Last winter Kristen was able to organize a “Discover Scuba” event for the older girl scouts in her troop. Yay Scuba was great with the kids and easy to work with. They use local college pools for their Discover events and it gave the girls a great experience and a way to “test the waters” without being in open water, worrying about weather, etc. Yay Scuba had a couple of instructors and they brought the underwater camera to get some great video of the girls while diving. Everyone got a chance for one-on-one help if needed, they learned the basic safety rules, and they got to experience breathing underwater for about two hours. Yay Scuba also gave kids the opportunity to sign-up for their Scuba certification and they would discount the $100 already paid for the Discover Scuba event. Hope was ready to go and we started getting her signed up, setting up her PADI account, and reviewing e-material before scheduling her checkout test and getting some time in the pool. I’ve had my diving certification for about 20 years but with kids it’s been awhile since I dove, so I also signed up for the diver Refresh course to freshen up my skills before diving in open water with Hope. We completed the material and the checkout dives in the pool in June and started planning where to go for Hope’s open water checkout dives. The owner at Yay Scuba, Thor, recommended Fantasy Lake, NC since the water is typically clearer and warmer than local quarries. Hope also loved this idea because Fantasy Lake has become famous from Mr. Beast YouTube videos that he has filmed there.
We looked up local campgrounds and found Holly Point State Park. This was only about 25 minutes from Fantasy Lake and about 15-20 minutes to Wake Forest for local food/ice cream. We booked the trip for mid-July to align with Yay Scuba’s schedule and other trips we had planned this summer. The 6 hour drive wasn’t too bad and we checked in late on Thursday. Friday was spent riding scooters around the campground and trying to keep dry from all the rain. One of Kristen’s old college friends lives around Raleigh and he was able to swing by for a quick catch-up. We also found out that the campground had a beach area and planned to take the kids swimming on Saturday. I was also able to get a couple of runs in around the campground and local roads around the lake a couple times.
Saturday was the main event! Kristen dropped off Hope and I at Fantasy Lake by 8am and luckily the weather turned out to be perfect. After unloading gear and getting everything oriented, Hope started her checkout tests with Thor and I paired up with some other divers from Yay Scuba to explore the lake. Really can’t say enough great things about Fantasy Lake! Visibility was around 30′ and there was a ton to see; variety of fish, cars, planes, boats, a school bus, and underwater platforms. I even bumped into Hope and Thor underwater and got to stay with them for a bit. Diving with Hope was a great experience and she did amazing.
Saturday afternoon we spent time at the campground and swimming in the lake. They had an area of water roped off to keep swimmers away from boat traffic, but it was still big enough to enjoy the inner tubes and playing with the kids. Saturday night we met up with all the divers at Carolina Ale House. Food was great and they had a good variety for the kids; beers were also delicious after playing hard all day. They were having an anniversary party and had a giant blow-up slide set-up outside. While we were inside dining it was downpouring rain outside but when we left Hope was asking to play on the slide. She ended up getting soaked but had a ton of fun and it was a great relaxing way to end the day. Diving on Sunday was just as fun but everyone was dragging a little. I got to hangout with Hope underwater for her final dive and see her pass her final skills. Thor also led us to an underwater basketball set-up, they had bowling balls instead of basketballs and you could swim up and drop them through the hoop. It was a lot of fun! After Hope checked out we were going to do one last solo dive with just the two of us but she was exhausted so we decided not to push it.
While we were diving on Sunday, Kristen and my mom took Autumn to the waterpark. Kristen did an amazing job keeping up with Autumn and bouncing around on the obstacles and slides. Autumn did great and had a blast, she was very excited to do something on her own since Hope was getting to go scuba diving. The two hour time slot proved to be the right amount of time and everyone was sure to sleep well on the truck ride home.
Since rates were lower at the state park campground, we had reserved Sunday night so that we could leave later and not have to worry about checkout times. After diving/waterpark in the morning we headed back to the campground for lunch and packing up. Everything went smooth and we left around 4pm which put us home around 10 on Sunday night. Another successful camping trip in the books and a newly certified scuba diver in the family!!!
