Well, I have been following this thread with palpitating heart. Growing up in the Rockies, I have free climbed many technical pitches, and crashed/trashed my first and only hang glide(r). I have leaped to ledges from hovering choppers in 30 knot gusts, and rode a 700' point sluff on one of my many solo backcountry snowboard runs. I ran away to Kauai after nearly cashing in on a slalom water ski trying NOT to hit the reservoir talus slope.
Hurricane Iniki was the most exciting day of my life; my free dive buddies (OW cert buddies) and I imbibed heavily of the front (lee) porch watching the rest of the neighborhood blow by. Working 18 months as one of the final Waimea cliff divers, I regularly did dives my boss would have fired me over if he knew I was doing them. All of that came after shattering my kneecap in a motorcycle wreck following a big biker Fourth of July bash where I was a keg tender.
Even as a working resort diver, all my supervisors have known about my solo scooter excursions, with their scooters and tanks on my scheduled work days. In all those situations, everyone with any sense knows I am taking significant risks, but my history of success means few waste their time telling me I shouldn't risk life & limb the way I have been since breaking my leg skiing at age 3.
As an instructor, I have had discussions with students about the fact that most divers should never consider the type of solo diving I do. I also tell them that my many times broken body is not a good risk for deep diving, and the deepest I ever planned to go was 137' to take a picture of the jewfish under the Bibb off Key Largo (w/100cft 28EAN). That usually leads to the discussion about my first working dive with Prodiver, where my only job was to keep slippery Ron from going too deep drifting around Shark Ledges; caught him in the down-current with my depth 146' and his 155' (boss said I didn't do too bad).
If I didn't have the chronically sprained ankles, shattered elbow, radius, tibia, patella, compound fractured wrist, completely reconstructed shoulder and the complaining hip that was never repaired in all those right side impacts I would be interested in going deeper than recreational depth. But I do, so I don't.
Hurricane Iniki was the most exciting day of my life; my free dive buddies (OW cert buddies) and I imbibed heavily of the front (lee) porch watching the rest of the neighborhood blow by. Working 18 months as one of the final Waimea cliff divers, I regularly did dives my boss would have fired me over if he knew I was doing them. All of that came after shattering my kneecap in a motorcycle wreck following a big biker Fourth of July bash where I was a keg tender.
Even as a working resort diver, all my supervisors have known about my solo scooter excursions, with their scooters and tanks on my scheduled work days. In all those situations, everyone with any sense knows I am taking significant risks, but my history of success means few waste their time telling me I shouldn't risk life & limb the way I have been since breaking my leg skiing at age 3.
As an instructor, I have had discussions with students about the fact that most divers should never consider the type of solo diving I do. I also tell them that my many times broken body is not a good risk for deep diving, and the deepest I ever planned to go was 137' to take a picture of the jewfish under the Bibb off Key Largo (w/100cft 28EAN). That usually leads to the discussion about my first working dive with Prodiver, where my only job was to keep slippery Ron from going too deep drifting around Shark Ledges; caught him in the down-current with my depth 146' and his 155' (boss said I didn't do too bad).
If I didn't have the chronically sprained ankles, shattered elbow, radius, tibia, patella, compound fractured wrist, completely reconstructed shoulder and the complaining hip that was never repaired in all those right side impacts I would be interested in going deeper than recreational depth. But I do, so I don't.
