Be A Diver

[covediver]

I, too, recall Sea Hunt from my younger days, but more as a syndicated program on UHF stations in the 1960s as after school programming. Flipper was my introduction to the underseas along with the Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau. We would drive my father nuts on Saturday evenings making "regulator noises" as we "dived" around the living room with "tanks" fashioned from the round Quaker Oatmeal boxes, which in the mid-West were always abundant as a raw material. I planned on taking scuba as an elective in PE my senior year in HS but did not have the chance due to a move in my junior year. That put my scuba on hold for nearly a decade until I found myself in woring Santa Barbara which facilitated my ocean sports period, snorkeling, wind surfing, sailing, and exploring the uplands of the offshore islands. I figured I would try scuba diving just to say I had done it and check it off the list. I took the course at UC Santa Barbara. The passing interest became a fascination, which progressed to an obsession, but has declined in recent years to a preoccupation.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

I was born swimming and I have snorkled most of my adult life and never, never thought I'd be a diver. I'm not sure what made me suddenly take the plunge, but I'm glad I did. Diving is a freedom like no other in my life.

 

[Kim22]

Unlike most people, the movie "Jaws" propelled me into the water. I still remember sitting in the theater with my friend (we had bought tickets to another movie and snuck into the Jaws screening so we could show our parents the ticket stubs - Jaws was a PG movie and we were not allowed to see it). I was transfixed the entire movie. From that day on, I have been fascinated with sharks. I have watched Shark Week every year, and any other show that has anything to do with sharks. My interest grew to include most other marine life, including whales, dolphins and killer whales, but sharks are still my favorite. I think they are absolutely beautiful.

Fast forward to my adult life - still fascinated by sharks, still watching and reading about them. I got laid off from a job last year, and during my down time before the new job started, I went to my LDS and signed up for OW class. I have not been out of the water since then. I am extremely lucky to now live in Florida, and we can dive year-round. I have been desperately desperately looking for a shark, any shark, on our open water dives, but no such luck. Not even a nurse shark. Very sad. So I did the next best thing - immediately after becoming certified, I went to Disney and did the Dive Quest dive with the sand tiger and lemon sharks. Fabulous!!! I was in total heaven. My only complaint is that the dive is not nearly long enough. So I have had to go back 2 more times and do it again.

My greatest dream is to dive with Great Whites. One day I will.

 

[Phil_218]

My parents have told me when I was about 3-4 years old I told them I wanted to be a goldfish when I grew up (maybe that was my "premonition"). At the age of 6-8 we had a pool and I would spend hours each day swimming and "diving" for toy cars which I would race down the inclined floor to the drain on the deep end. At the age of 10 I can remember seeing a LDS near where my mother worked and always wanted to go inside. I was fascinated by the idea of being able to stay under water for long periods of time. My family did not have exta money for my desired hobby of diving, so the monster was held at bay.

As I grew older I continued to stay around water related activities such as Water Skiing and freshwater fishing, until my teen years became full of other interests. In my early 20's I fell in love with bass fishing again which drew me back to the water. I fished pro-am bass tournaments for a few years and was always intrigued by what it was like to observe the bass in their natural habitat. I was soon married and had children, at which time hobbies quickly took a back seat to priorities.

Fast forward about seven years and I once again found myself able to begin fishing again, which rekindled my curiosity to observe bass in their natural environment. My superisor at work was a certified diver and I began talking to him about getting my wife and I into a certification class. We were both eager to learn, but did not have the extra money (with four kids, who does ).

This past July I was offered a chance to be part of a "Cops and Kids" type program conducted by Paladin Community Services (Reagan Wells, TX). The program was a week long adventure camp for local teens which focused on teaching them camping skills, PADI OW certification, PADI First Aid w/ AED, and spiritual teachings (setting moral values and using your moral compass in life). The volunteers included Police Officers, Doctors, and other professionals.

Being a part of the PCS camp was truely a great experience and one I would do again in a heatbeat. Besides the benefit of working with the campers, another benefit is I became a PADI OW diver, and I am HOOKED!

Forunately I work for a law enforcement agency which had a set of dive gear that was not in use. I have used the gear as often as possible and have been able to complete seven dives since completing the course.

I really enjoy using my dives to improve my diving skills and observing bass. My aspirations are to become a PADI Master Diver (both in skill and education) and possibly Tech Diver training. Shipwrecks really interest me and perhaps cave diving will be a future interest. For now, though, my goal is to get my future dive buddy in the water.

My wife still has not been able to attend a PADI OW course, but we are working on that. We are taking a cruise to the caribbean in a couple of weeks and will be snorkeling in Caymen Islands and she will be doing a Discover Scuba 2-tank dive in Cozumel . I hope diving becomes a strong passion for her and would like to get our kids involved as well.

Our children enjoy the water and swimming as much as most kids, but my youngest daughter seems like the next "goldfish" in the family.

Thanks for the opportunity to share my story.

 

[Twistedarts]

As a child growing up in the late 60's-early 70's I was influenced by the tv shows of the time. From Mutual of Omaha's wild kingdom to Jaques Cousteau and the crew of the Calypso. My 2 younger brothers and I would pretend and take our cardboard gear diving around our bedroom ocean. So I knew then that this was for me. Ahead a couple of years, I was fortunate enough to spend some time living in Puerto Rico with my uncle and wouldn't you know it there was a scuba shop across the street. At 12 years old my uncle signed me up for the 6 week course under nasds. As you can imagine the equipment was spartan (backpack and horsecollar) and the atlantic ocean is a pretty scary place to a 12yo (0-viz and big swells). But I went through it and learned to swim (properly) and dive. I excelled at the academics and they have never left me to this day. Anyone remember Boyle's law? Dalton's law or Martini's law?

Scan ahead 30 years. I had dabbled with snorkeling and the occasional dive but had too many other things on my plate. A successful music career followed by a profession change (computer engineer) and then a family life. As fate would have it all these things came to their end and I was left with the prospect of again re-defining myself. Luckily I stumbled upon my current lady and when on vacation a couple of years ago we found ourselves looking at the blue water in Jamaica and I said hey, lets do a dsd and see if I can rekindle an old flame that just might engulf us both.

Much to my chagrin it turned out that she could not be ignited so my interest started to wain. Fortunately I chose wisely with this female. She has encouraged and supported me in my decision to go "off the deep end" to get certified and follow my heart/dream. I went legit and got certified and have been a diving fool since. She allows me to be me and I can dive when and where as I please, but the best part is she will still dive on occasion with me on vacation. Which on 2 fronts is a good thing, 1) she gets to dive with me and 2) I keep the local instructors fed.

And now thanks to SB allowing me to start the group DiveNY, I have a boat load of buddies to dive with. Much respect and love to the SB community for keeping the dream alive and encouraging those new to the sport.

That's my story and I'm stickin to it.

 

[diverparrott]

I love the water..always have, always will...When I was born, they cleaned me off in one of those silly kiddie pools! 6 months later they had me in my grandfather's pool with water wings..I lived and breathed swimming classes for a good portion of my youth...and then there was Scuba!

As soon as I figured out about Scuba diving, I became hooked...Now...as a long term goal, I'd like to become a Commercial Diver...make it as a Advanced Technical Diver!

In response to Kim...When I did my Open Water course, the Instructors showed us this DVD of them Diving in the Galapagoas Islands (excuse the spelling) feeding sharks...Everyone in my class said "oh my...WE won't have to THAT will we???" ... All I could respond with is "When do We get to do that!?!"
Though dangerous, sharks are very compelling creatures..you cannot help but want to know more and get just a little closer...I think it's the "danger" that drives us!

 

[OldNSalty]

Great question; I grew up on watching Cousteau dive the world and I was raised on the coast-I spent most of my summers swimming, fishing and snorkeling along the mostly isolated beaches of the area. I always wanted to dive, in fact, after watching Jaws I wanted to go swimming-I wanted to see this great beast.

Although I grew up snorkeling it wasn’t until I deployed with the Army in support of Hurricane Andrew that I decided to dive. We were down in Miami giving humanitarian aide and my unit got notice that we might have to move down to Homestead further south. The First Sergeant and I took a vehicle and a couple of days to scout out the areas. After checking out Homestead the 1st SGT asked me if I had ever been to the Keys. He hadn’t and neither had I so we headed even further south stopping along the way to buy some cheep snorkeling crap and swim trunks. The water was fantastic. I decided right there and then that as soon as I got back I was locating a dive shop.

Ironically, a few years ago I was cleaning out some stuff of mine from my parents house when I found a picture I had drawn in 3rd grade(?).On the picture were things we were told to draw that we wanted for X-mas-On mine was a computer (complete with huge reel tape back ups), some Dolphins and a submarine. Keep in mind, this would have been very early 70’s so computers were really only seen on TV in bad scifi. Now, many years later, I am a Software Engineer who loves to dive-go figure.

 

[tkdgodess]

I grew up with a pool in my backyard (lucky me) and would spend hours breath holding, and weighting buckets in the bottom of the pool to breathe. My Dad was a diver, and on an extended family vacation in the South China Sea, I had huge amounts of time to kill (19 years old stuck with your family with no shopping or fun things to do...) I decided to get certified. My Dad had never been certified, so we took the open water course together. It had never occured to me up to that point to do scuba really. Once I did....

 

[siikik]

I too remember Flipper and Jacques Cousteau, but for whatever reason, don't recall Sea Hunt... go figure. I really enjoyed watching Jacques Cousteau and his team and all of the places they would go. I remember a particular episode in which he invented a slide to use so they could enter the water... amazing what the brain is capable of...

But... that was a show and somehow, even as a young boy, I knew that... my real fascination with diving began one of the many times we went camping at Manatee Springs State Park here in Florida. I was watching some divers gear up to go in the spring, which they did. They disappeared into the spring so I waited for them to come out. They eventually did resurface... only they came out of a connected sink not too far from the spring. That was cool!

It took until many years after that to become certified but I eventually returned to Manatee to dive it... (but not go in the cave) That's when I learned what a 96 MGD flow is all about!



Ken

 

[oreocookie]

Sea Hunt was a bit before my time, but I think I first got interested in diving 13-14 years ago when I was a 6 or 7 year old watching Reading Rainbow. He went diving in that episode to educate impressionable young kids about fish and coral and they had a segment about some guy transplanting coral to rebuild a reef. I saw the episode again while channel flipping about 3 years ago, did a whole lot of internet searching for a while, then forgot about it... a year later started really looking into it, did a discover scuba for lack of time/discretionary funds august of last year, and now here i am. I recently flipped past the episode again and thought "is he touching that coral?!?"