Underwater pumpkin carving contest

     The water is ice cold when I walk backwards into it.  I hold my pumpkin in my gloved hands. The pumkin which is very heavy because of the lead that it contains to weigh it down.  Its face is smiling at me as I sink to the bottom of the lake. Everyting is very quiet.
     When I first heard about the underwater pumpkin carving contest five weeks ago, the scuba diver in me was very excited. I had dived a few times so far, but I never did something under water like that. After an email to my parents in Switzerland and their okay, I had a lot of time to prepare everything I needed to go to the dive.
     Scuba diving is a dangerous activity in the eyes of the organization YFU with him I dived with.  I had to fill out a form containing the what, where, when, and why I wanted to do this. The form lay around in my room for a long time and every time I looked at it,  I thought "well, I have other stuff to do right now but I will do it tomorrow."
I am not very good in doing things when I have the time. I then forget about it until the last minute and then race against the clock to get it done. That’s what happened to this form as well. I had four weeks time to send it to Switzerland but I didn’t do it.
     Two weeks before the dive I hung the form up in the kitchen but I still didn’t send it. Monday before the dive I finally sent the form to my parents. I didn’t think of my family having fall break (like summer break here, but only three weeks and in the fall) and them not being at home. They were in our vacation house and didn’t have a printer to print and sign the form.
     Wednesday, I got the mail back from my mother that they ended their vacation earlier for me to sign the form and send it back to me. (Here I would like to say how great my parents are and that I love them very much!)
I sent the form to my area rep (a YFU invention) to sign it and to send it to the district director (another YFU invention).  Thursday, I got an email from my area rep that she couldn’t open the file with the form. I almost panicked that I wouldn’t have enough time to get all the signatures I needed. I sent my rep the form again and made sure that it was the right file. I could only pray and hope.
     When I came home from school that day, my American mom told me that my rep called her and told her that she couldn’t see any reason why I shouldn’t be able to go to that dive and that I could get all the equipment I needed, so on Friday, my American parents and I drove to Flint to The Dive Shop to rent the equipment. When we walked into the store it smelled like diving. I like that smell.
     I rented all my equipment and paid for the dive. It cost me only 62 dollars, taxes included. I got a discount because I am a student and because I was going to the underwater pumpkin carving contest. The trunk full of diver’s stuff, we drove home with a stop at Meijer’s to buy carving supplies and a waterproofed camera.
     On Sunday morning I was very excited. I haven’t dove in a cold lake for a long time. I usually dove in tropical seas. When we got to Otter Lake at 10 am, we were the first ones to arrive along with The Dive Shop owners, Kevin and Kim. We set up our stuff and I put the BCD (the vest you can fill with air to float in the water) and the octopus (the mouthpiece, pressure measure, depth measure and extra mouthpiece for your buddy) on the tank.
I got a pumpkin and wanted to draw the face on it, but I remarked: I forgot my Sharpie! Luckily, my "29"-year old favorite American uncle Josh had a pen I could borrow.
     I decided to give my pumpkin a happy face. I drew the face on the pumpkin and took the guts out. At around 10:40 AM, I changed into my wetsuit. My American mom took a lot of pictures.
When I was ready to go into the water, I had problems getting the fins on my feet so I got help from Kimmy, an employee of The Dive Shop.
     I finally made it into the lake. The water was very cold. My pumpkin was smiling at me as I let all the air out of my BCD and sank to the bottom of the lake. I swam a little until I found a good spot to carve. The sandy ground was not a very good place to settle down and carve a pumpkin but I somehow did it.
     The visibility was not so good...only six or seven feet. Some of you may ask what I had seen there in the lake. Well, the sand was whirled up by my fins at first. As it settled a little, my eyes spied lake weed around my ankles. The Light under water was dimmed but the orange of my pumpkin was gleaming in front of the sand.
I didn't see any animals. What a pity, because I like fishes. To see and to eat… When I sat dove in a lake in Switzerland, which was when I took the practical test for my license five years ago, the sight was worse than in Otter Lake. I could barely see my hands but therefore the few fishes and baby frogs I have seen came up very close.
     Shortly after I started carving, I remarked that I had forgotten the camera. Darn, no underwater pictures!
The neoprene kept me warm while I carved my pumpkin. It took me 20 to 25 minutes. Underwater, my sense of time feeling is not too good. It felt like 10 minutes.
     When I came back up, the water felt warmer than the air. I changed out of the wetsuit and into my dry clothes and my American Dad brought me a bowl of chili to warm me up.
     More and more of the carved pumpkins came out of the water and at 1.30 pm, when all the pumpkins were carved and in line, the divers got a sheet of paper to write the numbers of their favorite pumpkins down.
There were two categories: The traditional pumpkin faces with mouth, nose, and eyes and the creative ones. We had a ship with diver and treasure, a cannibal pumpkin, a three headed dog, a cat, a diver pumpkin and more.
We voted and after they counted the points, the winners were announced.
     The winners got a prize: first place got a new air system for a dry suit, second place got an ABC (mask, snorkel, fins), third place got a flash light and a knife and forth place got a knife.
The ship got first place. I didn’t win anything but I don’t care because I had a great time diving and carving and hanging around with my family and other divers. At the end of the event, all the divers got a t-shirt and a little gift bag.
     The idea of an underwater pumpkin carving contest I will definitely take back to Switzerland to do it in Lake Constance with my family. And who knows, maybe my American family has seen how much fun it is to scuba dive and they might learn it as well and we can go diving all together.

Svenja