Gar Fish

This weekend I learned to swim...underwater...for long periods of time.  In typical Gar fashion I drove all the way to West Monroe Louisiana to do it.  Many of you are probably thinking, "Gar lives in Dallas, Texas, why would that silly boy drive all the way to Louisiana to learn how to Scuba dive?"  Well, those people would not know Gar very well because that's the way Gar rolls.

I took my lessons at Bayou Diving and J.P. Pritchard was the mighty fine instructor capable of putting up with my idiosyncrasies in a submersed environment.  If you live close to his shop or are driving through I highly recommend stopping in and doing some shopping there.

Next week I'll be meeting him at Lake DeGray to finish my open water scuba certification.  I'm all atwitter.

I passed all but one task with flying colors.  At some point during the training Mr. Pritchard asked me to remove my mask underwater and then put it back on.

When I was about 9 years old I realized that my nose doesn't get along with water.  So for the last 30 years or so I've been holding my nose under water.  The idea of removing my mask underwater and exposing my tender proboscis to the choking horror that is H2O was very close to terrifying.

On day 2 I was comfortable enough with the scuba equipment that I was able to complete the task. I'll have to do it again next week at the lake.  I'm all atwitter about that too.