Water Haze

Today was my first class of Water Survival.
Most affectionately referred to as “Water Haze”.

The whole class is done wearing BDUs (camos).
So there is a lot of drag and it’s hard to swim.
Because of this,
I went to the uniform replacement store to get some new smaller BDUs,
Since I normally wear Larges.
I found the smallest ones I could fit into in the Medium section,
And went and bought them.
Only to discover,
They weren’t mediums.
They were X-Smalls.
That’s right.
I stuffed my Large body into and X-Small.
And it was tight.

As is typical with most PE classes,
They offered us to chance to validate it.
Validation requires swimming 25 meter totally underwater in a single breath,
Jumping off the 5 meter and swimming under the first bulkhead,
To the next bulkhead,
And back in 1 min 15 sec,
And jumping of the 10 meter and swimming under the bulkhead without surfacing and spreading the water.

Keep in mind that 10m is more than 30 feet.
And there was some Physics major calculating the acceleration due to gravity to determine the speed we would hit the water.
Not cool.

This may not sound hard to those of you who are swimmers,
But try it in baggy pants and shirt.
With enormous pockets.

I did the 25m and nearly drowned.
Fortunately I know how to control my breathing.
I made the 5m scenario in 1 min 13 sec.
And I managed to complete the 10m scenario after having all the air forced out of my lungs when hitting the water.
I was swallowing water to keep from inhaling it.

So in the end…
I did validate the class.That’s an automatic A.
This is supposed to be the toughest PE class here.