Coldwater_Canuck
Contributor
Hey, so I joined back in the summer but disappeared for awhile, but I plan to post here much more now, so I guess I'll give my life story:
I guess my background is I grew up in a Canadian city called Thunder Bay, it's on the north side of Lake Superior, about 6 hours away from Minneapolis. My family had a camp/cottage on a relatively small lake where I would see intro to scuba classes going on sometimes (one day when I go back home I'll need to try diving there). I did a lot of snorkeling there with my Dad, who was a diver many many years ago (probably in the 70s, maybe 80s). My first taste of scuba was when I was around 13 and in Air Cadets, they took us to this intro to scuba thing, it was basically just spending time using scuba gear in the shallow end of the pool, snorkeling in the deeper end, and using a propulsion vehicle, but was a lot of fun. I think I did the same thing a second time the next year.
So now I'm 21, a computer science student at the University of Waterloo. As I'm in co-op (alternating school and work terms) I got an internship with Amazon.com last summer so ended up in Seattle. Being on the coast, never having seen the ocean before, making decent money, and having wanted to try diving since I was young, I convinced a buddy of mine from Waterloo also working at Amazon to join with me and signed up for an OW course. This was more fun than I had imagined and I just loved being underwater. After the course I got out diving 8 more times, 2 from a boat (which was great).
So now I've been stuck in Ontario in school since September, where I have no time to dive. Fortunately, I'm back out to Seattle in January and ready to get back in the water. I want to make sure in the next 4 months I take my AOW, Nitrox, Peak Performance Buoyancy, and possibly 1 or 2 other courses to improve my skills. My ultimate recreational goal is to take a wreck diving course, not sure when I'll be ready for this though.
I originally signed up here to ask about reading tidal charts, and the advice helped (although I still screwed up and got caught in tides I probably shouldn't have dove in given my skill level: granted it was tons of fun!) But now I'm looking to buy some gear and trying to ask questions and absorb information, and plan to stick around this time. I love diving, probably the best hobby I've picked up, and this forum is great.
Graeme
I guess my background is I grew up in a Canadian city called Thunder Bay, it's on the north side of Lake Superior, about 6 hours away from Minneapolis. My family had a camp/cottage on a relatively small lake where I would see intro to scuba classes going on sometimes (one day when I go back home I'll need to try diving there). I did a lot of snorkeling there with my Dad, who was a diver many many years ago (probably in the 70s, maybe 80s). My first taste of scuba was when I was around 13 and in Air Cadets, they took us to this intro to scuba thing, it was basically just spending time using scuba gear in the shallow end of the pool, snorkeling in the deeper end, and using a propulsion vehicle, but was a lot of fun. I think I did the same thing a second time the next year.
So now I'm 21, a computer science student at the University of Waterloo. As I'm in co-op (alternating school and work terms) I got an internship with Amazon.com last summer so ended up in Seattle. Being on the coast, never having seen the ocean before, making decent money, and having wanted to try diving since I was young, I convinced a buddy of mine from Waterloo also working at Amazon to join with me and signed up for an OW course. This was more fun than I had imagined and I just loved being underwater. After the course I got out diving 8 more times, 2 from a boat (which was great).
So now I've been stuck in Ontario in school since September, where I have no time to dive. Fortunately, I'm back out to Seattle in January and ready to get back in the water. I want to make sure in the next 4 months I take my AOW, Nitrox, Peak Performance Buoyancy, and possibly 1 or 2 other courses to improve my skills. My ultimate recreational goal is to take a wreck diving course, not sure when I'll be ready for this though.
I originally signed up here to ask about reading tidal charts, and the advice helped (although I still screwed up and got caught in tides I probably shouldn't have dove in given my skill level: granted it was tons of fun!) But now I'm looking to buy some gear and trying to ask questions and absorb information, and plan to stick around this time. I love diving, probably the best hobby I've picked up, and this forum is great.
Graeme
