easy. you need to do it at night. they are nocturnal animals so they come out at night to feed and to mate (cue the cheesy porn music). anyway, in the day, they are in their holes and aren't easy to coax out. so i got skunked. but i did bring home a fish that i speared for me and son to eat.

there was only one other hispanic on the boat. he and i dove together. the rest were asians that chain smoked...for real though...chain smoked...but like, chain smoked. nasty.

anyways, california diving is really cool. there are monster kelp forests that sometimes reach the surface of the water, sometimes 20-30 feet tall. they sway in the current and cast cool shadows, it looks pretty creepy at times. there are lots of cool fish in the kelp like sheephead, calico bass, and the incredibly beautiful (and protected by california) garibaldi.

i think i got a little DCS (decompression sickness). i came home and got some strange chest pains ("my chest hurss, and i can't breaf" (c) george lopez) on saturday night. it felt like a monster burp that needed to come out, like when you drink hot pepsi too fast. anyways, i went to bed hoping that it would feel better by morning. i took the phone to bed with me though, just in case it got worse in the night. by morning, i felt a lot better, but even to now i still have a slight pain. i think that in a few days i should be alright.

what is DCS you ask?
--begin geek explanation--
a scuba diver breathes compressed air from a cylinder, which is given to you at ambient pressure by the regulator. if you are getting air at a certain pressure, and your ambient pressure changes, what happens? the air in your lungs either expands or is compressed depending on the decrease or increase (respectively) of the ambient pressure. why? because there is an inverse relationship between pressure and volume. boyle's law ladies and gentlemen...
in addition to that, nitrogen is inert in the human body. the nitrogen from the tank, that is normally dissolved and disposed of by the body through the lungs (this is happening to you as you read this) is deposited into the surrounding tissue and muscle, because it cannot dissolve it fast enough. slow ascent allows the body time to move the nitrogen out before it can cause microbubbles in the tissue. rapid ascent causes stuff like the bends, or muscle pain, air embolisms, and/or death.
--end geek explanation--

--begin average joe explanation--
breathe air underwater...forget to breathe correctly and ascend too fast...pain
--end dumb...I mean, average joe explanation--